If you are a top 5% buying this you want it to tow your expensive toy somewhere which ev's suck at currently or you want it to drive to "insert outdoorsy vacation destination", which means long distance in a remote area with few charging stations. So not a great sell.

If you are a bigger business I think this probably makes sense in some cases. You aren't dealing with the maintenance of an ICE, you can keep it "running" inside a building, it can provide on site power, probably has cost benefits in cities where the lack of emissions and noise is helpful. But the expensive really narrows down your customers. Many are also looking for range and towing, which doesn't help, and people that would show up for the ev part probably would be better off with a van.

If they had done a small e-transit, in the $30-35k range and sold it direct for actual msrp they would have had a much better chance at dealing with where we are now (high interest rate and low support for ev's).

* The price isn't right for small businesses. These trucks are quite expensive

* They're difficult to repair. A regular F-150 is designed to be repaired; these things are designed like iPhones to be disposable.

* Parts availability is scarce, contrasted with a regular F-150 (even junkyards are full of spare parts, that aren't software constrained)

* They're loaded with useless/barely-functional interior electronics that are poor copies of Tesla

* They're bloated with parts that don't need to exist (excessive exterior accent lighting, badges, over-complicated blinkers)

Oddly enough, single-charge range issues are pretty much non-existent (for non-towing applications).

We want an electric F150 or an electric Suburban or v90 wagon or whatever.

But instead we get e-initiative i-mobiles. We get TRON-cars. We get iModels.

There is a reason for this:

The incumbent auto makers understand fully that the ICE version of whatever model they electrify will suffer enormously.

They believe that they can somehow retain all of the sales of the existing ICE model while adding growth sales of a different electric model.

And, of course, they are wrong: because nobody wants an "electric F150". They just want an F150. But electric.

*Also Ford:* WhERe aRe all tHe cUstOmerS?!

I don't understand what's so hard to understand about selling EVs like hotcakes. Make a reasonably sized vehicle, with a reasonable range, at a reasonable price point. They already have the Maverick. An excellent truck for day-to-day driving and weekend tasks. Make a Maverick, but put an electric motor in it instead of the gas-hybrid engine. Sell it for $10k more than the gas model (~$40k). That truck would sell gangbusters.

Instead they think they are Rivian and can sell trucks at Rivian prices, but they aren't Rivian. They aren't a sexy new EV startup who makes something truly new and bespoke. And who can, as a result, charge bespoke prices. They are Ford. They are a known entity. Dare I say, they are boring. Their strength is in volume, not bespokeness. They need to sell a boring truck with an electric motor at volume.

1. Electric trucks don't make sense. In the "I drive my truck to pick up groceries" sense, it's fine. But as a work truck, it's not ideal. You lose both payload and towing capacity owing to that huge battery. Gets worse in winter and at elevation. The bigger the truck, the more it weighs, the worse the EV part does (which is why nobody's making an F350/F550 electric). ICE trucks get over twice the range, more payload, more towing. And if you're using it for work, you can't waste part of the day charging it, you need to gas up and go. It's taking most manufacturers a long time to develop more rugged/capable versions of EVs, so stalling to prepare for an eventual better launch kinda had to happen anyway.

2. In theory, plug-in hybrids could be converted to all-electric, but you get way more utility out of a hybrid. The ability to use either fuel source solves a lot of problems. I wonder if we'll eventually maneuver these away from gas towards LPG; they already sell LPG trucks, why not LPG plug-in hybrids?.

3. We simply aren't ready for mass adoption, practically speaking. Apartments are 40% of all homes and there's no way they can plug-in. There's not nearly enough public chargers and jockeying for position is a joke. The software for chargers and route management is still a huge mess. It will take more government investment, which is dead for the next three years. Selling more EVs with no simultaneous infrastructure investment would be a disaster waiting to happen.

Ford Follows Customers to Drive Profitable Growth; Reinvests in Trucks, Hybrids, Affordable EVs, Battery Storage; Takes EV-Related Charges

https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/ford-re...

>As part of this plan, Ford’s next-generation F-150 Lightning will shift to an extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) architecture and be assembled at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan. Production of the current generation F-150 Lightning has concluded as Ford redeploys employees to Dearborn Truck Plant to support a third crew for F-150 gas and hybrid truck production as a result of the Novelis fires.

>The F-150 Lightning is a groundbreaking product that demonstrated an electric pickup can still be a great F-Series,” said Doug Field, Ford’s chief EV, digital and design officer. “Our next-generation Lightning EREV is every bit as revolutionary. It keeps everything customers love — 100% electric power delivery, sub-5-second acceleration — and adds an estimated 700+ mile range and tows like a locomotive. It will be an incredibly versatile tool delivered in a capital-efficient way.

It's frustrating seeing all the potential and then having to wait and wait for somebody to finally execute. Same as with PDAs/smartphones until Apple finally shook things up or countless other examples throughout tech history. Maybe it'll be China who actually does it this time around, and a small silver lining might be that could also go along with some actual anti-feudalism and pro-privacy laws in the US if we're very lucky :\.

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0: https://www.greencars.com/expert-insights/all-electric-all-a...

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzjqfQdj3sM

Price out the cheapest F-150 (XL) with a supercrew cab and 4x4 and you are looking at $50k. Trucks are just expensive. The Lightning is expensive but not that much more than any other truck and the Ford incentives + EV credit brought it down quite a bit. The Lightning Flash (extended range) was routinely selling OTD < $60k with 0% financing.

I'd put off buying a pickup for a decade because I couldn't find the right one and the Lightning is awesome. I was skeptical at first due to range concerns but there are chargers in the middle of nowhere in 2025.

I think a lot of the other commenters might change their thoughts if they drove one for a bit.

Edit: I get somewhere around 50mpg (dollar equivalent when charging at home) in a full-size truck that fits my whole family and our gear + handles better in the snow than any ICE truck + can do plenty of hauling and light towing.

It appears America is not ready for electrical pickups. Maybe other markets will be more eager for them?

Customer base is quite conservative in how the truck should look like. For example,F150 lightning had to look like F150.

While a look of truck (and even ordinary car) is defined by the function - need to have beefy, but somewhat serviceable/accessible engine in the front. There is no need for this in the ev truck like at all. It's all dead space now.

I suspect that proper EV trucks eventually will look like current box-over-engine trucks (similar to kei trucks). Like Super crew truck with standard bed will probably have the same dimensions as current short bed truck, with better turn radius. But it won't look cool, and probably have the same stigma as minivans.

Interesting that Rivian seems to be doing fine in this space.

How the truck looks is important. Outside the bottom end of market, it's a status symbol. I got a tundra TRD earlier this year and I've gotten multiple compliments on it because it's a good looking truck.

The F150 lightning looked cheap. The grill is this crappy plastic. And there was no upgrade feature to make it cooler.

If they had the option to make it look like the Raptor or one of their higher end F150s, it may have sold better.

Also, it’s great for long distance recreational drives (from a very specific perspective)- I like driving 250-300 miles in a day and then parking at an RV spot for the night instead of a hotel room. I can run the heat and AC all night as well as have a “full tank” ready to go.

I was always bothered about how cars were either supposed to be all electric or all ICE. Working together is the smart way forward.

>As Ford Authority recently reported, an aluminum plant in New York, owned and operated by Ford supplier Novelis, recently suffered its third fire since September, making many wonder if the facility was still on track to reach full-scale production by December. Turns out, that is indeed the case, but in the meantime, there's no denying that Ford F-150 production has been impacted - which is also true of several other Blue Oval models.

Now I'm sitting here wondering when we'll get another small Ford truck again. This same exact story played out with the Ranger and the decades without a smaller option sucked then too.

The real problem with this decision is that the F-150 is pretty much Ford’s only foray into EVs.

It raises the question of how Ford expects to compete in the EV market, which is a bigger concern given that the world market is showing a clear preference for EVs, especially once they allow the world EV leaders from China to enter their markets.

This further reinforces the Galapagosification of the American auto makers who are getting wiped out pretty much everywhere outside the US where they are competitive thanks to government protectionism.

I started to appreciate Ford's strategy recently after they lost my faith after they killed off sedans in the US. I'm now confused again by the company's strategy

Internationally the trend is actually towards battery electric vehicles that are more affordable than their ICE or hybrid equivalents. If such non electric models are available at all. That's becoming true for a growing number of cars in especially the EU, Australian, or Asian markets. The cheapest cars in the EU are electric at this point. There's a growing number of cars priced well below 20K Euro. And not just from China. 2025 saw a few models for which that was true. 2026 will feature a lot more.

How is this possible? Batteries are now cheap. Electric motors were never that expensive. And the rest of the car is what it always was a bunch of wheels, window wipers, and other components. The cheapest car is the simplest car. That's going to be an electric one from 2026 onward.

Why did the F-150 electric flop? It was more expensive than the petrol variant. You have to pay a very steep premium for them. Ford never really figured out how to source cheap batteries. And even at that steep premium they never figured out profitability. It seems they are getting out of battery joint ventures even and reducing investment. They are giving up and ceding the market to others. Just as others are figuring this market out and are proving it is real.

Technically, if they ever wanted to make a cheaper version of this new range extended truck, all they'd have to do is junk the range extender and cram the vehicle full of cheap LFP batteries. As much as they can get away with. But that would require that they figure out how to source/make cheap batteries. Clearly that's not a problem that is solved in the US yet. They might get back to this topic in a few years.

It is believed that this is the largest impairment ever from a company.

Is the limit supposed to be zero?

They are a status symbol for middle class workers with no taste

The electric F-150 promised to be 100x and it was very appealing. It would have been a vehicle that was also a mobile untethered power station, and much more capable one than my power pack or even a mains outlet. Presumably with the right connections you could drain the battery at the same rate as the wheel motors. What could you do with a mobile 100+kW electricity supply? Brushless (corded) chainsaw, mobile log splitter, and charge my phone!

It’s a world I’m looking forward to. More utility EVs please.

Time will tell of their sustainability.

Tesla is the only company making money off of these products .

People keep complaining about the AI bubble but we sustained an EV bubble for 15 years without it popping .

And you know, I’m already compromising here, because it really ought to be a wagon instead of a van, if Detroit had any brains left.

Can’t wait until someone figures out how to smuggle those $15k BYDs in from Mexico. The North American car market needs to be disrupted badly. By China, not by some meme stock.