Ford Motor Co. is pivoting away from its once-ambitious electric vehicle plans amid financial losses and waning consumer demand for the vehicles.

Ford's next-generation F-150 Lightning ditches a pure EV format in favor of a gasoline-backed extended-range electric truck that promises massive range and towing capability.

The auto manufacturer will begin producing gas-powered Built Ford Tough truck models at its renamed Tennessee Truck Plant in 2029.

Four years after Ford bravely electrified its best-selling vehicle, the F-150 Lightning pickup, it seemed ready to drop the model owing to slowing demand. Now, it turns out the company's got other plans.

The end of the best-selling electric pickup truck is here: Ford is pulling the plug on the F-150 Lightning by the end of the year. It’s not dead dead, but the next version of the Lightning will be an extended range electric vehicle, known as an EREV. Ford is positioning it as the “next-generation.”

Ford says the next generation of the F-150 Lightning pickup truck will transition to a range-extended EV powertrain.

The automaker is ending production of its electric pickup while planning a series-hybrid F-150 and a new low-cost EV platform. “The company is shifting to higher-return opportunities,” Ford says.

Ford will take a $19.5bn (£14.5bn) hit as it tore up plans to invest significant sums into electric cars. The US car giant cut back electric vehicle (EV) production, including the production of large battery-powered pickup trucks, because of a slump in demand from drivers.

The purely electric pickup Ford F150 Lightning is retired, the electric van isn't coming at all. Instead, series hybrids are coming.

The carmaker’s skunkworks EV division has little to do with Ford as we know it—and that may help reverse the entire company's fortunes.