48 hours since the Ford Lightning made its debut.
In the past year Elon Much has been publicizing its soon to launch Cybertruck claiming high torque figures and 250 miles driving range. Then there is new start-up Rivian who has a full electric powered pickup truck with a claimed 300 miles driving range, the R1T which is backed by billions of dollars from Amazon.
Now, with just minimum of hype, Ford has released the Lightning pickup truck with 230 miles and at a selling price of USD39,974. The Cybertruck might be priced at USD39,900 and the Rivian close to USD67,500.
News just in that Ford’s brand new EV truck has just received an impressive 44k plus online orders in just 48 hours. Ford’s F-150 has been the best selling vehicle in the USA for the past 39 consecutive years.
Now, if Ford manages to convert most of these bookings into sales when it hits dealerships in Spring of next year, the F-150 will could comfortably take the third best EV sales spot in America. Lagging behind only the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y, which currently occupy the top two electric car sales spots over there with 90,000 and 80,000 units sold in the last year.
Looking within Ford itself meanwhile, the 44,500 reservations received for the Lightning would represent 5 percent of the million units of F-150 typically sold each year. If the Blue Oval did successfully sell that many too, this new all-electric pickup would probably (unsurprisingly) be its best-selling EV. Outselling the Mustang Mach-E, which in itself had nearly 4,000 sales in its first full month on the American market.
Ford is expecting to be converting these 44,500 deposits into proper orders come the Autumn of this year, with initial deliveries stated for Spring 2022. Available only in a SuperCrew four-door body style, prices for the F-150 Lightning begins at USD39,974 (RM166,000) for the commercial-oriented base model and tops out at USD91,169 for the top-tier Lightning Platinum (RM382,000).
Roughly similar in pricing to its fuel-drinking counterpart, the F-150 Lightning is touted to manage a 4.4 second 0-100km/h sprint time and a 482 km range on a single charge when its standard twin-motor layout is hooked to an extended-range battery pack.
Other highlights with this all-electric pickup includes its independent rear suspension setup (a first in 14 generations of this Ford truck), the Ford Intelligent Backup Power feature that can supposedly provide ‘full-home power for up to three days’ from its battery pack, as well as its massive 440 litre water-resistant Mega-Power Frunk.
Research by Joshua Chin
