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Another Ford F-150 Lightning has been spotted in Australia – and this one is owned by Ford Australia, not a private importer. But the car is no closer to local showrooms.
A left-hand-drive example of the Ford F-150 Lightning electric pick-up has been caught on camera in Melbourne weeks after the Australian launch of twin-turbo petrol V6 versions of the US pick-up.
However Ford Australia says the vehicle is here for “engineering evaluation” only – and insists it is “not an indicator of Lightning being developed for the Australian market” as the pick-up “remains left-hand drive only”.
The US car giant has previously expressed interest in bringing the F-150 Lightning here, although it is pending the success of the local left- to right-hand-drive conversion program for the regular twin-turbo V6 petrol Ford F-150 line-up.
Images posted to Facebook show a brown F-150 Lightning wearing stickers warning of its left-hand drive layout – and “engineering evaluation vehicle” status – recharging in a Melbourne car park.
Searching the Lightning’s recent Victorian number plates on the VicRoads website returns an error message – a hallmark of evaluation vehicles on car-manufacturer registration plates.
“Ford’s Australian Product Development team work on a wide variety of global vehicle programs, including many left-hand drive only vehicles for overseas markets,” a Ford Australia spokesperson said in a statement to Drive.
“The F-150 Lightning spotted on Melbourne roads recently is in Australia for engineering evaluation, and is not an indicator of Lightning being developed for the Australian market.
“Lightning remains left-hand drive only, and unavailable for sale in Australia. Customer deliveries of Ford Australia locally re-manufactured right-hand drive F-150 [petrol] variants will start shortly,” the statement said.
The vehicle spied appears to be a Lariat model, available in standard-range form with a 386km claimed driving range and dual electric motors producing 337kW/1050Nm – or an extended-range battery enabling 515km of claimed range and 433kW/1050Nm from dual motors.
Another F-150 Lightning was seen in Queensland in September (below) – in right, not left-hand drive – but it is believed to be a private import converted to right-hand-drive by a third-party company, as Ford Australia confirmed it did not own the vehicle.
“When it comes to [F-150 Lightning], would I love it? Absolutely. I definitely think there’s a customer for it,” Ford Australia president and CEO, Andrew Birkic, told Australian media earlier this year.
“We’ve seen that globally, well in certainly North America, but our focus right now is landing the plane … on XLT and Lariat remanufacturing, and that has to be our focus.”
A few months later Mr Birkic told Drive: “We’re not ruling it out, but I can categorically say there is no formal paper saying [the Lightning] is approved and this will happen tomorrow.”
“We’ve got processes that we walk through that get us into these program approvals should we get the green light.
“Certainly the approach we’ve taken is we believe that if we can get this [regular F-150 conversion program] right and prove to head office that our quality is good, the customers love it, and there’s a market for it, then I think we’re in a pretty good position to say, ‘Hey, we think there’s a business case [for Lightning or F-150 Raptor].’”
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