DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. has raised the starting price of its entry-level F-150 Lightning Pro trim for the second time in less than two months as it struggles with rising material costs and supply chain issues.
A spokesman on Wednesday confirmed the Pro trim on the electric vehicle now starts at $53,769, including a $1,795 shipping fee. That’s up from the $48,769 price, including shipping, that Ford announced in August as part of across-the-board hikes for all 2023 model year trims.
The spokesman said the Pro trim was the only model to see an additional increase for now, citing “ongoing supply chain constraints and rising material costs.” He said Ford would continue to monitor pricing.
The cheapest Lightning now costs more than $10,000 over what was advertised at the truck’s reveal about a year and a half ago.
Ford at the time said it was able to price the Lightning so aggressively because of scale and by sharing some common parts with its existing full-size pickups.
“We have an aluminum-bodied vehicle that’s already the head of its market. We didn’t need to retool the whole thing,” Darren Palmer, Ford’s vice president of EV programs, said at the time. “As a result, we can offer a vehicle at that price with this whole lineup and make money on it.”
However, executives have noted in recent months that rising commodity costs have wiped out early profits on the Mustang Mach-E and other EVs.
Ford last month warned that its third-quarter earnings will be marred by higher-than-expected supplier costs and a lack of parts.
The automaker said that inflation-related supplier costs during the third quarter will run about $1 billion higher than it had expected. Separately, it expected to finish the period with 40,000 to 45,000 unfinished vehicles waiting on parts, most of which will be high-margin pickups and utility vehicles.