The All-Electric Ford F-150 Lightning Is Already Dead

If any clearer evidence was needed of the unpredictability of the market for electric cars at the moment, especially in the US, then here it is: the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning, which, when it went into production in 2022, had over 200,000 reservations and an apparent three-year order backlog, is now dead due to weak demand.

First announced in 2019 and unveiled in 2021, the Lightning – its name borrowed from the high-performance petrol-powered F-150s of the ’90s and ’00s – was the first mass-produced, full-sized pickup to go into production from any of the established big three American manufacturers. Early adopters couldn’t get enough, with the entire first model year’s planned selling out before the first customer-spec trucks had even started rolling out of the Dearborn, Michigan factory.

The rapidly changing EV landscape, though, combined with the change of administration in the US essentially making all fuel economy and emissions targets moot, paints a very different picture for the truck just a few years later. By autumn 2024, demand had slowed enough that Ford was forced to idle the assembly line for several weeks, and the same thing happened again this October, with a fire at an aluminium supplier’s factory also impacting production of the aluminium-bodied truck.

Those temporary shutdowns have now become full-on cancellations, as Ford has announced that “production of the current generation F-150 Lightning has concluded.” There will be a new one, but it’ll take the form of a range-extender EV with a petrol engine onboard to charge the batteries. This is a similar path to the one taken by Ram, which never got its fully-electric Ramcharger pickup into production, cancelling it earlier this year to fully focus on developing a range-extender instead.

General Motors produces full EV versions of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra twins, but it remains to be seen whether they’ll go the same way as the cancelled F-150 Lighting and the DOA Ramcharger. Otherwise, the US market for full-size electric pickups is populated by models from comparative upstart brands like the Rivian R1T and Tesla Cybertruck, which arguably have more appeal to the typical American EV buyer with their tech-first approach and left-field styling.

Despite the death of the all-electric Lightning, Ford isn’t giving up on EVs in the US or elsewhere. It still plans for half of its global sales volume to be made up of hybrids, range-extenders and full EVs by 2030, and earlier this year announced a new platform for smaller, more affordable electric cars in North America. Meanwhile, it recently unveiled a joint venture with Renault to produce a pair of small EVs for Europe based on the French company’s hugely successful Ampere platform.