Zac Quinn 
Ford has raised the price of its entry-level F-150 Lightning once again. This marks the second price hike over the past two months, and Ford says the culprit is the rising cost of materials and supply chain issues. We hope this will be the last, but it’s hard to tell.
Ford F-150 Lightning Price Bump: Details
The new starting price for a base-level Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck will set buyers back $53,769, including the $1,795 destination fee. That’s up $5,000 from a base price of $48,769 with destination, which was set in August. By comparison, when the Lightning Pro first went on sale, it came in at under $40,000. Ford was able to price the Lighting so aggressively at the time because of scale and sharing some common parts with its existing full-size pickups.
Ford already had an aluminum-bodied vehicle, and they didn’t have to set out to retool the entire thing to build the F-150 Lightning, which was how they were able to price the lineup as it was and still turn a profit. However, in recent months rising commodity costs have wiped out early profits on the Mustang Mach-E and other EVs. Automotive News reports that Ford says inflation-related supplier costs will be about $1 billion higher than expected in the third quarter of 2022.
The Blue Oval also says it will finish the third quarter of 2022 with between 40,000 and 50,000 unfinished vehicles waiting on parts. That’s not overwhelmingly surprising, as supply chain issues have been plaguing the industry for a while now. We also reported that rising commodity costs would translate to higher MSRPs for EVs. Luckily, there is a slight silver lining as it has recently been predicted that the microchip shortage could be alleviated by the end of next year, which is just one less thing to slow down production. Unfortunately, that won’t speak for the assortment of other parts in short supply.
