The new F-150 Lightning is a hot electric truck in high demand, and Ford wants to make sure that anybody who wants to experience it will have the opportunity, and will even go as far as banning dealerships from selling their demonstration models.
According to leaked documents discovered by F150LightningForum.com, dealers will have to hold on to their mannequin model for at least 6 months before selling them, or they will face a fine of $25,000, and be forced to replace it within 90 days.
Ford would prefer to have the mannequin model sitting at a dealership for customers to experience, and hopefully sway them into buying an electric vehicle, rather than the dealership making a plump profit on them.
The F-150 lightning is in extremely high demand, with 200,000 reservations for the electric pickup already spoken for. With an annual production of 150,000 units, Ford says the lightning is already sold out for the year, and that people who want one will have to order and wait.
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All EV certified Ford dealers are guaranteed to receive one early unit as part of a demo program dubbed ‘The Ford courtesy transportation’. So, if a Ford dealer has an F-150 Lightning sitting on its lot, it’s pretty tempting to add some ridiculous markup and sell it to someone who is willing to pay. Ford also has a similar program with the Bronco when it was first hitting the showrooms, but without the financial penalty for selling. It’s likely because of this, that Broncos ended up being marked up exponentially.
Whether the strategy will work remains to be seen, as vehicle supply and demand have already caused huge markups for almost every automaker, and customers are still forking over the cash. It’s very likely that a dealer could mark up new F-150 Lightning by $25,000 in order to offset the cost of the fine, but this could lead to the loss of sales incentives or even cause them to be ineligible for future Ford demo vehicle programs.
