Ford F-Series remains top-selling truck; new Lightning EV reportedly coming in 2025
It's the automotive equivalent of the annual return of the swallows of Capistrano.
Load Error For the 46th consecutive year, Ford (F) says its F-Series pick-ups will be the top selling truck in America for 2022. Though the official Ford sales data doesn't come out until January 5, the Dearborn-based automaker is fairly positive that the over 640,000 F-Series trucks sold will top rivals including GM, Toyota, and Stellantis' Ram brand, the company said in a statement.
Now if GM combined sales of its Chevrolet Silverado and corporate twin GMC Sierra pickups, it would be the top selling truck "platform: (shared engineering and production) in America, with 768,689 sold last year (with Ford F-Series at 726,004 last year). But that's not how it works, there's only one F-series. In fact Ford hasn't made corporate clones of its F-Series pickup since 2002 (Remember the Lincoln Blackwood?).
Those 640,000+ trucks sold would also make the F-Series the best-selling overall vehicle in America for the 41st consecutive year. Ford says if you lined up every Ford pick-up sold last year it would stretch 2,400 miles, or longer than the driving distance from Los Angeles to Detroit. Ford will also likely have sold around 15K or so F-150 Lightning pickups in 2022 -- its first year on sale -- and which also brings us to another bit of Ford news.
In a leaked report to clients, automotive production research firm AutoForecast Solutions (AFS) predicted the 2nd-gen Ford F-150 Lightnings will go into production starting on August 18, 2025. The report states that the 2nd-gen and 1st-gen Lightnings will be jointly in production for around 4 months before Ford fully transitions to the 2nd-gen platform, which will be the electric only TE1 platform. The current Lightning platform is shared with the regular gas-powered F-150.
Sam Fiorani, AFS VP of global vehicle forecasting, had this to say about the Lightning in a phone interview with Yahoo Finance: "The most recent info we have shows that the nex-gen F-series Lightning will go into production in August 2025. In the development of a new vehicle, dates change all the time, but current planning has that date in mind," Fiorani said.
Fiorani noted that AFS tracks production of vehicles in about 60 countries around the world, so "making sure that these dates are accurate allows our clients -- both suppliers and manufacturers -- to make sure they know when the market is changing." Ford may reveal more about its electric plans on February 2, when the company reports Q4 earnings. It will also be the last time Ford will combine results of its gas-powered and electric business lines in its quarterly earnings, as the company plans to break out the division results starting in 2023.
-- Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram.
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