Ford delivers first F-150 Lightning EV to Tesla owner with Cybertruck booking

Ford delivered its first electric pickup truck F-150 Lightning to a customer in Michigan. Nicholas Schmidt became the first owner of Ford's F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. This delivery could be a massive posturing from Ford because Schmidt already owns a Tesla Model 3 electric car and has a booking for the Tesla Cybertruck which has seen several delays to its production timelines. He was also considering Rivian R1T electric pickup truck, added media reports.

Schmidt may have owned electric vehicles in the past but his background in farming made his family skeptical about electric pick-up trucks. “So when there were pickup trucks coming out that were going to be EVs, I said, ‘whichever one comes first, I’ll buy it,’" he said. Sharing his experience of booking the Tesla Cybertruck for $100, he said nobody in his family could believe it because it was the ugliest thing they’d ever seen. “But it was $100 and I figured, you know, what’s the worst that could happen?"

Last month, Ford announced that it has completely sold out the 2022 F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck and is not taking any more orders for the current EV model. Ford had also shared in a previous report that the all-new 2022 F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck received more than 2,00,000 reservations. Ford introduced the F-150 Lightning EV last year.

Ford had shared that the new F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck XLT and Lariat trims will offer a user with an extended EPA-estimated range of 514 km while the Platinum trim will offer an estimated range of 482 km. The automaker has claimed the electric pickup truck also has the ability to power homes in case of blackouts.

Ford, with its massive investment plans, is gearing up to compete with popular EV maker Tesla. The former has plans to invest around $20 billion in the next few years to achieve its electrification goals. Hence this first delivery shows Ford's seriousness to rattle Tesla's crown. Tesla, on the other hand, is currently planning to begin the production of its highly anticipated Cybertruck which it introduced in 2019. The production of the Tesla Cybertruck got postponed for consecutive two years and now Tesla chief Elon Musk has confirmed that the electric pickup truck goes into production early next year.