Why is it difficult for Ford to keep up with orders for F-150 Lightning?

• Ford literally had to tear down the walls of the factory to meet the demand for electric vehicles F-150.
• Darren Palmer told Insider that Ford was surprised by the number of orders for Lightning.
• He says meeting customer expectations is a “huge undertaking”.

Ford’s F-150 truck looks set to keep its throne as an American best selling car for the 41st consecutive year.

After launching the electric version last year, it has received almost 200,000 orders for the opened Lightning and had to close its order book December last year in an attempt to catch up.

“That surprised us – I think it surprised a lot in the industry, how ready people were for this. tram“, said Darren Palmer, Ford’s head of electric vehicle (EV) program.

The level of demand forced Ford to take some drastic actions to increase the number of Lightning truck it can be made in Michigan.

“They’re actually building a factory that’s roughly the same size as the one that’s producing at the moment,” Palmer told Insider. “We had to cut the walls off and start over.”

although recently pledges $50 billion for its electric vehicle program Over the next four years, the success of an electric F-150 is never certain.

Linda Zhang, Lightning’s chief engineer, formerly tell Insiders At first she had to convince her co-workers to buy the car. Palmer and Zhang say it is now attracting customers who have never owned an electric vehicle as well as younger drivers who have never bought a Ford before.

Dealing with the surge in demand is a “huge undertaking”, Palmer said: “It will take most of this year and some years to come just to convert the number of reservations – and I believe we are not open yet. door for a year and a half.”

a wave positive review for Lightning means more orders will likely be fulfilled, he added, but first it has to convert the multitude of existing bookings. Palmer could not confirm when this would happen.

Meanwhile, Ford will try to increase output from the current plant double annual output up to 150,000 annually.

Supply chain crisis

Supply chain problems caused by the pandemic have not helped address demand. The Wall Street Journal reported in September that Ford was forced to stop delivering some of its vehicles due to missing the automaker’s famous blue badge.

A bigger problem is the ongoing semiconductor chip shortage, although Palmer said Ford is prioritizing supplying its electric vehicles. Prices for the trucks are still pushed up by a wave of obstacles, raised the F-150 Lightning Pro by $5,000 last month in the second price hike this year.

Geopolitical factors helped influence the company’s decision to move some manufacturing operations closer to home, along with a major supply chain restructuring after $1 billion in unexpected expenses last quarter.

Palmer thinks Lightning will go down in history as the vehicle that brought electric cars into the mainstream in the US. He says there’s more to come, with a renewed focus on in-car technology in the next phase of Ford’s electric vehicle program.

“The stuff we’re going to bring in over the next three years is amazing. They’re doing things that vehicles have never done before,” he added.

Related videos: