Ford CEO Jim Farley Totally Regrets Ford F150 Lightning Pickup

[Stubedo]

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a70394562/interview-jim-farley-ceo-ford-motor-company/

Not as much as I regret buying a Ford

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[Ventorum94]

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a70394562/interview-jim-farley-ceo-ford-motor-company/

Not as much as I regret buying a Ford

Seems to me that we bought $120,000 trucks for $70,000.

 

[Henry Ford]

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a70394562/interview-jim-farley-ceo-ford-motor-company/

Not as much as I regret buying a Ford

I mean, Ford quality isn't exactly top notch, but Farley is upset because he sold you a truck for about half of what it cost him.

 

[fvineyard]

I love my discounted truck. Just sad it was not profitable for Ford as well as (more) affordable for their customers. Would have been better for everyone if that had been the case....

 

[RLXXI]

He shot himself in the foot to begin with marketing or to be more precise, the lack of. If they'd have advertised it like they do smokers, probably would have sold more.

 

[CD4TNF]

The relevant paragraphs for anyone not inclined to click. Added brackets to clarify speaker.

The F-150 Lightning seemed to be selling well at first, but after you'd expanded to meet higher-than-anticipated demand, it didn't go as planned. Looking back at the Lightning, would you do it differently?

[Farley]I totally would've done it differently. I mean, look, we didn't know what we didn't know.

When did you realize you'd done EVs wrong?

[Farley]When we ripped apart a Tesla with Doug Field [Ford's chief officer for EVs, digital, and design, formerly of Apple and Tesla]. I was just absolutely flabbergasted. The Mach-E's wiring harness was 70 pounds heavier and 1.6 kilometers longer. We didn't know what was going on in [Tesla engineers' ] minds. But now we understand. They had no prejudice. We had prejudice. We'd gone to our supply-chain person and said, "Buy another wiring harness." [Tesla] said, "Let's design the vehicle for the lowest, smallest battery." Totally different approach.

 

[Ventorum94]

He shot himself in the foot to begin with marketing or to be more precise, the lack of. If they'd have advertised it like they do smokers, probably would have sold more.

I think the massive marketing campaign was the problem. I’ll never forget the picture of the Lightning towing a 30ft Airstream; they raised unnecessary, unrealistic expectations. Much smarter would have been to cancel the Tow Tech package, and make even a hitch receiver an option. The Lightning should have been marketed as a full-size luxury electric truck that excels at 90% of use cases (to market it as a $40k work truck, or as a towing champion, was just stupid). The caption should have been “if you drive less than 200mi a day, you can kiss your gasoline bill goodbye- and make every other full-size truck chase your taillights.” Smooth, powerful, quiet, powerful, handles like a sport sedan, powerful, low operating cost, powerful, refuel at home while you sleep, powerful, carry everything an F150 bed can hold; powerful…

 

[Mach Turtle]

I don't think the title of this thread is correct. Farley is not saying he regrets learning how to do things better; he's saying he (and the company) had to learn new ways of doing business, and learning is expensive.

The alternative would be not to learn how to make EVs. This would lead to the company shrinking or going out of business in the long run as newer technology which is better for more and more people gains market share. Some CEOs would happily drive their companies into the ground, lay off thousands, take their golden parachutes and leave their companies broken relics. A CEO who says, "What I'm passionate about is the sustainability of the company..." and means it will do better.

Making better EVs won't be easy in the short run, nor profitable this week for day traders, nor popular with politicians who take (legal) bribes from oil companies. But it will help give the company, and our country, a future.

 

[Ventorum94]

I don't think the title of this thread is correct. Farley is not saying he regrets learning how to do things better; he's saying he (and the company) had to learn new ways of doing business, and learning is expensive.

The alternative would be not to learn how to make EVs. This would lead to the company shrinking or going out of business in the long run as newer technology which is better for more and more people gains market share. Some CEOs would happily drive their companies into the ground, lay off thousands, take their golden parachutes and leave their companies broken relics. A CEO who says, "What I'm passionate about is the sustainability of the company..." and means it will do better.

Making better EVs won't be easy in the short run, nor profitable this week for day traders, nor popular with politicians who take (legal) bribes from oil companies. But it will help give the company, and our country, a future.

Not even Tesla has made a truck that can fly down the highway at more than 2.5mi/kWh. It’s a bit foolish to expect a vehicle with the frontal area of a full-size truck to be efficient! That’s not why we buy full-size trucks, ICE or electric. The Lightning was a technological success, and a marketing failure. Of course, the price of gasoline falling to historic lows in 2025 made EVs less attractive, at least to those who weren’t buying them to save the planet.

 

[TaxmanHog]

I think that Ford over reacted to the initial customer excitement with reservations, the plant expansion was a waste of money, should have waited a couple more years before considering increasing production capacity.

Remember how many folks interested in the basic Pro? These folks were disenchanted when they could not place orders due low availability, many walked away not being convince to pony up for a higher trim.

Covid's impacted all aspects of the economy, but the substantial constraints of technology, made it harder for way too long to produce product at planned prices.

Federal incentives going away and the aluminum supplier capacity restrictions were the nail in the coffin.

 

[Ventorum94]

….
Remember how many folks interested in the basic Pro? These folks were disenchanted when they could not place orders due low availability, many walked away not being convince to pony up for a higher trim.
….

True enough, but more evidence of Ford’s juvenile marketing plan. The F150 Lightning was going to be both the top of the F150 line (in Platinum trim) and an economical work truck (as the Pro). In retrospect, this seems amateurish, and evidence of a culture at Ford that discouraged anyone in-the-know from saying “the emperor has no clothes.”
The Lightning was an excellent product, as an electric full-size truck, well suited to 90% of use cases, and not likely to be equalled (let alone excelled) by any other true full-size electric truck
design by another manufacturer. To suggest that what the Lightning market really wanted was a smaller, more-affordable electric truck is just denial and shortsightedness. We are full-size new truck buyers, after all; the golden market segment sustaining today’s U.S. auto industry!.

 

[Heliian]

Not every business venture will be a success.
If they never tried then we wouldn't have these awesome trucks.

I always equate it to how everyone is quick to forget how we used to have lightbulbs that draw 10x the amount of power. We only got to mass market and affordable LEDs by the CFL as a stepping stone and a few other failed concepts. Progress is a good thing regardless if the shareholders don't like it. Consumers didn't like it either, they wanted to keep their inefficient lightbulbs because they had a "better colour" and would "last longer". I'm happy that incandescent bulbs are gone, it makes life easier now and cheaper.

 

[RLXXI]

I think the massive marketing campaign was the problem. I’ll never forget the picture of the Lightning towing a 30ft Airstream; they raised unnecessary, unrealistic expectations. Much smarter would have been to cancel the Tow Tech package, and make even a hitch receiver an option. The Lightning should have been marketed as a full-size luxury electric truck that excels at 90% of use cases (to market it as a $40k work truck, or as a towing champion, was just stupid). The caption should have been “if you drive less than 200mi a day, you can kiss your gasoline bill goodbye- and make every other full-size truck chase your taillights.” Smooth, powerful, quiet, powerful, handles like a sport sedan, powerful, low operating cost, powerful, refuel at home while you sleep, powerful, carry everything an F150 bed can hold; powerful…

I can't honestly remember ever seeing any commercial on the tube. Not for the Lightning, Mach e yea I seem to recall 1 or 2.

 

[RickLightning]

I can't honestly remember ever seeing any commercial on the tube. Not for the Lightning, Mach e yea I seem to recall 1 or 2.

 

[RLXXI]

Never seen them on tv. Haven't seen those on the net yet though.

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