DETROIT — When Ford Motor Co. hosted a presidential visit a year ago this week, Donald Trump flouted company safety protocol by refusing to wear a mask for much of his trip and berated Executive Chairman Bill Ford behind the scenes for joining with California to support stricter emissions standards.
This week’s visit from President Joe Biden stands to be much different.
Biden plans to tour Ford’s new $700 million Rouge Electric Vehicle Center and get a glimpse of its battery- electric F-150 Lightning ahead of the Wednesday, May 19, unveiling. He’ll likely tout the Lightning as an example of what could be possible under his administration’s proposed $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure investment plan, which includes new funding for bringing more EVs to market.
“The fact that he’s coming shows the commitment and interest our government has in the electrification of the auto industry,” Bill Ford said last week at the automaker’s annual shareholders meeting. “The fact we’re taking America’s favorite vehicle and electrifying it really is a huge exclamation point. That hasn’t been lost on anyone, including the president of the United States.”
Ford’s move from White House whipping boy to president’s pet for its environmental commitments and EV ambitions will provide welcome exposure as the automaker launches what could be its most important product in years. A zero-emission version of the nation’s top-selling vehicle stands to shake up the burgeoning electric pickup market and could have an outsize influence on those still skeptical of battery-powered propulsion.
“They’re not launching an insignificant electric vehicle we’ve never heard of in a segment that doesn’t sell well,” Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at Edmunds, told Automotive News. “This is the big fish in the big pond, and now it has the weight of a presidential visit. It’s going to take some of these more well-known nameplates to make the movement feel real.”
Ford in recent years has made a point of tying its initial wave of EVs to familiar names that have positive reputations with retail customers and commercial fleet operators. Executives are banking that the Lightning can strike a chord with the same loyal buyers that have made the gasoline-powered F-Series the top-selling U.S. vehicle line since the Reagan administration.
The F-Series earned about $42 billion in revenue in 2019 from nearly 900,000 sales in the U.S., according to a Boston Consulting Group study commissioned by Ford. The study found that F-Series trucks alone generate more revenue than major corporations such as McDonald’s, Nike, Coca-Cola, Visa and Netflix.
“It’s arguably the most dominant single vehicle in the industry,” Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars, said in an interview. “If a fully electric version finds even a modest customer base initially, it undeniably expands the awareness and appreciation for the capabilities of electric vehicles.”
Despite its sales dominance, Ford will enter the electric pickup space with plenty of challenges.
For starters, the F-150 Lightning won’t be the first full-size battery-powered pickup on the market. By the time the first Lightnings reach dealerships in the spring of 2022, the Rivian R1T, Lordstown Endurance, GMC Hummer EV and Tesla Cybertruck could all be on sale.
And despite the company’s hopes that buyers will be wowed by the Lightning’s performance capabilities, Ford is likely to face a harder time converting longtime truck owners than startups Rivian and Lordstown may with a younger, tech-focused customer base.
Still, Brauer said Ford can combat any hesitancy by continuing to produce high volumes of gasoline-powered trucks. The company has not released any volume targets, but the Lightning will be built at one facility in Michigan while Ford’s two existing F-150 plants will continue to build internal combustion models.
“That vehicle is the foundation of the company, and you don’t shift the foundation lightly,” Brauer said. “They’ll let the market dictate the pace at which that transition happens.”
Ford is resurrecting the Lightning badge from a series of popular but short-lived F-150 V-8 performance models, and executives promise the EV version will be even quicker.
CEO Jim Farley, in a statement announcing the impending reveal, likened the Lightning to game-changing products from Ford and others: the Model T, Mustang, Toyota Prius and Tesla Model 3.
“Ford and the larger industry has gotten to the point where EVs can now effectively compete with internal combustion vehicles,” Brauer said. “If Ford introduces an F-150 EV now and the world and technology continue to evolve the way it’s evolving, it’s almost inevitable that at some point in the future we’ll look back and Jim Farley will be proven correct — this was a pivotal moment.”