FORD’s top-selling electric vehicle has reportedly been pulled from production after just three years, in a fresh sign of how shaky the EV market has become.
The all-electric F-150 Lightning, once tipped as a smash hit, is now effectively dead.
Built in Dearborn, Michigan, the electric pickup was first announced in 2019 and unveiled in 2021, before going into production in 2022.
Back then, Ford had more than 200,000 reservations and suggested there was a three-year backlog of orders, Car Throttle reports.
The Lightning took its name from high-performance petrol F-150 models of the 1990s and 2000s and became the first mass-produced, full-size electric pickup from one of America’s “big three” carmakers.
Early demand was so strong the first model year sold out before customer trucks had even left the factory, but the EV landscape in the US has since changed dramatically.
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Falling demand, combined with political changes easing emissions pressure, slowed sales, forcing Ford to halt production in autumn 2024 before cancelling it entirely.
Ford has announced that “production of the current generation F-150 Lightning has concluded.”
A new version is planned, but it will not be a pure EV, instead it is expected to be a range-extender model with a petrol engine onboard to charge the batteries.
That is the same route taken by Ram, which never got its fully electric Ramcharger pickup into production and cancelled it earlier this year to focus on a range-extender instead.
General Motors currently sells full EV versions of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, but it remains to be seen whether they face the same fate.
For now, newer brands like Rivian and Tesla lead the US electric pickup market, but Ford insists it is not giving up on electrification.
The firm still aims for half of its global sales to come from hybrids, range-extenders and full EVs by 2030, and has announced a new platform for smaller, more affordable electric cars in North America.
It has also unveiled a joint venture with Renault to build a pair of small EVs for Europe.