A Ford dealership is drawing sharp criticism after adding a massive $35,000 “market adjustment” to a base-model F-150 Lightning electric truck, nearly doubling its manufacturer’s suggested retail price and leaving the vehicle sitting on the lot.
Video circulating online shows the window sticker of a white Ford F-150 Lightning listing a total MSRP of just $41,669. Right below it, in handwriting, the dealership slapped on a $35,000 market adjustment. The new “total delivered price” climbs to $76,659—before taxes, fees, or anything else.
The short clip pans across the official Ford sticker confirming the low base price, then zooms in on the handwritten markup, before showing the pristine white electric pickup parked outside the dealership under cloudy skies.
“Calling it a ‘market adjustment’ doesn’t magically make it reasonable,” one social media account posting the video noted. “I don’t know who’s paying an extra $35,000 just because the dealer says so. Then they wonder why new trucks are sitting on dealership lots.”
The F-150 Lightning was once hyped as the electric truck that would change everything. Ford marketed the base models as relatively affordable entry points into the EV pickup segment. Yet scenes like this have become familiar: dealers tacking on five-figure markups that erase any price advantage and leave inventory gathering dust.
Consumers watching the video are not amused. Many point out that while traditional gas-powered F-150s continue to move, the electric versions are lingering as buyers refuse to pay premiums that push a $41,000 truck into luxury territory.
Dealers have long defended market adjustments as a response to limited supply and high demand. But with electric trucks increasingly visible on lots and EV sales growth slowing, the strategy appears to be backfiring. The video underscores a simple reality: when the final price no longer matches the advertised value, shoppers walk away.
Ford itself has previously urged dealers to keep pricing closer to MSRP and has adjusted its own sticker prices downward on the Lightning in recent years. Yet individual dealerships still set the final number, and some continue to test how much buyers will tolerate.
The result, as the video makes clear, is another electric truck sitting idle while the dealership waits for someone willing to pay nearly double the manufacturer’s price.
