Buyers will have to wait until next year for certain trim levels.
New vehicle launches are interesting these days, looking a lot like a hot sneaker drop or new luxury watch release than something related to a vehicle. A few lucky early buyers get their hands on the product, and everyone else is left waiting or paying hefty markups through scalpers or at auction. The Ford F-150 Lightning may be one of those extreme products, as the Pro and XLT trims – half of the available models – are sold out for 2022 before deliveries officially start.
The $41,669 Pro trim is a stripped-down work truck intended for fleets and commercial buyers, and the $54,769 XLT is the entry-level consumer model in the lineup.
The F-150 Lightning should boast a 300-mile range and up to 563 horsepower with the extended-range battery on board. An available max trailering package pushes towing capacity to 10,000 pounds.
Lightning buyers can extend their reservations to the next available model year if a particular configuration isn’t available when their orders become available, so Ford will allow those people to get back in line. The rest of us will have to “settle” for a more expensive truck if we don’t want the extended wait. That leaves buyers looking at the $69,269 Lariat trim or the $92,669 Platinum trim, more double the Pro trim’s modest price tag in some cases.
Ford has seen heavy demand for the F-150 Lightning, with more than 200,000 people signing up for reservations. Things are just as crazy for The Blue Oval on the fleet side, where the automaker has halted new orders and placed existing orders on hold until dealers’ allocations catch up. Ford plans to expand production to 150,000 units per year by the middle of next year, but even that won’t meet existing demand. Excess interest is a good problem for Ford who says that more than 70 percent of reservation holders are first-time Ford and pickup truck buyers.
All of this and the truck hasn’t even officially launched yet. Ford CEO Jim Farley tweeted a teaser for the launch event, scheduled for April 26 when Ford will host a special event at its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Michigan.
