Ford earlier this week raised the worth of the bottom Ford F-150 Lightning electrical pickup by 1000’s—for the third time in 4 months. 

Simply 9 months since first deliveries, that places the bottom value of the 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning practically 40% greater than the unique base value for the 2022 model-year electrical truck—$57,869, versus $41,669. 

That’s for the fleet-focused F-150 Lightning Professional with the usual vary battery (and 240-mile rated vary)—the identical mannequin already marked up by 1000’s in October. The subsequent-up mannequin, the Lightning XLT with commonplace vary battery, additionally will get a value hike, to $65,365. 

Fleet consumers apart, if customers need the prolonged vary battery pack and its 320-mile score, the price of entry now stands at $82,869, for the XLT and that requires further choices. 

As gas costs proceed to trace downward, Ford can be making use of one other $100 value hike for the vacation spot price—to $1,895, included within the above costs. Ford had already raised the vacation spot price for 2023 with the final value hike. 

2022 Ford F-150 Lightning

Ford this time pointed to the availability chain—which is what it did in October, and in August. Though automakers look like break up on whether or not the worst of these points are over, an annual survey discovered that EV battery prices soared in 2022, as a result of rising uncooked materials and battery part costs. The F-150 Lightning makes use of battery cells made in Georgia, as a part of a three way partnership with South Korea’s SK Innovation.

Prime Lariat and Platinum variations of the F-150 Lightning seem untouched by this newest value hike. The highest Platinum, solely provided with the prolonged vary battery, begins at $98,319.

Ford stated that it’s going to finish EV seller markups and haggling with new seller preparations that begin in January 2024. With these value modifications it could be offering some stage of runway to that. And it may also be lifting the low finish of the Lightning lineup forward of one other electrical truck as a result of arrive in 2024. 

Ford F-150 Lightning Professional and E-Transit

“We alter pricing as a standard course of enterprise as a result of rising materials prices, market components, and ongoing provide chain constraints,” stated Ford Professional spokesperson Elizabeth Kraft, in a response to Inexperienced Automotive Studies. Kraft additionally emphasised that retail order holders awaiting supply are unaffected by this adjustment, as are business and authorities clients with a scheduled or dedicated order.

The extra puzzling piece of those value hikes, maybe, is the place this positions Ford for what earlier this 12 months appeared like a play to cost its EVs just like the Lightning for Ford Professional fleet companies. Ford executives had urged that low entry costs for its Professional fashions stand as an incentive for firms to have interaction within the firm’s even larger enterprise play: software program. With the order backlog Ford faces, that seems to not be the precedence—at the least not for now.