Move over Thor: Ford’s Lightning EV heading to Norway
Ford’s F-150 Lightning is heading to the land of Thor, the god of Thunder.
Ford (F) announced that the Lightning pickup is entering its first international market next year with Norway, one of the biggest electric vehicle markets in the world. Ford said the demand for the Lightning is high there — and customers can sign up now to purchase special edition F-150 Lightning Lariat EVs.
Ford’s move to sell the Lightning EV abroad is not a surprise. But picking Norway as a launch country was a little unexpected. To be sure, it is a country where 80% of new car sales are electric. But it is only home to only around 5.4 million people.
“This is really a story about the customers, since we launched the vehicle, [the Norwegians] formed a Facebook group. It ended up with over 4,000 [potential] customers on there, and they demanded that we bring the vehicle to the region,” Darren Palmer, VP of EV programs at Ford Model E, said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
Added Ford Norway chief Per Gunnar Berg: “I’ve had customers literally banging on my door and pleading for us to bring the electric pickup to Norway.”
The launch also comes only a couple weeks before Ford will announce its first-quarter earnings results — and for the first time report results across three new operating units: its EV business (Ford Model E), its traditional gas-powered car unit (Ford Blue), and Ford Pro commercial sales. Last month, Ford said its EV business unit is projected to lose $3 billion this year, but the company expects to hit its 8% EBIT margin objective by late 2026, “which is tied to planned global electric vehicle production run rates of 600,000 units by the end of 2023, and two million by the end of 2026.”
Ford, as it ramps up to double-production capacity of the Lightning to 150,000 vehicles per year at its plant in Dearborn, Michigan, must meet soaring customer demand both in the U.S. and now potentially foreign markets.
This demand has helped alleviate some of the pricing pressures felt by Ford since rival Tesla (TSLA)started cutting prices this year, Palmer said. Though the company did have to cut Mustang Mach-E prices, the company’s EVs are “completely sold out” at the moment, and Palmer said the company is “monitoring the situation for dynamics for pricing, and we will adjust as the market sees fit and how our customers value our products.”
As for its fans in Norway, the special edition Lightning will be offered in Super Crew Cab body styles only and in limited colors. Ford will sell the vehicle at Ford-authorized dealers that feature EV infrastructure and the capability to service F-150 Lightnings and other Ford EVs, like the upcoming European-only Ford Explorer EV.
Pricing hasn't been announced.
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Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram.
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