Ford dealers are taking advantage of strong demand for F-150 Lightning, marking it up by $30,000

Many Ford dealers are taking advantage of the strong demand for F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck and marking it up by as much as $30,000.

Amongst many other things, one great underappreciated thing that Tesla did was put the auto dealer model into perspective.

Tesla’s direct-to-consumer approach is not perfect, but it showed that there’s a major issue with having widely different prices between different dealerships for the same vehicle.

It’s something that is amplified by automakers using the dealership model also adopting a reservation process when launching a new electric vehicle. And it’s even more amplified when the new electric vehicle in question is as popular as the Ford F-150 Lightning.

As we previously reported, Ford has about 200,000 reservations for the electric pickup truck and its dealers are currently trying to convert them into orders.

With Ford reportedly planning to produce only 15,000 Lightning trucks in 2022, 55,000 in 2023, and 80,000 in 2024, it is going to be hard to secure a unit within the next few years – even with a reservation.

Several reservation holders are reporting that their local Ford dealerships are asking for significant markups on top of the Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) to secure an order.

The community on the ElectricVehicles subreddit is keeping track of dealership markups for a bunch of different electric vehicles and put together a very useful tool.

Reports from Ford F150 Lightning buyers are starting to be added to the dataset and it shows that several Ford dealers are trying to convert orders with a markup of up to $10,000 per vehicle.

We have even heard of a dealer in Virginia trying to ask for $30,000 to try to secure a F-150 Lightning from the first batch to be allocated to their dealership:

The good news is that some Ford dealers have committed to offer the F-150 Lightning for the MSRP, which starts at $53,000 for the mid-level XLT, and a base ‘Pro’ version is expected to start at around $40,000.

Electrek’s Take

To be fair, this is not just happening to the Ford F-150 Lightning, or even just electric vehicles for that matter.

It’s hard for buyers to get their hands on many popular pickup trucks right now and many dealers are making them up significantly.

But this is new for many electric vehicle buyers and is amplified by the strong demand for the Lightning.

It’s going to be important to shop around for a good dealer.