{"id":348528,"date":"2025-12-16T08:43:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T08:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/348528\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T08:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T08:43:13","slug":"ford-nixes-fully-electric-f-150-lightning-as-ev-losses-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/348528\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford nixes fully electric F-150 Lightning as EV losses grow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Ford’s electric F-150 Lightning on the production line in Dearborn, Mich., in 2022. The Detroit automaker says it will no longer make the electric pickup truck.JEFF KOWALSKY\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Ford Motor Co. F-N<\/a> is pivoting away from its once-ambitious electric vehicle plans amid financial losses and waning consumer demand for the vehicles in lieu of investment in more efficient gasoline-engines and hybrid EVs, the company said Monday.<\/p>\n

The Detroit automaker, which has poured billions of dollars into electrification along with most of its industry peers, said it will no longer make the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck, instead opting for an extended range version of the vehicle.<\/p>\n

Ford will also introduce some manufacturing changes; its Tennessee Electric Vehicle Center \u2013 part of the BlueOval City campus and once the future of Ford\u2019s EVs and batteries \u2013 is being renamed the Tennessee Truck Plant and will produce new affordable gas-powered trucks instead. Ford\u2019s Ohio Assembly Plant will produce a new gas and hybrid van.<\/p>\n

The company has lost US$13-billion on EVs since 2023 and said it expects to take a US$19.5-billion hit largely in the fourth quarter because of the EV business.<\/p>\n

Opinion: Canada needs to start thinking about an auto sector without U.S. automakers<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a customer-driven shift to create a stronger, more resilient and more profitable Ford,\u201d CEO Jim Farley said in a statement. \u201cThe operating reality has changed, and we are redeploying capital into higher-return growth opportunities: Ford Pro, our market-leading trucks and vans, hybrids and high-margin opportunities like our new battery energy storage business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford said it now expects half of its global volume will be hybrids, extended-range EVs \u2013 which also incorporate a gasoline-powered engine \u2013 and full EVs by 2030, up from 17 per cent this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cFord\u2019s elimination of the electric F-150 Lightning is not much of a surprise after the truck failed to come close to filling the plant\u2019s capacity. Ford\u2019s choice to convert an existing gas-powered truck to accept the electric drivetrain helped reduce their upfront costs which, in hindsight, was the right move,\u201d Sam Fiorani, vice-president at AutoForecast Solutions, told the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor months, the future of Blue Oval City has been in question and this announcement locks in the direction of this large plant,\u201d Fiorani added. \u201cAdding an affordable vehicle to the Ford lineup fills a glaring gap in the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several other automakers have made changes to their electrified product plans in recent years as consumer demand for EVs in the U.S. hasn\u2019t quite met expectations.<\/p>\n

EVs accounted for about 8 per cent of new vehicles sales in the U.S. last year, but factors such as cost and charging infrastructure remain concerns for mainstream buyers.<\/p>\n

The average transaction price for a new EV last month was US$58,638, compared with US$49,814 for a new vehicle overall, according to auto-buying resource Kelley Blue Book.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, while public charging availability has improved, the industry has relied on home charging as a selling point for prospective buyers, and not everyone has access to charging at-home.<\/p>\n

Since taking office for a second time, U.S. President Donald Trump has drastically shifted U.S. policy away from EVs, calling EV-friendly policy set under former president Joe Biden a \u201cmandate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Biden-era policies \u2013 including generous tax incentives for consumers, and tailpipe and fuel economy rules for automakers \u2013 encouraged EV adoption, no policies required the industry to sell or Americans to buy EVs. Biden targeted half of new vehicle sales in the U.S. to be electric by 2030.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has since slashed that target, eliminated EV tax credits and proposed weakening the emissions and gas mileage rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one-two punch of the public\u2019s slow EV adoption and the Trump administration\u2019s softer stance on fuel economy and emissions has encouraged every automaker to rethink their current direction,\u201d Fiorani added. \u201cElectric vehicles are still the future, but the transition to EVs was always going to take longer than automakers have been promising the public.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Ford’s electric F-150 Lightning on the production line in Dearborn, Mich., in 2022.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-348528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}