Enlarge / Electric F-150 sales are up 80 percent year over year. (credit: Ford)

Ford has caught a case of electric vehicle pessimism and is scaling back or delaying some of its plans for new EV models. A new electric pickup, scheduled to go into production next year, has been pushed back to 2026. And a three-row electric SUV has been given a two-year delay and will now not be available until 2027 at the earliest. The kicker? The automaker has published its sales for the first quarter of the year, and its EV sales are up a whopping 86 percent year over year.

Instead, the Blue Oval wants to focus on making more hybrids instead, and says it will have hybrid options for all its internal combustion engine-powered vehicles by 2030. Ford's current range of hybrids is not extensive, but it grew 42 percent in Q1 compared to the first three months of 2023.

Many of those—19,660 to be exact—were the Maverick Hybrid, despite the fact that for model year 2024, Ford removed the hybrid powertrain as the base model and effectively gave the electrified pickup a $1,500 price hike. In total, Ford sold 38,421 hybrids in Q1 2024, which it says makes this the best-ever quarter for hybrid sales. But they represent a rather small slice of its overall pie—just 7.6 percent of the 508,083 vehicles that Ford sold for the first three months of the year.

Enlarge / Ford was the first OEM to announce it was switching to J3400, and it's the first automaker to gain access to the Tesla Supercharger network. (credit: Ford)

Today, Ford electric vehicles gained access to the Tesla Supercharger network. Last May, the Blue Oval was the first automaker to throw its lot in with what was then called the North American Charging Standard and is now known as J3400. Ford proved to be the first domino falling, and with Stellantis' announcement earlier this month that it too would move to J3400, the more compact DC fast-charging plug will be the de facto standard in the next couple of years.

Until Ford made the switch, every non-Tesla EV in North America had settled on the Combined Charging Standard 1 plug (with the exception of the Nissan Leaf, which still uses CHAdeMO). CCS1 and J3400 use the same electronics communication protocols—only the actual plug and socket are different.

But it will take some time for car makers to start building J3400 ports into their EVs. That should begin next year, probably with the introduction of model year 2026. This means that EVs older than MY26 will need to use a passive adapter to mate a J3400 charger cable with a CCS1-equipped EV.

Enlarge / On February 9, Ford suspended shipments of model-year 2024 F-150 Lightning electric pickup trucks to dealerships. (credit: Ford)

Ford has temporarily suspended new shipments of its model-year 2024 F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck to dealerships from its factory in Michigan. It issued the stop-ship order in early February, according to Automotive News , but it's not clear when Ford will lift the measure.

"We started shipping the first newly designed F-150 pickups to dealers last week. MY24 Lightnings started shipping last month. We expect to ramp up shipments in the coming weeks as we complete thorough launch quality checks to ensure these new F-150s meet our high standards and delight customers," Ford told Ars.

Exactly what the problem is with the MY24 F-150 Lightnings is unknown, and Ford says it will "ramp shipments once quality checks are completed."

Enlarge / Americans love pickup trucks, but most pickup-truck loving Americans are not ready to go electric yet. Meanwhile, there's almost nothing to buy if you want a smaller, cheaper EV. (credit: Ford)

For the last two years, a small "skunkworks" at the Ford Motor Company has been working on a low-cost electric vehicle platform, according to Ford CEO Jim Farley. Farley revealed the existence of this new platform during the automaker's quarterly financial results call with investors on Tuesday evening. The company is rethinking its electrification strategy, having now faced up to the reality that the current crop of EVs are too expensive for mass-market adoption to take off.

Ford was early to market with its Mustang Mach-E crossover, itself the product of a skunkworks-style development process: an internal group called Team Edison , formed to add some excitement to what was originally going to be a more boring compliance car. The team also took the bold step of making a fully electric version of the country's best-selling vehicle, the F-150 pickup truck.

Demand for the electric F-150 Lightning appeared strong, but a series of price hikes has resulted in really expensive trucks languishing on dealer forecourts and Ford cutting production shifts to reduce output. The Mustang Mach-E is still selling, although with barely any growth year on year .

Enlarge / Ford was the first OEM to switch from CCS1 to J3400, and it's the first to ready an adapter for cars that have CCS1 ports. (credit: Ford)

Owners of Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup trucks and Ford Mustang Mach-E electric crossovers will soon be able to reserve an adapter that lets them use Tesla Supercharger stations. Ford CEO Jim Farley—last seen driving Ars around Charlotte Motor Speedway in a 1,300-hp Transit van—took to social media and confirmed that the adapter will be free and that owners will be able to reserve one soon.

"When we announced @Ford EVs would get access to @Tesla Superchargers, I said we'd send customers a Fast Charging Adapter. I'm pleased to confirm that eligible #MustangMachE & #F150Lightning owners in the U.S. + Canada can reserve a complimentary adapter starting soon," Farley wrote .

"This is our way of saying thank you! We want to make charging more convenient for our Ford EV owners, so we're excited to add Tesla chargers and will continue growing our BlueOval Charge Network. More details soon."

Enlarge / Electric Ford F-150 Lightnings being built at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan. (credit: Ford)

Production cuts are coming to the Ford F-150 Lightning. On Monday, Automotive News reported that Ford's suppliers have been told by the automaker that from January it is halving the production rate from 3,200 trucks a week down to 1,600 trucks a week.

Ford debuted a fully electric version of its best-selling F-150 pickup truck in 2022. You'd be hard-pressed to tell the electric F-150 Lightning from a gas- or diesel-burning F-150—bar some aerodynamic detailing here and there they all use the same body, and the EV hides its batteries neatly between the chassis rails.

That conservatism in design appeared to be a winning strategy with the pickup crowd. Ford's order books were flooded with over 200,000 reservations well before the truck hit the streets, spurring the automaker to announce last January that it would double its original production plan and aim for an annual production rate of 150,000 trucks a year.