Ford's electric F-150 Lightning died with a $19.5B EV write-down

The F-150 Lightning was the boldest EV bet in Detroit: the electric version of America's best-selling vehicle for four decades, launched in spring 2022 to waiting lists and praise, and briefly a symbol that even trucks would go electric.

Then the price war arrived. Tesla cut prices, hybrids ate the demand, and the Lightning went from waiting list to unsold lots. On December 15, 2025, Ford scrapped the all-electric F-150 Lightning as part of a $19.5 billion charge against its EV programs — the Model e unit had been losing billions a year — and moved a third of the Lightning workforce back to gas and hybrid F-150s. The next electric pickup would be a cheaper extended-range truck, not this one.

The badge was never the moat: F-150 buyers buy capability and price, and the electric version carried a premium for a powertrain the duty cycle did not need. When the subsidy and the novelty faded, the Lightning was a truck that cost more to buy and more to build — the nameplate could not carry the difference.