Ford slashes the price of its acclaimed electric pickup, the F150 Lightning, by up to $10,000 as the market floods with competitors

Ford has announced that it is slashing the prices of its acclaimed electric pickup by thousands of dollars across the board as competitors will launch similar models.

Sticker prices for Ford’s F-150 Lightning electric pickup trucks are slashed by thousands of dollars across the board, the company said Monday,

The Detroit automaker cited increased factory capacity, falling battery raw material costs and internal efforts to scale production by the Detroit automaker.

The base model of the electric truck, the Pro, is now selling for just under $50,000 – $10,000 more than the previous price.

The most expensive model, the Platinum Extended Range, now costs about $92,000 – more than $6,000 less than previously stated.

President Joe Biden driving the new electric Ford F-150 Lightning at the Ford Dearborn Development Center in Dearborn, Michigan on May 18, 2021

All models of the truck have had price cuts averaging about $8,000.

The price cuts across the Lightning line were seen as more evidence of a coming price war among electric vehicle manufacturers, but Ford Motor Co. fell 5 percent on Monday.

Ford’s announcement comes two days after Tesla said its first production Cybertruck electric pickup truck had rolled off the assembly line – albeit nearly two years behind original schedule and with little information on how much they could cost.

Tesla originally said it would make three versions of its Cybertruck, ranging from about $40,000 to $70,000. The company later removed prices from its page where customers can decide if they want to put down $100 and place an order.

Rivian, another electric pickup truck maker, recently announced that deliveries nearly tripled in the second quarter and stock prices are up more than 41 percent this month.

“Ford hears footsteps from Cybertruck and Rivian,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said on Twitter.

Tesla has made aggressive price cuts across its portfolio in recent months as competition intensifies and major automakers shift production to electric vehicles. Ford responded to price cuts at Tesla in January and slashed the price of its Mustang Mach-E electric SUV by as much as $6,000.

Ford’s announcement comes two days after Tesla said its first production Cybertruck electric pickup had rolled off the assembly line

Rivian, another manufacturer of electric pickups, recently announced that its deliveries almost tripled in the second quarter

Ford said this month that sales of its F-150 Lightning more than doubled in the second quarter, rising 4.1% over the first three months of the year.

The automakers had previously raised the price of the truck citing “significant material cost increases” for components such as lithium, cobalt and nickel.

CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk that all current and future Ford Motor Co. will have access to approximately 12,000 Tesla Supercharge stations in the US and Canada starting next spring. Commercial customers also have access to Ford Pro Charging solutions to keep their F-150 Lightning charged whether they are charging at home or at work.

The F-150 Lighting is the electric version of America’s best-selling truck, the Ford-150.

It features an $11,000 131 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion pack battery, which is nearly ten times more powerful than a Tesla Powerwall.

In addition, according to Ford engineers, the battery can charge an average American home for up to three days.

This makes the F-150 Lighting the first electric vehicle sold in the US with bi-directional charging, meaning it has the ability to both power the vehicle and send power to a home or the grid.