Ford will be temporarily pausing the production of their F-150 Lightning truck for around 2 months amidst EV sales slow down. This particular truck is produced in Ford’s Michigan plant and the shutdown will commence starting from November 15 and stay paused till January 6, 2025.
This is not the first time that the production of the F-150 Lightning has been paused but earlier it was due to a quality issue and the plant remained closer for 9 weeks before production restarted again in April. Now, the production has been halted due to poor sales of the vehicle and Ford will target more popular and in-demand models like the Ranger and the Bronco.
This is not related to the slowing sales of the F-150 Lightning alone a but a general trend in industry with EVs. Their sales have been declining. Its not just that the F-150 is struggling, cars like the Ford Mustang Mach E and the E-Transit van are also not doing well with even EV industry giants like Tesla struggling to move their vehicles off the lots.
In a statement to Automotive News, Ford said, ” We continue to adjust production for an optional mix of sales growth and profitability”.
Ford has sold around 22,807 units of the Lightning this year till now but there are a lot of trucks still sitting in dealer lots and there is around 100-days of supply for the F-150 trucks. The slowdown has been industry-wide and EVs are not doing that well for most manufacturers.
Companies like Stellantis, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz and Tesla are also struggling with their EVs and the Chinese market has been a huge threat to these brands in the EV space since they are building much more capable and technologically advanced vehicles. Ford’s CEO recently stated that he has been driving around in a Xiaomi SU7 and he has been loving it.
