Ford F-150 Lightning reservations close with around 200,000 hand-raisers
Ford has plenty of interested parties for its electric pickup, and now it'll move to start converting reservations to actual orders.
Times up for those of you still thinking about reserving a Ford F-150 Lightning. On Wednesday, news first broke the reservation books closed for the electric pickup truck via an F-150 fan forum and dealership. Ford confirmed the action with Roadshow and said reservations closed Dec. 8 in preparation for order banks to open on Jan. 22 of next year.
The news of reservations closing follows remarks from Ford CEO Jim Farley, who said this week the automaker has nearly 200,000 people interested in one of the electric pickups. It's not clear just how quickly production of the F-150 Lightning will ramp up, but seems unlikely every reservation that becomes a placed order will turn into a 2022 model year truck.
We could see these orders stretch in 2023 at a minimum. In fact, Ford said in the past it won't reach maximum production of the pickup for a couple years with plans to build 80,000 of them annually by 2024. That's barring any other investments to increase the workforce and productivity.
The truck will become a test bed for wider EV adoption in the US as Ford and other automakers begin pivoting away from the internal-combustion engine. Today, around 2% of new cars sold are EVs. That's it. Time will tell if America's best-selling vehicle, the F-150, can help boost that figure in a significant way.