Ford pulls the plug on the all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/15/nx-s1-5645147/ford-discontinues-all-electric-f-150-lightning
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/15/nx-s1-5645147/ford-discontinues-all-electric-f-150-lightning
35 Comments
rafoix@lemmy.zip · 27 pts · 262d
The Ford brand is supposed to be for inexpensive vehicles. A luxury pickup or vehicle should not be a main focus.
Management at Ford is full of rich idiots completely disconnected from the public.
someguy3@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 262d
Where have you been for the last 20 years? The money is in "luxury" pickups and SUVs. Maybe I should say expensive pickups. The big 3 don't care about inexpensive vehicles. People don't even want cars anymore, they want SUVs, CUVs, and pickups of course.
rafoix@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 262d
That’s right.
Why sell 100,000 vehicles at with $500 profit when they can sell 10,000 vehicles with $10,000 profit. Genius.
the_q@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 262d
someguy3@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 262d
You can argue about the effectiveness of ads, but at the end of it no one is buying cars. Honda Fit went under.
burble@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 261d
The Model 3 is the 2nd best selling EV in the US.
Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 262d
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 261d
Ford survived on overpriced trucks the public loves to buy.
Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 262d
Nobody buys cars in the US anymore. The only car Ford still sells is the Mustang.
rafoix@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 261d
They buy station wagons but they prefer to call them SUVs or crossovers because wagon sounds old timey.
I see tons of Japanese and Korean cars on the road. Nobody wants to buy “American” cars because their reputation is in the dump.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 261d
Boomer weapon of mass destruction.
rafoix@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 260d
Millions of new vehicles in the US are cars. They just are not Ford cars because they don’t sell any and when they did they didn’t support it.
BigTurkeyLove@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 262d
An all electric Maverick makes way more sense than an all electric f150 anyways.
EtherWhack@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 261d
The only issue is that it looks to be a unibody, so a heavy enough load in the bed could tweak the frame and have recurring issues of whee alignment.
acockworkorange@mander.xyz · 7 pts · 261d
Just a wee alignment, lad, no worries.
BigTurkeyLove@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 260d
My 25 AWD hybrid maverick has a 4k tow package, hard for me to imagine it couldn't handle the battery weight but I'm no expert. I do know I have been nothing but impressed with the truck so far and my old truck was an f150.
DrinkMonkey@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 261d
I was thinking they could use the battery pack as a structural component, but then I remembered that’s exactly what they tried with the Cybertruck and that absolutely didn’t work!
evenglow@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 261d
China was and still is doing structural batteries. Ford will in about 5 years.
DrinkMonkey@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 261d
I think it was more that the unibody part didn’t work so good when trying to do truck things - not the structural battery piece? Dunno, not an expert.
evenglow@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 260d
Has nothing to do with trucks. Everything to do with affordable EVs even tiny EVs. This is why China has been making them for so long. Also why they get high safety scores.
Look up "cell to chassis" CTC.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 261d
Only because Ford needs to put Slate out of business.
ch00f@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 262d
Did... the Cybertruck outlast the F-150?
In all seriousness, good to hear that they're still taking EVs seriously, and if those massive batteries can be put to better use than sitting idle in a grocery hauler, so much the better.
blitzen@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 262d
Well, Farley is a competent (dare I say good) CEO. I like the Lightning and I wish it stayed around, but if it doesn’t make sense to keep selling, you should stop selling it.
The Cybertruck may outlast the Lightning in time on sale, but no individual CT will outlast a Lightning (because Ford knows how to build trucks.)
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 261d
Is this new?
Ford F-150 Consumer Reports predicted reliability score: 2 out of 5 for combustion-only powertrains and 1 out of 5 for the PowerBoost J.D. Power quality and reliability score: 78
Cars.com reliability score from owner reviews: 3.9 for the 2024 model year
Number of recalls for the first model year: 22
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/the-most-unreliable-pickup-trucks-251551.html
blitzen@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 261d
Recent reliability is currently on a downswing for sure, but for better or worse Ford does sell a metric shit ton of F-series trucks. I stand by my statement that they know how to build trucks, especially compared to the truck-in-name-only CT. And I stand by my statement that I’d rather take a Lightning over a CT any day of the week. Of course, neither are a Toyota in the reliability department.
reddig33@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 262d
Evidently Ford is also pivoting to sell their batteries as backup home and datacenter storage.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/16/ford_datacenter_batteries/
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 262d
I would buy that if they manufactured it in Canada.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 261d
Canada makes shit trucks and muscle cars.
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 261d
I just want the battery pack for my house.
If I wanted a truck I’d buy a used Toyota.
noride@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 262d
Looks like they are copying the RAM strategy and slapping a generator onto it to boost range. Still a fully electric drivetrain, no idea on overall reliability with that mix of components. https://newatlas.com/automotive/ford-electric-f150-lightning-pickup-truck-range-extender-erev-2026/
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 261d
The Chevy Volt was the most reliable car GM ever built.
Dogyote@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 262d
Weird... did they also downsize the battery?
noride@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 261d
The projected "battery only" range seems the same, so maybe not? It's all just dreams on paper at this point, we'll have to see what actually makes it to market.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 261d
It makes no sense to use large battery packs to mostly store evergy to carry the large battery packs. Only the Detroit could figure out how to make EVs less efficient.
Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 262d
Well, the Lightning is pretty useless if you need to tow something further than next door.
ptz@dubvee.org · 5 pts · 261d
Ugh! Well, this comment of mine aged like milk:
Main post from 6 months ago that also aged like milk: Ford plows ahead on EV battery factory amid political storm
Dogyote@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 261d
Well from what I've been reading your post hasn't aged poorly. Ford is going to sell home backup batteries and the Lightning will probably still have a large battery, they're just sticking a gas generator on as a range extender if I haven't been misinformed.