Ford Names New Electric Truck F-150 Lightning

Ford Motor  (F) - Get Report said Monday that its new electric truck will be named the F-150 Lightning and will be unveiled May 19.

“Every so often, a new vehicle comes along that disrupts the status quo and changes the game: Model T, Mustang, Prius, Model 3. Now comes the F-150 Lightning,” the Dearborn, Mich., auto giant's chief executive, Jim Farley, said in a statement.

“America’s favorite vehicle for nearly half a century is going digital and fully electric. F-150 Lightning can power your home during an outage; it’s even quicker than the original F-150 Lightning performance truck; and it will constantly improve through over-the-air updates.”

The truck will be built by Ford-United Auto Workers staff at the Ford Rouge Complex in Dearborn, beginning next spring, the company said.

Ford recently traded little changed at $11.81. It has jumped 45% over the past six months amid buoyant demand for autos.

Ford said last week that retail sales in April rose 57% from April 2020, which coincided with the pandemic, and 24% from April 2019, a year prior to the pandemic.

Taken together, retail truck and SUV sales were up 70%, "providing Ford Truck and SUV sales with their best April retail sales performance since 2006,” the company said.

Ford’s total sales hit 197,813 in April, up 65% from 120,044 a year earlier.

In April, the auto titan posted first-quarter earnings that beat analyst forecasts and reiterated guidance, but also said second-half production will be hit dramatically by the global semiconductor shortage.

Ford posted adjusted earnings of 89 cents a share, four times the 22-cent-a-share adjusted-profit estimate of analysts polled by FactSet.

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