Don't Be So Fast to Get Charged Up: Ford Lightning Orders Delayed. Maybe.

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

The same forum that told us to anticipate the order bank opening for the 2022 Ford Lightning next week is now saying “not so fast, my friend” (apologies to Lee Corso).

A forum user saw a note from a dealer suggesting that the order-bank opening has been delayed to December. The note was posted in a Facebook group.

The note says the truck will still be delivered on time.

Here it is, in full, with curses directed at whoever shared a screen shot I can’t C and P: “Unfortunately, the Lightning order banks will not be opening next week. They will now be opening in December 2021. I will reach back out in December to scheduled [sic] appointments to order Lightnings at that time. The arrival of the Lightning has not been delayed and is still due to arrive in mid-2022. Thank you.” I’ve redacted the salesperson’s info, but the dealership appears to be in Georgia.

The mystery, to the extent that it even existed in the first place, deepens.

[Image: Ford]

Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

More by Tim Healey

Comments
Join the conversation
4 of 25 comments
  • Hardee Hamlin Hardee Hamlin on Oct 24, 2021

    Nothing is delayed. Ford has been saying since the beginning that orders would start in Fall 2021 and production would start in Spring 2022. There have been rumoured, possible dates. But there’s still a lot of Fall left to go.

  • MitchConner MitchConner on Oct 25, 2021

    One issue is when people get a company F150 a gas card comes with it. Drive to work sites. Drive home. Fill it up at any station. Leave out in the driveway overnight. No problem. An electric one? Unless you want to dick around with off site charging — the employee either pays to charge it overnight or needs to calculate out the cost then expense it. Advantage gas card. Same goes if you own your own business. Clean separation of accounts with gas. More complications with electric. EcoBoost, please.

  • 28-Cars-Later 28-Cars-Later on Oct 25, 2021

    Much too early to tell but I suspect unless this is really gangbusters that Ford will play similar games that it has been with Mach-E, namely export available examples out of USDM (nearly 2:1 Mach-E exported vs sold in USDM) and hold back to a reasonable supply (30 days plus) while giving the false impression they are so hot we can't stock them. They have the obviously engineered at this point [INSERT CRISIS HERE] to fall back on if probed why supply is short.

  • EAM3 EAM3 on Oct 25, 2021

    My sister had one in the late 70s. Never had any reliability issues but it did start rusting within 2 years. I was too young to get behind the wheel but I remember my dad finding any excuse to borrow it because it was so much fun to drive.

Next