98,000 for a f150 truck. Yea that is going to work. Wow these people are nuts. I am so done with Ford.
Andy
As has been noted on this board before. The auto industry today is all about pushing ATP and GP higher. They don’t care about volume. They are only interested in the segment of the population that has the most money they can take.
Steve
A few bucks here or there won’t matter for those looking at the EV F150, it has its advantages as well as disadvantages… Solid, proven base, as far as the suspension, etc., but still short on towing distances unless you load a genset in the back! My '06 F150, does fine at towing, a 38 gallon tank, makes it handy as a tow vehicle, the crew cab lets grandkids, others relax wherever we go, although most have outgrown the need for rides, trips with us…
Similar pricing gets you into an F350 Crew Cab, 4x5 turbo diesel! Few limits, for now… If an EV could match it’s capabilities, there’d be a better market…
No investment in Ford, but a lifelong owner, except for one '96 mistake, a lemon 4x4 K2500 Chevy…
weco
My guess is that you weren’t in their target market. It will work until it doesn’t. And then prices will drop.
DB2
When imports were eating the big three’s lunch in the early 80s, they went crying to the government for protection, and we got the “voluntary import restraints”.
This time around, the industry will probably get a new safety reg enacted that will outlaw everything smaller than the huge trucks and SUVs they want to sell.
Steve
Your right I would rather own a Diesel. My brother is looking for a Suburban right now and they are asking 73,000 for one with 44,000 miles. In 2021 the same suburban was going for 62,000 dollars. LOL Some people will pay that price because some people are not very bright.
But the prices are going to come down. You, Dr. can pay 98,000 dollars for a F150, but the ones that are smart will wait and buy the same truck for half that price. See you on the other side of the recession.
Go on youtube and watch some of the shows on car prices. Here is one.
Andy
The trend, at least among the big three, lately, has been, as sales fall, close more plants and put more people out of work, until capacity matches the new, lower, volume. They don’t care about volume anymore, only maximizing ATP and GP per car.
Steve
They have to set the prices for the EV F-150 very carefully. As soon as orders rise too much, they have to increase the price. That’s not [only] because they can, it’s also because the vast majority of their profits come from the ICE F-150, and if too many people choose the EV over the ICE, their profits will suffer. And they need those profits to fund their transition to EVs. Kind of a catch 22, but it’ll probably work out for them in the end.
and additionaly to what steve203 said, the biggest reason for the explosion of pickup trucks - and prices - is the allowance for any business from individual contractors to construction companies to write off the purchase of pickups as a business expense starting back in the early '10s. A total sop to the big 3.
I suspect that’s not their main motivation. Not because of any assumptions about Ford’s relative profitability in vehicle powertrains, but because we pretty much saw the reason why they’re doing this play out.
Ford is supply-constrained. There’s a lot of demand for the Lightning. But they can’t make nearly enough to meet that demand. For the very limited number of vehicles they can make, the market-clearing price is much much higher than the price they were charging. That surplus between the market-clearing price was being captured by dealers.
It’s a rough analog to ticket scalping. Tickets to an event are limited. When Bruce Springsteen would set his ticket prices “affordably,” they would get bought up by scalpers - who would then re-sell at the price that was actually supported by demand. This is not an ideal situation for Bruce Springsteen. Attendees still have to pay a lot of money for the tickets, but the extra profit goes to the scalpers.
This was exactly what was happening with the Lightning. Supply is limited, demand is high, and the price Ford was previously charging was well lower than the market-clearing price under those conditions. So the dealers were charging premiums as they allocated their limited inventory at the actual market-clearing price. Which ended up irritating the customers, which itself ended up irritating Ford. They tried to solve that by direct action against the dealers. But that’s cumbersome and only spottily effective - I suspect because dealership agreements aren’t really focused on this rather unusual set of circumstances.
The easiest way to fix that problem is to raise the price from Ford to the actual market-clearing price. Which is what they’ve done. The five-figure dealer markups disappear, Ford gets a little more revenue directly for the product, and when they eventually get out from being supply-constrained they can lower the prices - which will get positive press and perhaps be misinterpreted as Ford becoming more efficient at making the cars, which is good publicity for them.
This is part of it, but not all of it. There are multiple reasons Ford is doing this now (as I mentioned because they can, and because they don’t want the transition to the EV version to be too abrupt, and because of supply chain issues, and because of recall/design issues, etc, lots of reasons out there). Also, this $2-3k price increase isn’t anywhere near what the dealers were/are charging as markup in many places.
And since they are a business, most of the time the “main motivation” is money, after all, that’s the main reason for a business existing in the first place. If you make $25k on trim A and $1-5k on trim B of a particular model, you can bet that they will try to steer as many customers as possible to trim A (ICE), and fewer to trim B (EV).
They’ve raised the prices multiple times. All together, they’ve raised the base price by around $20K.
" So initially when the Lighting debuted in mid-2021 for the 2022 model year, Ford advertised that the base Lightning Pro would start at $39,974. Add in the $1,795 destination charge and you’re looking at $41,769. Today, the Lightning Pro starts at $61,869, which includes a destination charge that’s increased by $100 ($1,895). If you’re doing the math, that’s a nearly 50 percent increase since the truck’s introduction and a $4,000 increase over the MSRP prior to production halting."
That’s a pretty sizable jump. I’m sure Ford is absolutely motivated in part by the possibility of more revenues, of course - it’s a for-profit company that’s investing a lot. But I also think that they just mis-priced the vehicle, and have been adjusting it upwards in increments until they find where they need to be.