Ford’s Christopher Skaggs projects an unusually calm demeanour for a man tasked with ramping up production of the electric F-150 pick-up truck with 200,000 customers waiting in line for one at the last count.

The runaway success of an electric variant of the best-selling car in the US, caught Ford off-guard. Though the F-150 packaging is a crowd pleaser, it was less certain what customers would make of a battery-powered and planet-friendlier variant of this macho-looking motor.

Any doubt there was though, is now gone and Skaggs, Ford’s battery electric vehicle planning and implementation manager at its Rouge plant in Dearborn, on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, has the job of increasing output of the ‘Lightning’ EV four-fold to 150,000 by the autumn of 2023.