Any Chance of Improving My Odds to Order Lightning?

[discothan]

The most things sales people say isn't meant to benefit the buyer, lies or not.

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[Pedaldude]

A fair reservation process and the baroque relationship between Ford Motor Company and the automotive dealership cartels is mutually exclusive.

Combine the allocation discrepancies with supply and manufacturing minutiae between individual trucks and unless you have insider information, it will seem pretty random how trucks are distributed.

After the debacle with the Bronco reservation scheme, you would have to be a sucker to believe that a low reservation number or early timestamp is a guarantee for an early delivery.

Expect celebrities, social media influencers, executives and upper level management from large fleet customers to somehow get their trucks first.

Given time, supply will increase and people will get their trucks, just be patient and refuse to pay ADMs and you will be fine.

 

[GarageMahal]

The optimist in me believes that Ford is intentionally keeping quiet to minimize the ability of "problem dealers" to complain and have it altered in their favor. It makes me feel better anyway

In any case only a relatively small percentage of reservation holders with get a MY22, under half for sure. Most of us are not going to get one any time soon.

 

[vandy1981]

Expect celebrities, social media influencers, executives and upper level management from large fleet customers to somehow get their trucks first.

I have no love for how the reservation-to-order conversion process is working out so far, but there's no evidence that they're prioritizing the social media influencers, etc.

I have no doubts that they'll have early access to review units, though.

 

[Sundancer330]

I called my dealer and the sales manager told me they had over 100 reservations but he then transferred me to a salesperson who was managing all the Lightning reservations. That guy told me they had about 30 reservations. Lol. Car salespeople are so used to lying they don’t even align the lies they tell to their customers. It’s comical….can’t wait until they’re made obsolete….and EVs will play a role in that as service and maintenance issues become less necessary.

The dealers getting cut out of the picture wont happen for a long time. Look at all the winers on just this forum, everyday someone it bitching about something not right and looking to have the dealer fix it. Yes the EV has less major parts but its usually the little things people want repaired under warranty.

 

[FordLightning]

I have no love for how the reservation-to-order conversion process is working out so far, but there's no evidence that they're prioritizing the social media influencers, etc.

I have no doubts that they'll have early access to review units, though.

The problem is that every dealer in the Ford network is allowed to "prioritize" a % of their orders with no documentation as to the methodology. So out of the entire dealer network, I am sure some social media influencers, politicians, and drug dealers are included. ;-)

I'll leave if for someone else to prove me wrong (hint: you can't).

 

[SmoothJ]

A fair reservation process and the baroque relationship between Ford Motor Company and the automotive dealership cartels is mutually exclusive.

Combine the allocation discrepancies with supply and manufacturing minutiae between individual trucks and unless you have insider information, it will seem pretty random how trucks are distributed.

After the debacle with the Bronco reservation scheme, you would have to be a sucker to believe that a low reservation number or early timestamp is a guarantee for an early delivery.

Expect celebrities, social media influencers, executives and upper level management from large fleet customers to somehow get their trucks first.

Given time, supply will increase and people will get their trucks, just be patient and refuse to pay ADMs and you will be fine.

You would think they would learn with the Bronco and the Mach-E. At least in this case they already have a infrastructure in place for the F150 cab. This in theory should help in producing the numbers needed.

 

[Sklith]

As soon as I get my Lighting I'm going to blast Atlas by Battles.

 

[GOP.EV.Driver]

I'll one up you, I'm #87 at my dealer (small-ish town in SoCal), having ordered on the evening of May 19th itself (my reservation confirmation email has a time of 19:55 PST). I have no idea why I am so far down, and when I pressed my dealer, they got very defensive, telling me I was accusing them of something. They would not officially tell me how many vehicles they expect to get of MY22, rather they said they have no idea. One of the sales reps let out the number "200" and his higher up (who is managing the Lightning program) said that is "proprietary information" and would not confirm it.

I have absolutely no idea how the competing ideas of "Ford will honor the timestamp" and "dealer priorities matter" work, to be frank. Your explanation, while appreciated, also doesn't make sense. If Ford truly honors the timestamp and sends invite based on those, and the vehicle that you order based on that invite is actually going to be delivered to you, then how can they limit a dealer to 25 (or any number) of vehicles? It would just be based on how many customers at that dealership have the timestamp that made it to MY22.

I'd love to hear other people's views on this, and whether switching dealership will buy anything. I am calling around other dealerships in the area, but I'm going to be hard pressed to find a SoCal dealership which does not have an ungodly amount of reservations.

If curious if we are the same town. lol. What area code? 626 or 661?

 

[mustafazr]

If curious if we are the same town. lol. What area code? 626 or 661?

Lol. No we are not, sorry don't want to reveal my area code as to not expose the exact dealer. But not surprised to hear this is a common theme across EV-popular areas such as SoCal. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the dealers in downtown LA/SJ/SF areas have 100+ day 1 reservations. So I am taking these "all dealers will be limited to 5-10 MY22 vehicles" statements with a grain of salt. One of the dealers I spoke to said these allocations are in reference to "retail" units, i.e. those a dealer can sell to a walk-in customer, not in reference to custom orders placed using an online reservation.

I've spoken to 5+ dealers in the last 24 hours and each gave me different answer to my question if whether switching dealerships is beneficial, ranging from "don't switch, you could lose your place in line", "we have no more orders available", and "talk to Ford, we have no idea what's going on"

The consensus seems to be there is no consensus and nobody has any idea what criteria Ford will use for invites.

 

[sotek2345]

The optimist in me believes that Ford is intentionally keeping quiet to minimize the ability of "problem dealers" to complain and have it altered in their favor. It makes me feel better anyway

In any case only a relatively small percentage of reservation holders with get a MY22, under half for sure. Most of us are not going to get one any time soon.

Closer to 10 percent of reservation holders.

 

[SmoothJ]

Closer to 10 percent of reservation holders.

if we do the math on that, it will be 20K reservation holders. If every EV dealer were to be part of this (all 2100), that would be around 9-10 trucks each dealer.

 

[sotek2345]

if we do the math on that, it will be 20K reservation holders. If every EV dealer were to be part of this (all 2100), that would be around 9-10 trucks each dealer.

Yup, that is about right, though I would expect smaller dealers in the 3 to 5 range and some larger ones getting higher numbers. ZEV state dealers will also likely get more than non ZEV states.

 

[SmoothJ]

Yup, that is about right, though I would expect smaller dealers in the 3 to 5 range and some larger ones getting higher numbers. ZEV state dealers will also likely get more than non ZEV states.

Very true, but with an unknown allocation for each dealer, it’s a problem. It’s also a bit disconcerting about what wave you may or may not be on. Just hoping and crossing your fingers every 2 weeks up until your name could be called, and being disappointed when it not.

Not to mention that tax credit too… I know to not depend on the tax credit, but it’s something to help ease the amount paid out.

 

[andrewsimmering]

I'm seriously starting to wonder if I should move my reservation. I'm 43 out of 584 reservations. I ordered at 10:14 PM on the night of the reveal, so about 45 minutes after reservations started. Based on timestamp nationally, I'm guaranteed a MY22 order. Based on dealer allocation, I doubt it. Very frustrating!

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