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It isn’t every day that this Ford truck finds Jay Leno in the driver’s seat. “It does everything an F-150 does and in most places, does it better. It’s affordable, fast, quiet, it tows; and it’s got payload. All that stuff,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said of the 2022 F-150 Lightning electric truck.

Jay Leno took the Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck for a spin

Jay Leno drove the Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck
Ford CEO Jim Farley with the Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck | Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Ford CEO Jim Farley went on a casual ride with Jay Leno this week on an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage. Of course, the chariot of choice was the Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck. Of course, these two hopped in the F-150 Lightning Platinum Edition, which goes for a cool $93,000.

Leno asked Farley if the idea of making the most popular truck in the country an electric vehicle was a hard sell. “Yes, it was, actually. In fact, the first capacity proposal for the F-150 Lightning is now at 150,000 units a year, was 20,000.”

Ford executives seemed to think the cost of building a factory to produce this electric truck wasn’t worth it for 20,000 units. The higher-ups also thought, “We won’t make too much money on them, so we don’t want to make too many,” Farley said.

Jim Farley said getting people on board with the Ford F-150 Lightning wasn’t easy

The joke is on Ford, though. The automaker had to stop taking reservations for the first batch of F-150 Lightning electric trucks after it hit 200,000 reservations. Farley told Leno that he wanted to change the company, the image, and be able to scale up production as necessary. Turns out, that was very necessary.

“Ford has such experience with truck owners. We’ve been the best-selling truck and vehicle for four decades. We use that experience and it helped us a lot.”

Jim Farley | Ford CEO

One major issue the Ford CEO noted was that if the company was going to put this much effort into the F-150 Lightning, it still needed to be affordable. That $39,000 price tag was, and still is, a major selling point.

“It’s amazing how quiet this is, isn’t it?”

“I always say if a new technology succeeds, it can’t be equal. It’s gotta be better in every respect,” Leno said. That seems to be how the Ford F-150 Lightning has had a successful launch. The Lightning isn’t just an electric truck: it’s the Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck; it does everything a Ford F-150 truck might do but better. It has better features, a better range, and is better for the environment.

Jay Leno seemed pretty content with the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning truck, regardless of its electric status. The Ford F-150 Lightning is sold out for now, but it’ll be back. Deliveries of the first version should be in driveways soon enough, and the rest is history.

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Amanda Cline

Amanda Cline is an avid fan of Formula 1 and joined MotorBiscuit in 2021. A Southwest Floridian, she easily and often finds automotive events to attend in the Tampa, Orlando, and Miami areas.
Amanda is a graduate of the University of Central Florida, where she earned a Bachelor’s in English Literature and a Master’s in Technical Communication. Combining her editorial and digital media expertise, Amanda served as a content creator for FanSided and now provides our readers with a variety of automotive subject matter like pickup trucks and SUVs, including valuable consumer advice.

Amanda closely follows many F1 drivers, including Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, and the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team. Her all-time favorite author is Shel Silverstein.