Ford Motor Co. CEO James Farley Jr., with his live image projected onto the Ford World Headquarters, speaks enthusiastically about Ford’s electric pickup, designed for the working class, during its May 19 reveal at Ford World Headquarters.
By SUE SUCHYTA
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN – Pyrotechnics lit up the night sky May 19 as Ford Motor Co. revealed Lightning, its new electric pickup, priced and designed for working Americans, with a 300-mile range and more.
It’s so cool, even President Biden negotiated his way onto Ford’s test track and behind the wheel the day before the reveal.
Lightning, with a starting price just under $40,000, can even power a house for up to three days if one loses power, and it’s rugged enough to hold up to tough terrain.
Ford CEO James Farley Jr. even reassured the media that the type of computer chips that electric vehicles utilize are much more readily available that those in short supply for the traditional gasoline powered F-150 currently being stocked around town awaiting chip shipments.
He said the Mustang Mach-E soon will be going global, as well, with Ford currently launching it in Europe, and China launching later this year.
From a marketing perspective, Farley said that being early is important, because that is when brand preferences are formed.
“In pickup truck markets, we are the leaders, not just in the U.S., but globally,” he said. “So, it is very important, as people start to form their brands around electric vehicles, that we are there early.”
Farley said it is also a test for adoption of electric vehicles.
“It’s a mainstream segment, it’s the highest scale we have of any vehicle globally, and we are going to launch at less than $40,000,” he said. “So, we want to give a nice customer pickup F-150 to those who try this new technology.”
Farley said a big test of electric vehicles are how they will add value for the company.
He said Renesas Electronics Corp., a Japanese automotive semiconductor manufacturer, is back up and running, and they are on target to get the gas-powered Ford vehicle facilities which depend on its chips back up and running on schedule.
“We won’t know until the end of this quarter where they stand,” he said. “We continue to be smarter and smarter about the engineering modules, and that’s going well, but it only takes one module to cut off the vehicle.”
With respect to Lightning, Farley said the high-volume that Ford will be able to build, and its starting price below $40,000 are most surprising to consumers.
“It’s really something spectacular,” he said. “The average F-series customer is paying more for their truck than that. But when you stomp on that accelerator, and you drive with the independent rear suspension, the standard four-wheel drive, and the battery slope from 0 to 60 in 4.3 seconds, that is going to put a smile on everyone’s face.”