Ford was caught somewhat off-guard when it introduced the F-150 Lightning a few months ago. The Detroit-based carmaker knew it had an attractive and extremely interesting and capable new product on its hands, but it didn't expect the extremely high demand. Very quickly it announced a production increase and the reservations still kept coming in.
At present, dealers are working to convert those reservations into actual orders (along with markups) and something tells us that won't be much of a problem. And in related news, a dealership insider, specifically Granger Ford, based out of Granger, Iowa, posted on the F150gen14 forum that it appears the F-150 Lightning ordering system has just come online. The screenshot shown below is proof.
Looking at it more closely, it seems the automaker has taken the first steps of submitting orders into its Dealer Demo Program. This is how dealers will be able to see how many units they'll be allocated. What does this all mean? Simple. Retails orders are about to get underway, possibly as soon as this week.
In a separate post, a second dealer source just leaked a screenshot of the Lightning price guide. The base PRO model begins at $39,974; the sub-$40k we were promised. Prices increase dramatically after that. The XLT, Lariat, and Platinum trims begin at $52,974, $67,474, and $90,874, respectively. The PRO is the work truck intended for fleet buyers.
The XLT could become the most popular of the three remaining trims but we wouldn't be surprised to find out a significant number of buyers go all-in with the Platinum. We'll know soon enough. But this all brings up another question: Will Ford increase production yet again to meet insane demand?
We already knew Ford's current production plans amount to around 150,000 units by 2024. There are currently over 200,000 reservations and counting. Something needs to be done about this. A completely redesigned, second-generation F-150 Lightning is set to arrive for the 2025 model year. At that time, it'll switch to its own unique platform instead of the heavily modified version of the standard F-150 architecture it currently utilizes.