Customers that missed out on placing an early reservation for a Ford F-150 Lightning will have their opportunity to place an order starting next week as the automaker will open their order books for the electric truck to everyone.
According to an internal communication sent to dealers and posted to the LightningOwners forum, Ford says it is opening its order bank to all customers on May 9, 2023 and no reservation is required. Until now only those customers with a pre-existing reservation could place an order after being invited to do so through the ‘F-150 Lightning Reservation to Order Program.”
Along with opening the order books on May 9, Ford says it will also be updating the prices for the Lightning. Unfortunately the Detroit-based automaker didn’t specify whether it was going to be a price increase or decrease, but Ford did already increase prices in late March, making the F-150 Lightning Pro nearly $20,000 more expensive than when it debuted in April 2022.
Ford has had a rough year so far with the Lightning. Production was temporarily halted in February due to a battery problem, which was later identified as a manufacturing defect in the battery cells. In early March, a small recall was announced to address the issue. Ford was able to resolve the problem and resume production at its Dearborn, Michigan plant on March 13.
Ford had set a target of producing 150,000 EVs annually by fall, but production bottlenecks caused them to deliver only 15,617 electric trucks in 2022, despite having 200,000 reservations at the end of the year.
