Electric Ford F-150 Lightning Officially Discontinued
Ford confirmed the end of production of the electric F-150 Lightning pickup. Assembly of the 2025 model year samples was completed in December and the next model year for the current version of the model will not come.
What is known
President of Ford Blue and Ford Model e divisions, Andrew Frick, stated during a conference with journalists that the decision is related to "market reality and customer preferences." Employees of the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center are being transferred to the Dearborn plant to support the third shift for the production of regular and hybrid F-150s.
Throughout its existence, the Lightning has not become a breakthrough model for the American market: despite plans for up to 150,000 sales per year, actual volumes did not exceed 40,000 units, although it remained the best-selling electric pickup in the US in 2025. An additional issue was the prices: instead of the announced starting price of around $40,000, most vehicles cost $60,000–90,000 and directly competed with similarly equipped gasoline F-150s, which were $10,000–15,000 cheaper.
Ford F-150 Lightning. Photo: Ford
To stimulate demand, Ford offered generous discounts on the Lightning, but this made the company's electric direction deeply unprofitable, especially since Ford's management calls the economics of large electric-powered pickups and SUVs "insurmountable." Now the company is moving towards models with extended range (Extended Range Electric Vehicle, EREV) for large pickups and vans, combining electric traction and a gasoline engine to generate electricity.
At the same time, Ford confirms plans to develop a new modular Universal Electric Vehicle platform, on which a compact electric pickup costing around $30,000 should come out in 2027. Just two months before announcing the closure of the current Lightning, the company also introduced the Home Power Management program, allowing owners in certain regions to use the pickup to store cheap electricity and feed it back into the grid during peak demand hours.
Source: Insideevs