20,000 People Plunked Down Deposits for the F-150 Lightning on Day One

Recently Ford CEO Jim Farley was on CNBC, where he talked about the reveal of the 2022 F-150 Lightning pickup. Farley mentioned that within 12 hours of the truck debuting on May 19, the company already had 20,000 reservations on the books. Each of the people who reserved the electric pickup plunked down $100.

It’s worth noting that while 20,000 people reserved the truck, some of those will ask for a refund, and the deposit is fully refundable. As with any preorder, there’ll also be those who fall out of the process for various reasons. During the interview, Farley also mentioned that Ford would be limiting the production of the truck for its first year. However, he didn’t indicate how many trucks they are expecting to deliver.

The Mustang Mach-E was limited to 50,000 units in its first year of production. Whether or not Ford will produce the Lightning in more or fewer numbers than that is unclear at this time. Some third-party estimates say that Ford will limit production to 80,000 trucks per year based on capacity data from parts suppliers for the truck. Battery availability tends to be the biggest bottleneck in electric vehicle production.

The 2022 F-150 Lightning starts at $39,974 for the entry-level version aimed at commercial fleets. That price does not include the destination charge or state and federal tax incentives for purchasing electric vehicles.