DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford Motor stated on Tuesday that it had produced about 2,000 electrical F-150 pickup vehicles and deliberate to start delivering them to prospects within the subsequent week.
The automaker stated it was fine-tuning software program within the vehicles earlier than releasing them to sellers, the corporate’s chief govt, Jim Farley, stated at a kickoff occasion on the manufacturing unit the place the truck is made in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb.
Mr. Farley and different executives have described the truck, the Lightning, as crucial mannequin Ford has launched in many years. The corporate wants the pickup to promote nicely to take an even bigger share of the fast-growing marketplace for electrical autos.
“That is historical past within the making,” stated William C. Ford Jr., the corporate’s govt chairman. “This truck goes to vary all the pieces.”
The primary vehicles produced are aimed toward business prospects and have a beginning value of just below $40,000, Mr. Farley stated.
Ford, Common Motors, Volkswagen and different established automakers have been spending billions of {dollars} to develop electrical autos to attempt to catch as much as Tesla. Ford is forward of most of its rivals, having launched an electrical sport utility automobile, the Mustang Mach-E, that has turn into the third-best-selling electrical automobile within the nation, behind two Tesla fashions.
Ford has stated it has taken greater than 200,000 reservations for F-150 Lightnings.
“We plan to problem Tesla and turn into No. 1 on the earth,” Mr. Farley stated. “That’s one thing nobody would have believed two years in the past.”
Tesla expects to promote about 1.5 million electrical vehicles globally this 12 months. The corporate not too long ago began manufacturing at vegetation close to Berlin and close to Austin, Texas.
G.M., which had an early begin on many different legacy carmakers with the Chevrolet Bolt however was dealt a setback when it needed to recall these vehicles over battery points, has not too long ago launched some luxurious electrical autos, together with a Hummer pickup truck and the Cadillac Lyriq, an S.U.V. It expects to supply a mass-market electrical pickup truck subsequent 12 months.
The F-150 Lightning is being assembled at a brand new manufacturing middle that’s a part of Ford’s Rouge industrial advanced, the place the corporate started making the Mannequin T greater than 100 years in the past.
