The Ford F-150 Lightning debuted to tremendous demand in a time when supply chain and production issues plagued automakers, which led to quite the conundrum. However, now that early adopters have their EV pickups and interest has largely waned – much of it due to pricing disparities when compared to ICE vehicles – the market, as a whole, has cooled off considerably. Regardless, it seems as if reputation alone has prompted respondents to a new survey from Autolist to say they prefer the Toyota Tacoma EV – which doesn’t even exist yet – over the Ford F-150 Lightning.
While the debut of a Toyota Tacoma EV seems inevitable given that brand’s massive investment into all-electric vehicles and the development of many new EV models, it hasn’t launched yet, nor has such a model even been revealed or announced, which makes these results seem, well, a bit strange. However, that didn’t stop 3,600 car shoppers – surveyed by Autolist from August 2023 to November 2023 – from picking the theoretical Toyota Tacoma EV as the most popular EV pickup in the company’s annual Electric Truck Survey.
The Ford F-150 Lightning – which has held the top spot on this list for the past two years – fell to second place this time around, with 24 percent saying they’d be most likely to buy a Toyota Tacoma EV, compared to 19 percent for the F-150 Lightning. Those models were followed by the Chevy Silverado EV (15 percent), Tesla Cybertruck (14 percent), Ram 1500 REV (nine percent), GMC Sierra EV (eight percent), GMC Hummer EV (six percent), Rivian R1T (five percent), Canoo’s pickup truck (0.4 percent), and the Bollinger B2 (0.35 percent). As for why the Tacoma topped the rankings even though it doesn’t yet exist, Autolist points to Toyota’s reputation for quality, in general, coupled with some other potential factors.
“Anytime we run a survey about electrification of any kind, Toyota consistently comes out on top as the greenest brand in the eyes of consumers,” said Corey Lydstone, founder and CEO of Autolist. “That goodwill is clearly translating into high expectations for the brand’s all-electric pickup, no matter what form it takes. We would attribute some of this decline by the Ford to the fact that it’s less of a novelty for consumers these days. With more than a year of deliveries under its belt, the Lightning may not hold the same gee-whiz cache as the rest of the top-ranking models on our list, all of which have yet to launch.”
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Comments
That Toyoya is the equivalent of the Japanese Emperor new clothes: Everyone “sees” it but no one wants to tell the Emperor that he is naked! How many foolish and stupid Americans still believe that Toyota is better than Ford!!!
Lightning demand has cratered. Ford just cut Lightning production in half to 1,600 units per week. Where does Ford go from here with their EV plan?
Some people forget, the next Gen. Lightning is coming.
Maybe people want to forget.