Ford Is Pausing F-150 Lightning Production Amid Falling Demand

Ford will idle the Lightning's assembly plan starting in mid-November, with plans to resume production in early January.

By: Brian Silvestro

Oct 31, 2024 at 11:20am ET

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Ford has confirmed plans to pause production of the F-150 Lightning.
The Dearborn, Michigan assembly line will go idle starting November 15 to January 6.
This is the second time this year Ford has stopped production of the all-electric pickup.

Ford on Thursday confirmed plans to pause production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck for nearly two months.

The truck's Dearborn, Michigan plant will go idle beginning on November 15 and stay that way until January 6, 2025. The seven-week shutdown includes the traditional week-long holiday break.

The Lightning, once the best-selling electric pickup on the market, has had a tumultuous year. In January Ford revealed plans to halve production and allocate more resources to Bronco and Ranger assembly, before slashing the plant's workforce by about two-thirds in March.

“We continue to adjust production for an optimal mix of sales growth and profitability,” Ford said in a statement to Automotive News.

This is the second time Ford has paused production of the F-150 Lightning. The plant was idled back in February for nine weeks after it discovered an undisclosed quality issue, for which it issued a stop-sale. Production restarted in April.

Despite that stoppage, Ford has been able to sell 22,807 Lightnings this year, an increase of 86 percent compared to the year prior. The ramp-up in production and lack of supply-related delays versus 2023 likely contributed to the dramatic increase year-over-year.

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The Lightning's latest production pause comes amid an industry-wide decline in demand for EVs. Automotive News cites Cox Automotive as Ford having a 100-day supply of F-150s on dealer lots, though the reporting firm doesn't specify an estimate for the Lightning. Ford's other EVs are a bit worse off, with the Mustang Mach-E and E-Transit van sitting at 130 and 128 days of supply, respectively. We suspect Lightning supply isn't far off.