Lightning brings a new Ford era
A crowd of hundreds that included Ford hourly workers and customers cheered throughout a 30-minute launch celebration of the 2022 F-150 Lightning electric pickup in Dearborn, Michigan, last month.
“This is history in the making,” said executive chair Bill Ford, great-grandson of the founder of Ford Motor Co.
Ford CEO Jim Farley told the crowd, “Whenever the world needed us, we met the moment with American ingenuity.”
This moment is especially significant, he and Bill Ford said, because the Lightning starting price around $40,000 means electric vehicles may be owned and driven by “the many, not just the few.”
Farley said this product is not about vanity or public relations or Wall Street. He said it’s about taking the U.S. in a
new direction at a time when people and the planet need more sustainable vehicles.
“The ride is so smooth, you’d swear this is a Lincoln,” Farley said. “It’s a 10kilowatt power plant but on wheels.”
It has a total of 11 plug-in outlets in the cab, the frunk – the front of the truck where the engine would go in gaspowered vehicles – and the truck bed, he noted.
“How about ripping 20,000 sheets of plywood on a single charge?” Farley said.
Jesse Toprak, chief analyst at Autonomy, an electric vehicle subscription company, told the Free Press that this moment is transformative for the whole industry.
“Ford F-150 Lightning is the most significant introduction by the automaker in 124 years,” Toprak said. “Model T mass production changed transportation forever. Lightning will do the same for a new era in EV adoption.”