Ford Motor Co. intends to double production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, to 150,000 vehicles per year to meet high customer demand. And, beginning on Jan. 6, the first wave of Ford F-150 Lightning pickup reservation holders will start converting their reservations to orders, Ford announced.
“With nearly 200,000 reservations, our teams are working hard and creatively to break production constraints in order to get more F-150 Lightning trucks into the hands of our customers,” Kumar Galhotra, president of The Americas & International Markets Group, Ford Motor Co., said in a statement. “The reality is clear: people are ready for an all-electric F-150, and Ford is pulling out all the stops to scale our operations and increase production capacity.”
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Seven months after revealing the first all-electric Ford F-Series pickup, Ford is now inviting the first wave of retail reservation holders to place orders for the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning. Due to “unprecedented customer interest,” Ford announced it is implementing a wave-by-wave reservation process, and reservation holders are asked to watch for an invitation via email from Ford, or by logging into their Ford.com account. For those who don’t receive invitations to convert for the 2022 model year, there will be opportunity to order for future model years in due course, the company noted.
To deliver the production increase, Ford said employees from manufacturing, purchasing, strategy, product development, and capacity planning are finding ways to adapt and expand production of the new pickup. In addition, Ford is working with key suppliers—as well as its own manufacturing facilities Rawsonville Components Plant and Van Dyke Electric Powertrain Center—to find ways to increase capacity of electric vehicle parts, including battery cells, battery trays and electric drive systems.
F-150 Lightning production this week has entered the final pre-build phase before accelerating into mass production of F-150 Lightning trucks for retail and F-150 Lightning Pro for commercial customers with deliveries starting this spring. These production-level trucks will be used for testing in real-world customer conditions collectively accumulating 1 million miles.
Ford said it has invested more than $30 billion in electric vehicles through 2025. Over the next two years, Ford added it will have the global capacity to produce 600,000 battery-electric vehicles annually.
In addition to scaling Lightning production, Ford recently announced the tripling of production for the Mustang Mach-E and expects to reach more than 200,000 units per year by 2023. Ford’s all-electric van, the E-Transit, goes on sale early this year.
Ford is investing $11.4 billion to build an auto production facility in Tennessee, where it will build next-generation F-series electric pickups, and together with SK Innovation, Ford is building three new BlueOval SK battery plants—one in Tennessee and two in Kentucky—to produce advanced lithium-ion batteries to power next-generation Ford and Lincoln vehicles.