Ford's F-150 truck has been America's best-selling vehicle for 41 years in a row.
After launching an electric version, it received over 200,000 orders and had to close its order book in order to catch up.
"I think it surprised a lot in the industry, how ready people already were for electric vehicles," saysDarren Palmer, who heads up Ford's electric vehicle program.
Ford had to increase the number of trucks it can make in Michigan due to the high demand.
The factory they're building is almost the same size as the one they're currently producing. We had to open the doors again.
Despite recently committing $50 billion to its EV program, the success of an electric F-150 was not certain.
The chief engineer of the Lightning said she had to convince her colleagues to buy the vehicle. It's winning over customers who haven't owned an EV before, as well as younger drivers who haven't owned a Ford before.
It will take most of this year and some of next year just to convert the reservations and we haven't had it open for a year and a half.
More orders are likely to follow, he says, but first it has to convert a lot of existing reservations. Palmer was unable to say when this would happen.
Ford wants to double its annual output to 150,000 by the end of the decade.
Supply chain issues brought on by the Pandemic have made it difficult to cope with demand. The Wall Street Journal reported in September that Ford had to stop the delivery of some of its vehicles because of a shortage of blue badges.
The ongoing shortage of chips is the bigger issue. In the second price rise this year, the F-150 Lightning Pro was increased by $5,000 last month.
The company's decision to move some production closer to home was influenced by political factors as well as a massive supply chain restructure.
The vehicle that brought EV's into the mainstream in the US is thought to be the Lightning. The next phase of Ford's EV program will focus on in-car technology.
The things we're going to bring in the next three years are mind-blowing. He says they're doing things that vehicles have never done before.
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