The Verge has a great article out today that highlights how Ford is ready for Lightning production

www.theverge.com

The F-150 Lightning is finally shipping — is Ford ready?

From vapor to reality
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

Some of the key things the article points out includes:
  • The plant had built about 1,800 Lightnings when we spoke, and Farley says that while Ford will be “on plan” with its capacity goals, he simply laughs and says “no” when asked if production will meet demand anytime soon.
  • If things go well, Farley predicts Ford will run out of its 125,000 $7,500 EV tax credits sometime late this year or early next year.
  • Ford makes around a million F-series trucks a year, which means it buys a lot of chips, and Farley has prioritized making sure the Lightning gets the chips it needs out of that supply. “I don’t see the chips as a constraint for Lightning,” says Farley. “I definitely see it as a constraint for our company. But we’re not going to produce 20 percent less Lightnings because we got 20 percent less chips for the F-series.”
  • The Lightning will ship with a new charging-locator map that identifies fast chargers and allows users to report broken or malfunctioning charging stations. “We’ve done a lot of benchmarking of our competitors’ algorithms to find a charger and there are others that were better than us,” says Farley. “It was very impressive to see what Hyundai did for their Ioniq 5.”
  • course, the biggest software change of all will come when Ford’s collaboration with Google on an entirely new Android-based Sync infotainment stack that has Google Maps and other services arrives next year. Ford has said “millions” of vehicles will run this new version of Sync by 2023, but Farley says it’s running behind schedule by “months.”
  • Current Ford vehicles will not be upgradable to the new Android-based Sync — which means these first Lightnings off the line will have Ford’s existing Sync 4 system, while 2023 Lightnings that ship next year will have the new Android-based Sync, a potential silver lining for impatient preorder buyers.