Back in May 2022, The Blue Oval announced that the Ford F-150 would be heading to Australia, where a third-party company called RMA Automotive in Mickleham, Victoria is completing right-hand drive conversions on those pickups for the local market, though it has been plagued with issues thus far. That pickup was recently joined by its all-electric counterpart – the Ford F-150 Lightning – not via FoMoCo itself, but rather, it’s being imported and converted to right-hand drive by Advanced Manufacturing Queensland, and then distributed by AusEV. Turns out, it seems as if this gray market model has become quite popular, too.
“From a retail standpoint, we launched April 22nd, and I can’t say the numbers, but we’ve been absolutely overwhelmed by the response,” Alan Brady, a spokesperson for AMQ, told Drive. “I think because Australians would love to drive an EV ute, but they didn’t want to compromise on a lot of things – we’ve been overwhelmed, and it’s been great. The real focus for us has been with commercial and fleet, particularly the in the resource sector. There’s like 125,000 light duty vehicles in mining that cycle out every four years, and they have massive goals for de-carbonization, and they need a vehicle, and this [Ford F-150 Lightning] is it.”
The Aussie Ford F-150 Lightning isn’t exactly be cheap to procure, as the standard range model starts out at $224,990 AUD ($144,792 USD) minus on-road costs, while the Lariat comes in at $254,990 AUD ($164,098 USD). However, it lacks competition, and in fact, only has one rival at the moment – the LDV eT60, which starts out at a much cheaper $92,990 AUD ($61,342 USD), but is only available in two-wheel drive configuration with a single electric motor and an 88.5 kWh battery pack, giving it 330 kilometers (205 miles of range).
By comparison, the Australian gray market Ford F-150 Lightning comes with all-wheel drive and dual motors in both guises, with either a standard (98 kWh) or extended range battery pack (131 kWh), which generate either 452 or 580 horsepower and 775 pound-feet of torque, and 230 or 320 miles of range, respectively.
We’ll have more on the F-150 Lightning soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford F-Series news, Ford F-150 news, F-150 Lightning news, and non-stop Ford news coverage.
Comments
I understand that the Australian dollar is not the same as the United States dollar.
But do Australians really make that much more money or want to save the environment that much more than Americans?
Who would spend 145k to 165k dollars on a truck that is really only a 50k truck?
I know it’s Australia. But wow. It’s not even worth it.
A report released about a week ago suggests the average wage in Australia now is about $100k, $70kUS. Even the people, usually wo.en that operate the stop go signs at road works can earn $2-3000 a week. The most popular car in Australia, the Ford Ranger now cost between $50-100,000.