But if anything can get Americans excited, it’s a truck, especially an affordable one. (There was a ton of buzz over the announcement of a bare-bones truck from Bezos-backed Slate Auto earlier this year, for example.) The big question is whether the company can deliver in this environment.
One key thing to note here: This is not the first time that there’s been a big splashy truck announcement from Ford that was supposed to change everything. The F-150 Lightning was hailed as a turning point for vehicle electrification, a signal that decarbonization had entered a new era. We cited the truck when we put “The Inevitable EV” on our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list in 2023.
Things haven’t quite turned out that way. One problem is that the Lightning was supposed to be relatively affordable, with a price tag of about $40,000 when it was first announced in 2021. The starting price inflated to $52,000 when it actually went on sale in 2022.
The truck was initially popular and became quite hard to find at dealerships. But prices climbed and interest leveled off. The base model hit nearly $60,000 by 2023. For the past few years, Ford has cut Lightning production several times and laid off employees who assembled the trucks.
Now, though, Ford is once again promising an affordable truck, and it’s supposed to be even cheaper this time. To help cut costs, the company says it’s simplifying, creating one universal platform for a new set of EVs. Using a common structure and set of components will help produce not only a midsize truck but also other trucks, vans, and SUVs. There are also planned changes to the manufacturing process (rather than one assembly line, multiple lines will join together to form what they’re calling an assembly tree).