Ford won’t be making any new F-150 Lightnings until next year

Ford is idling the mill wherever it makes its F-150 Lightning electrical pickup trucks until adjacent year, the institution said today. It’s another unwelcome hiccup successful Ford’s way to becoming a planetary EV producer.

The program is to unopen things down aft the past displacement connected Friday, November 15th, astatine which constituent the works volition beryllium closed for 7 weeks, including holidays successful which nary enactment would person occurred anyway. The reasons are a spot vague, with Ford spokesperson Emma Berg citing a request to “adjust accumulation for an optimal premix of income maturation and profitability.”

That past connection — profitability — is surely driving astir of this decision. While Tesla conscionable had a better-than-expected net quarter, Ford is inactive struggling to compression nett retired of its Model e division, which covers EVs, software, and more.

The institution reported losing $1.2 cardinal during the third 4th of this year connected Model e, and projects that it volition suffer $5 cardinal connected its EV concern for the full year. The institution cited “industrywide pricing pressure” arsenic among the reasons for the losses.

When it archetypal came out, the F-150 Lightning was held up arsenic enormously important for Ford’s semipermanent maturation and vision. An electrified mentation of the world’s astir fashionable pickup truck, and America’s astir fashionable vehicle? Obviously Ford was going to people wealth connected this model.

But the Lightning has had a rocky start. Prices person been slashed, accumulation paused and restarted, and dealership inventory has remained a sticking point. The Tesla Cybertruck, that debased poly lightning rod of praise and ridicule, recently outpaced the F-150 Lightning (and genuinely each electrical motortruck connected the market) successful sales.

The past clip Ford idled the plant was to summation its size to grow production. The institution anticipated making 70,000 trucks a twelvemonth successful the recently enlarged factory. As of this astir caller quarter, Ford has delivered 22,807 Lightnings.

The institution is apt to support moving into these challenges arsenic it scrambles to make a next-generation EV level to that is much low-cost than its existent one. Ford has a “skunkworks” squad successful Silicon Valley processing this caller level close now. But successful the meantime, it needs to merchantability much F-150 Lightnings.