No one in top comments is mentioning a key point. It was cheap looking.
How the truck looks is important. Outside the bottom end of market, it's a status symbol. I got a tundra TRD earlier this year and I've gotten multiple compliments on it because it's a good looking truck.
The F150 lightning looked cheap. The grill is this crappy plastic. And there was no upgrade feature to make it cooler.
If they had the option to make it look like the Raptor or one of their higher end F150s, it may have sold better.
Meh, it just looks like any other truck to me. It even has a sprinkle of the silly "wow very technology!" aesthetic pandering that's typical of EVs. But plenty of strong-selling EVs do that (see: Hyundai).
But you're right! An electric pickup truck is a status symbol, but an F-150 isn't a status symbol. The F-150 brand, and the blue oval itself, is associated with being an appliance. The branding is at odds with the starry-eyed futurism that drives EV sales.
Don't get me wrong, plenty of folks buy F-150s and Rams and Silverados who don't need them. But, those people are cosplaying their imaginary blue-collar grandfathers. An electric car goes against that retrospective way of thinking.
As for folks who actually need a pickup for practical reasons, they don't want a Lightning. Ford doesn't sell it with an 8 foot bed. Every time you get plywood or drywall or whatever, it's gonna hang out the back. Can't wait to see the look on your face when a ladder falls over onto the hood of your $75,000 truck.
How the truck looks is important. Outside the bottom end of market, it's a status symbol. I got a tundra TRD earlier this year and I've gotten multiple compliments on it because it's a good looking truck.
The F150 lightning looked cheap. The grill is this crappy plastic. And there was no upgrade feature to make it cooler.
If they had the option to make it look like the Raptor or one of their higher end F150s, it may have sold better.