Reports that Ford Motor Co. will double its production target for the F-150 Lightning full-sized electric pickup are good news to car dealer Jim Seavitt.
At his Village Ford in Dearborn, orders for the Lightning pickup are on course to challenge those for Ford’s new Bronco SUV.
On Tuesday, Seavitt said overall he has 90 orders for the Lightning. He was driving to the airport to catch a flight to Dallas for a meeting with Ford’s management, where he expected an update on the Lightning launch.
“We’ve had tremendous response to that vehicle not only because it’s electric, but because the base is $39,000 and then you take off the $7,500 tax credit and it makes it a very attractive vehicle for a lot of reasons,” Seavitt said.
The starting sticker price for the base model Lightning is $39,974, Ford said. A more-equipped mid-series starts at $52,974. That compares to the 2022 GMC Hummer EV Edition 1, which starts at at $105,595.
On Monday, Reuters reported that Ford plans to double its production target for the electric pickup based on the robust early demand. Reuters cited several people and suppliers familiar with the plans.
The automaker will start selling the pickup early next year and plans to spend an additional $850 million to meet that target, Reuters wrote.
Ford didn’t dispute the Reuters report and sent the Free Press this statement: “We are excited with customer demand for the F-150 Lightning and already have 120,000 customer reservations, and we will continue to look for ways to break constraints and meet customer demand.”
In June, Ford confirmed it had reached 100,000 reservations since the Lightning’s global debut this past spring at world headquarters in Dearborn.
Reuters reported that Ford intends a production of 80,000 in 2024, up from its previous target of more than 40,000. The ramp to the new target includes building about 15,000 next year after the spring launch and 55,000 in 2023.
After the second-generation Lightning launches in late 2025, the annual target is about 160,000, Reuters wrote.
The bigger production goals are based on the strong pre-launch demand for the vehicle, especially with commercial customers. Seavitt said Ford leaders told the dealers, based on orders, the production target for 2022 is sold out.
At his dealership, only the Bronco has rivaled such robust early ordering. Village Ford initially had 150 orders for the Bronco, 88 of which were converted to sales.
“The Mach-E was about 40 and back then that was a big number,” Seavitt said. “Then the Bronco blew that away.”
Ford accepts $100 refundable reservations to place an order for the 2022 pickup that will be built in a new $700 million plant at the Rouge Complex in Dearborn.
Online refundable reservation orders are part of a new protocol for many carmakers. Ford did the same ordering process with its all-electric Mustang Mach-E. GM followed a similar protocol for the Hummer EV pickup and SUV. Both GM and Ford are investing billions in expanding to predominantly EV lineups in the future.
More:Hummer EVs to influence GMC’s future buying process
More:The first 2022 Hummer EV pickup sells for $2.5 million
Contact Jamie L. LaReau at 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.