Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
A Ford F-150 Lightning lines up at a Tesla Supercharger in Brandon on Aug. 23, 2025. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
The all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning is dead. And it only took US$19.5 billion in loses to figure out why.
The Lightning was once hailed as the truck that would make EVs palatable to the massive truck buyers market. From a distance, it looked very similar to a standard gas-burning F-150.
“This sucker’s quick,” then-president Joe Biden said after taking one for a test drive in 2021. When asked by a reporter if he’d buy one, he said he would.
But even if he didn’t, the president took actions to ensure everyone else would. He implemented as sweeping electric vehicle mandate to force adoption of electric vehicles (as did his neighbour to the north), only to see the American EV mandate crumble under President Donald Trump. (Canada’s EV mandate is still on the books).
Both of those mandates have now lost their most prominent pickup. On Dec. 15, Ford Motor Company announced its next version of the F-150 Lightning will have a gas motor in it. Power to the wheels will come from batteries and electric motors, but there will be a gas motor onboard to charge it. As such, Ford’s experiment with a pure EV pickup is over.
While it looked and felt just like a standard F-150, and was markedly quicker off the line, its range in cold Canadian winters left much to be desired, and numerous videos on YouTube destroyed its credibility for towing. Sure, it could haul a fair bit of weight, but not very long or very far. Instant torque didn’t help when you couldn’t go anywhere while towing.
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“Leveraging advanced Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV) technology, the next-generation F-150 Lightning will offer the best of both worlds: the seamless, instant power of an electric powertrain and the freedom of a generator-backed estimated range of more than 700 miles.
“Unlike a traditional hybrid, the F-150 Lightning EREV is propelled 100 percent by electric motors. This ensures owners get the pure EV driving experience they love — including rapid acceleration and quiet operation — while eliminating the need to stop and charge during long-distance towing. Like the current F-150 Lightning, the next-gen version will also offer exportable electricity that can power everything from work sites to camp sites to homes during a power outage.”
This is the first F-150 Lightning to arrive in Estevan. It was seen charging at Peavey Mart’s free 48-amp charger. The owner who bought this particular truck in late summer had gotten rid of it in less than half a year. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
This hydrid is similar in concept to Ram’s approach an electric pickup – by including a combustion engine for an on-board generator.
The EV Lightning, which was announced to enormous fanfare and was expected to sell hundreds of thousands of units per year came nowhere close to those numbers. In rural Saskatchewan, where most vehicles sold are trucks, you had to look long and hard to find one on the road. Dealers who did bring them in often saw them sit on the lot for a long time.
In a release, Ford said, “The company is shifting to higher-return opportunities, including leveraging its U.S. manufacturing footprint to add trucks and vans to its lineup and launch a new, high-growth battery energy storage business. As part of these actions, Ford no longer plans to produce select larger electric vehicles where the business case has eroded due to lower-than-expected demand, high costs and regulatory changes.”
It continued, “This approach prioritizes affordability, choice and profits. Ford will expand powertrain choice — including a range of hybrids and extended-range electric propulsion — while focusing its pure electric vehicle development on its flexible Universal EV Platform for smaller, affordable models.”
“Production of the current F-150 Lightning ends this year. The next-generation F-150 Lightning EREV also will be assembled at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn,” the company said.
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Speaking to CNBC, CEO Jim Farley said, “The $50k, $60k, $70k EVs just weren’t selling; We’re following customers to where the market is. We’re going to build up our whole lineup of hyrbids. It’s gonna be better for the company’s profitability, shareholders and a lot of new American jobs. These really expensive $70k electric trucks, as much as I love the product, they didn’t make sense. But an EREV that goes 700 miles on a tank of gas, for 90% of the time is all-electric, that EREV is a better solution for a Lightning than the current all-electric Lightning.”
Ford CEO Jim Farley on why the company is cancelling the all-electric F-150 Lightning:
"The $50k, $60k, $70k EVs just weren't selling; We're following customers to where the market is. We're going to build up our whole lineup of hyrbids. It's gonna be better for the company's… pic.twitter.com/aZba5GPgKs
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) December 16, 2025
The financial hit to Ford is massive – US$19.5 billion. The company characterized it as “Ford expects to record about $19.5 billion in special items with the majority in the fourth quarter. The company expects about $5.5 billion in cash effects with the majority paid in 2026 and the remainder in 2027.”
The announcement made clear that Ford’s focus on EV-only powertrains is changing. “The company no longer intends to produce a previously planned new electric commercial van for Europe but will continue to maintain its full lineup of electrified vans for that market. Ford also plans to replace a planned electric commercial van for North America with a new, affordable commercial van — with gas and hybrid models — to meet the needs of commercial customers. This new van will be manufactured at Ford’s Ohio Assembly Plant.
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“These moves complement the company’s plan to launch five new affordable vehicles by the end of the decade, four of which will be assembled in the U.S. The company also plans to expand gas, hybrid and extended-range electric options across its portfolio with nearly every vehicle featuring a hybrid or multi-energy powertrain choice by the end of the decade”.
So while the company is shifting away from pure EV-powertrains for its vehicles, it still plans on using batteries in other manners. That “battery energy storage business” is the grid-scale storage used for power grid, referred to as Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). Tesla has been a major player in this. All ten BESS facilities in Alberta are Tesla Megapacks, for instance. Ford will now be taking a run at that market.
“Ford is launching a new business — including sales and service — to capture the large demand for battery energy storage from data centers and infrastructure to support the electric grid. Ford plans to repurpose existing U.S. battery manufacturing capacity in Glendale, Kentucky, to serve the rapidly growing battery energy storage systems market. This strategic initiative will leverage currently underutilized electric vehicle battery capacity to create a new, diversified and profitable revenue stream for Ford. The company also plans to invest roughly $2 billion in the next two years to scale the business.
“The Kentucky site will be converted to manufacture 5 MWh+ advanced battery energy storage systems. Ford plans to produce LFP prismatic cells, battery energy storage system modules and 20-foot DC container systems at this facility. These systems are at the heart of the energy storage solution market for data centers, utilities, and large-scale industrial and commercial customers.”
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