The Blue Oval's CEO speaks.
All-electric vehicles are here and their numbers are only going to grow in the years ahead. They're no longer limited to bland hatchbacks like the Nissan Leaf. SUVs, sports cars, and trucks are all ditching internal combustion in favor of the new technology. America's best-selling vehicle for decades is one of them. Production hasn't even begun for the all-new 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning and already the automaker has doubled output figures due to high demand. There's somewhere in the neighborhood of 120,000+ reservations. Impressive, and that's only the beginning.
Speaking to The Drive, Ford CEO Jim Farley is giving these future owners another reason to be excited: range increases thanks to over-the-air updates.
"The most important part of that is the software part," he explained. "Is that F-150 Lightning's range 20 miles longer the year after it launches? The same one. We gotta get out of this job one mentality, where anything good comes from a new product." This won't be the first time an automaker has increased an EVs range post-launch. It's good to know Ford intends to do the same.
But Farley expressed there could be more to these OTA updates than expected, such as a pickup and delivery experience. "There are lots of things we're thinking about on the physical service side that's enabled by a connected car. I think that's the real test of our fitness."
At launch, the F-150 Lightning is targeting a 230-mile range with the standard battery pack. This should increase to 300 miles with the extended pack. Customer deliveries will get underway next spring, so it's certainly possible a 320-mile range could happen sometime in the second quarter of 2030. And there was another key thing Farley said we must point out. If you're waiting for a hardcore off-road Lightning variant to arrive, don't. It may not happen anytime soon.
"The most important thing is the fitness of the company to use that platform to make a better experience for the customer," Farley concluded. "That to me is a more important test than if we're gonna have a Raptor Lightning."
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