'Wow:' Tesla CEO Elon Musk Flabbergasted By Data On Unsold Ford F-150 Lightning EVs At Dealerships

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday reacted to a report of rival automaker Ford Motor Co‘s F F-150 Lightning trucks piling up unsold at dealers.

What Happened: According to data compiled by an X user who goes by the handle @alojoh, Ford F-150 Lightning wholesale sales peaked in the fourth quarter of 2022 at 6,857 units.

However, in the last quarter, Ford sold merely 3,503 vehicles, marking a slump of 49% from its peak popularity. Nearly 29%, or over 8,000 new Lightning vehicles are still listed on vehicle search business CarEdge, they noted.

“Considering the total cumulative sales figure of 27,877 F-150 Lightning units delivered to dealerships, this indicates that approximately 29% of all F-150 Lightning vehicles ever manufactured remain unsold, sitting idle on dealers’ lots,” he wrote.

Musk reacted with a “Wow.”

Why It Matters: The analysis proves Musk wrong, given that he had commended Ford’s overall EV strategy as smart in May while also noting that the F-150 Lightning has “high demand.“

The F-150 Lightning is an electric pickup from Ford and is considered to be one of the competitors to Tesla’s upcoming Cybertruck.

Last week, Ford reportedly reduced its production capacity at its Rogue, Michigan plant, responsible for manufacturing the F-150 Lightning. The automaker also introduced discounts on certain F-150 Lightning variants.

In July, Ford cut the price of the vehicle by as much as $9,979, allegedly in an attempt to create an order bank for when the company triples production at its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Michigan.

"The ramp on the F-150 in September is really significant. We always knew that we had to build an order bank that looked nothing like the original F-150 Lightning order bank because our production is tripling," Ford CEO Jim Farley said during the company’s second-quarter earnings.

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