11% Of Ford F-150 Lightning Pre-Orders Are From Tesla Owners

Perhaps you are not aware that there is a Lightning Owners forum for people who are waiting in line to get a Ford F-150 Lightning. But of course there is! The internet means affinity groups are springing up everywhere for fans of everything from curling to tattoos.

The Lightning Owners forum tracks the pre-orders received for Ford’s all new electric pickup truck, then slices and dices the data to find out what color is most popular and what options people prefer. But it also tracks what vehicle those people will be getting rid of to get an F-150 Lightning into their driveway.

As it turns out, 25% are current F-150 owners while almost none own a Chevy, GMC, or Dodge. The only non-Ford pickup that pops up regularly is the Toyota Tacoma, which 5% of reservation holders say they will be trading in when their F-150 Lightning arrives.

That a quarter of reservations are from current F-150 owners is interesting. On the one hand, it suggests that “truck people” are willing to embrace the EV revolution. On the other hand, the F-150 is far and away the most profitable vehicle Ford sells and the profit margin on the Lightning will probably not be quite as large, so Ford may see some reduction in net revenue if the electric truck starts eating into sales of the conventional truck.

What is interesting is that almost no Chevy, GMC, or Dodge truck owners are among the group of reservation holders. Perhaps those drivers are waiting for the electric pickup trucks from GM and Dodge before taking the plunge, but either way, the stats make it clear that brand loyalty is a powerful force in the world of pickup trucks. The data from Lightning Owners may suggest that companies like Rivian and Tesla could encounter significant sales resistance from traditional truck owners. Time will tell.

“But the trade-ins we think Ford will be most likely to brag about are the Teslas, and there are a lot. More than 11% of respondents report that their new Lightning will be replacing a Tesla,” Lightning Owners says.

That stat goes along with another finding in the survey, which is that fully 40% of Ford F-150 Lightning reservation holders say they already own or have owned an electric car. The fear of the unknown is less when people have already gotten to experience what EV ownership is like. Plus, there are now millions of electric car and SUV owners out there, but none of them have had the opportunity to buy an electric pickup truck so far. Many of them also have or want a truck, and know about the benefits of electric powertrains.

The last stat you may find interesting is that fully a third of F-150 Lightning owners have chosen one of the three shades of blue available for their new all-electric chariot. The most popular color of all is Antimatter Blue, a deliciously subversive name for a vehicle that will lead many a new owner into the terra incognita world of electric vehicles.