► Road test of all-electric F-150
► Ford’s bestselling pick-up EV
► US sales only, for now…
Americans just can’t quit their Ford pick-up trucks. The Blue Oval has moved over 26 million F-150s in the States, making it the top-selling vehicle in the land of the free for nearly a half-century. It’s no wonder Ford hustled to offer an electrified version of its full-size best-seller, modifying the well-worn platform for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Quick – give ’em a zero-emissions option before they fall for that new Chevy EV. Or a Rivian.
A funny thing happened on the way to Ford’s electric truck.
Despite the inertia of the ages, the new F-150 Lightning is, for lack of a better pun, shockingly good. Desperate to lavish the battery iteration with unique selling points, Ford engineers cleared the area once reserved for an engine and related bits to form a 408-litre front trunk that can double as an ice cooler for tailgate parties.
The space also holds up to 180kg – you know, for sides of beef or organic tofu, if you’re into that kind of thing. It also packs four 120-volt power outlets beneath its power-operated lid. In typical bigger-is-better form, the all-American feature couldn’t just be called a frunk; Ford-ese refers to it as a Mega Power Frunk. Go figure.
Ford F-150 Lightning: ride and handling
Because the revised chassis ditches the standard truck’s leaf-spring suspension, the F-150’s bouncy/jouncey ride is replaced with a placid glide. It’s not quite as languid as the Rivian R1T’s hydraulic set-up, and we wouldn’t call it a waft. But its road manners are nearly as well-tempered as Bach’s clavier, exhibiting a sense of serenity that is simply absent from its internal-combustion counterpart.
Some of these improvements are due to the simple benefits of improved articulation over uneven surfaces. But the Lightning’s heft also deserves some credit. Yes, the internal-combustion powertrain components aren’t featherweight, but the addition of batteries robust enough to produce viable driving ranges for most people can boost kerbweight to a hefty 3175kg. The standard-range battery delivers 230 miles, while the extended battery achieves 320 miles (or 300 in Platinum trim) on the US EPA scale – impressive achievements considering the truck’s heft and what appears to be the aerodynamic profile of a brick wall.
Some of the Lightning’s easy road demeanour comes because of, not in spite of, its weight. Cruise along a gently winding road at a vaguely frisky pace, and the truck can hang with your requests. But try to tackle the technical bits with a heavy right foot, and you might feel like William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry attempting to dance a soft-shoe.
For all the pleasantly squishy aspects of the Lightning’s ride and handling, 775lb ft of twist on tap makes this dual-motor truck the torquiest F-150 yet. In extended-battery trim, which produces 581bhp, the EV is also the fastest-accelerating F-150 available – even quicker than the brappy Raptor, dispatching 0-60mph in the mid-four-second range. Opt for the milder standard battery, and its 452bhp output will scoot to 60mph in five seconds flat.
The thing about truck people is that even the poseurs pretend to care about things that are more important to a working lumberjack than to amateur outdoorsmen. That said, the F-150 Lightning claims up to a 1014kg payload and 4536kg of towing capacity, the latter of which we put to the test during a towing demonstration deep in the heart of Texas.
Though it’s visually difficult to tell the Lightning apart from its fuel-burning equivalents, the sensation behind the wheel couldn’t be more different. Right off the bat, the calibration of the throttle response and the lack of gears both feel perfectly suited to hauling around massive amounts of weight; there’s an intuitive tug, no slop of a torque converter, and zero hunting for gears as the vehicle and its haul get up to speed.
The sensation is liberating for those familiar with pulling significant loads under straining conditions – up hills, across varying speeds, and any time there has been a modicum of mechanical sympathy extended to the strains of a heavily taxed valvetrain or transmission temperature.
Ford’s Towing Technology Package adds a 360º camera, an integrated trailer-brake controller, Trailer Backup Assist, and what’s referred to as Onboard Scales and Smart Hitch, which estimates cargo weight in real time.
Battery range, towing capacity
Opt for the standard-range battery and towing capacity drops to a still-useful 3493kg. The Lighting uses an intelligent range estimator that considers traffic speed, ambient temperature, route topography and driving patterns to factor in a charging strategy for road trips. Nifty. However, we would have liked more control on regen, which can be set to high or low via the menu displayed on the multimedia screen, and is automatically fine-tuned within each driving mode.
Dial into Off-road mode and the steering becomes slower and the throttle gentler. While it can’t claim Rivian’s whiz-bang four-motor set-up which leans on vectoring to alter its off-road manoeuvrability, the Lightning’s dual motors deliver plenty of control over loose surfaces. Even more revelatory than towing with an electric truck is the experience of off-roading in one, perhaps because the ability to drive over nearly anything seems anathema to a vehicle powered by batteries. Creep forward in silence over a rocky patch with the windows down, and the squish of tyre tread can be heard; climb a steep trail, and the rustle of leaves and bird chirps fill the cabin. Who knew that emission-free driving can get so emotional?
If anything, the depth of the F-150 Lightning’s capabilities seems surprising because the truck is essentially a platform adapted to electrification, not a clean-sheet, ground-up design. That said, the familiarity of exterior and interior styling is perhaps a good thing for the legions of truck buyers who might otherwise be unswayed by change.
From the thick-rimmed steering wheel to the fold-down shifter, which is still mechanically actuated, there’s an awful lot of trucky comfort food here for loyalists, peppered by novel bits like the massive 15.5-inch multimedia screen plucked from the Mustang Mach-E. An onboard power source can produce up to 9.6kW, enough to power a house when energy rates are elevated (see box).
But the real power of the Lightning is its positioning, which starts right around $40,000 – just a few hundred dollars off the most affordable gas-powered F-150. The entry-level Pro model is de-contented in the most compelling ways: rather than swapping the digital instrument cluster for chintzy gauges, it keeps the techy display and does away with niceties like a leather-wrapped steering wheel and genuine seat hides. It still produces a whopping 775lb ft of torque, and still routes power to all four wheels.
Ford F-150 verdict
In other words, it’s a genuine work truck that discards pretension and stays fixed on its mission to get stuff done. It’s that lingering earnestness that ensures the F-150 Lightning will be a sales winner, already garnering over 200,000 orders. Sure, you can still spec it to near six-figure prices, but the workaday versions are what convince us that there’s a bright future for this electric gem.
Read more of our electric car reviews