Ford Motor Company has announced massive cuts to the price of its electric truck, the F-150 Lightning.
In a press release on July 17, the legacy carmaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, informed customers that its prices on F-150 Lightning models ranging from Pro to Platinum Extended Range had dropped by roughly $10,000.
The base model Ford F-150 Lightning Pro went from $59,974 to $49,995 and the top-tier F-150 Lightning Platinum Extended Range has gone from $98,074 to $91,995.
Other models like the Ford F-150 Lightning XLT 311A and XLT 312A, the Lightning Lariat 510A, and their extended versions received similar cuts.
An extra $1,000 is also up for grabs for customers who build their own XLT, Lariat, or Platinum truck online or at a Ford dealership as part of a summer sales event running until July 31.
Other incentives were also mentioned in the press release, including customers’ potential Inflation Reduction Act EV tax credit worth up to $7,500 and a financing deal as low as 1.9% APR for 36 months for eligible buyers through Ford Credit.
Ford officials pointed to plant upgrades and cuts in production costs as making the drastic price change possible.
“Shortly after launching the F-150 Lightning, rapidly rising material costs, supply constraints, and other factors drove up the cost of the EV truck for Ford and our customers,” explained Marin Gjaja, chief customer officer, in the release. “We’ve continued to work in the background to improve accessibility and affordability to help to lower prices for our customers and shorten the wait times for their new F-150 Lightning.”
Last year, the production of the F-150 Lightning suffered a major backlog — approximately 200,000 reservations — that forced the company to stop taking orders in December 2021, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The delay was prolonged by yet another setback when a fire broke out in one unit’s battery during a pre-delivery quality check this February. Production resumed the following month after an investigation into the incident.
Some industry experts and analysts have speculated that Ford’s price cuts aim to boost electric vehicle (EV) sales in a bid to increase the company’s profit margin after a 40% operating loss margin last year.
Others have suggested the carmaker is taking a page out of Tesla’s playbook, as the market leader enacted several price cuts earlier this year and saw sales spike as a result, as previously covered in The Dallas Express.
“Tesla has usurped the traditional retail paradigm in myriad ways, including pricing variations outside of traditional model year changes,” Chad Kircher, vice president of content and editor-in-chief at EV Pulse, told Newsweek. “Tesla is comfortable raising and lowering prices depending on market conditions, resource availability, and even sales targets at any time.”
Ford has even struck a deal with Tesla to collaborate on a special adapter allowing Ford EVs to charge at Tesla’s supercharger stations, as reported in The Dallas Express.
While the effects of Ford’s recent price cuts on sales have yet to be seen, the company’s Q1 and Q2 2023 results have been promising, with sales of the F-150 Lightning shooting up by nearly 119% year over year.