- Ford is cutting production of its F-150 Lightning EV pickup in half next year, according to CNBC.
- The company is facing cooling EV demand and new competition from Elon Musk’s Cybertruck.
- It’s production cut is the latest sign auto giants are pumping the brakes on EVs.
Ford is cutting production of its flagship F-150 Lightning pickup, in the latest sign that the company is tapping the brakes on its EV push.
The company is planning to produce 1,600 electric Ford F-150s a week in 2024, down from 3,200, according to a CNBC report. It comes as Ford faces stuttering demand for EVs and growing competition in the form of Elon Musk’s Cybertruck.
According to a memo obtained by Automotive News, the cuts were the result of “changing market demand.” A Ford spokesperson told CNBC that the company will “continue to match production with customer demand.”
Though the EV market is expected to reach another record year of growth, demand appears to be cooling somewhat. High prices and reliability concerns have left some customers reluctant to pay a premium for battery-powered vehicles.
The F-150 Lightning, which starts at around $50,000, is Ford’s flagship EV — and the main rival of Elon Musk’s Cybertruck, which is now finally beginning to roll off Tesla’s production lines.
Musk has frequently compared the futuristic pickup with the F-150, sharing a video of the Cybertruck pulling one uphill in 2019. Ford CEO Jim Farley, meanwhile, dismissed the threat of the Cybertruck in June, describing it as a vehicle for “Silicon Valley people.”
“I make trucks for real people who do real work, and that’s a different kind of truck,” Farley said.
The electric F-150 was hugely popular when it launched in 2022, with Ford having to redesign its Michigan factory to cope with demand.
However, slowing demand for electric vehicles in recent months has hit the company’s EV ambitions hard, with unsold F-150s and its Mustang Mach-Es piling up in dealer lots.
Ford said it sold nearly 4,400 F-150 Lightnings in November, a new monthly record. It has sold around 20,000 electric F-150s in total this year so far. But the pickup still makes up a tiny fraction of the 680,000 F-series vehicles it has sold overall this year.
The auto giant has postponed $12 billion in investment in EV manufacturing amid cooling demand for electric vehicles. It has also paused construction of a battery plant in Kentucky and is scaling back another facility in Michigan.
Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
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