Even though EV sales reached a new record high in 2023 with 1.2 million units sold – and Ford set its own EV sales record as well – demand for all-electric vehicles, in general, slowed a bit later in the year. This prompted FoMoCo to take action and scale back its ambitions somewhat, delaying around $12 billion in planned investments. This move involves quite a few changes including downsizing the automaker’s production output at the future BlueOval Battery Park Michigan and BlueOvalSK Battery Park plants, as well as cutting its planned 2024 Ford F-150 Lightning production at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in half. Now, Ford has officially confirmed this move after announcing that it will shift some workers from the Rouge plant to the Michigan Assembly plant in an effort to ramp up Ford Bronco and Ford Ranger production.
2023 was a banner year for the F-150 Lightning as it ranked as the top-selling EV pickup on the market after enjoying a 55 percent year-over-year sales increase. However, high prices remain a big barrier for many shoppers, and that much is reflected in tapering demand. As such, Ford determined that it would make more sense to build 1,600 2024 Ford F-150 Lightning pickups per week at the Rouge plant, rather than the 3,200 it had originally planned to produce weekly.
“We are taking advantage of our manufacturing flexibility to offer customers choices while balancing our growth and profitability. Customers love the F-150 Lightning, America’s best-selling EV pickup,” said Ford President and CEO Jim Farley. “We see a bright future for electric vehicles for specific consumers, especially with our upcoming digitally advanced EVs and access to Tesla’s charging network beginning this quarter.”
Given Ford’s recent changes to EV investments and production in general – spurred on by slower than expected growth in all-electric vehicle sales – this news doesn’t come as a huge surprise, even as EV sales continue to set new records, overall. In a statement, Ford noted that it “will continue to match production to customer demand,” leaving the window open for other changes as well, though it also revealed that production of gas-powered F-150 models won’t be affected by this change.
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Comments
When they are stacked up on lots, there is no reason to produce more.
I have 2 coworkers that own lightnings. Neither one can get over 100 miles of range when the temp gets below 0. Neither can get out of the overpriced paperweights without losing 20k because of their plummeting value. Meanwhile my maverick hybrid continues getting 40+mpg, and is still worth more than I paid for it almost a year ago.