Truck buyers love their trucks. It’s like the Swiss Army Knife in their toolbox; it does everything they need. So, it’s going to be interesting how consumers react to their loved one going electric.
If early indications are any metric, things will be just fine. Tesla has massive reservations for the Cybertruck, Rivian has seen strong interest in the R1T and both GM and Ford have had to cut off orders because they were getting too many and were going to take too long to fulfill.
And it’s easy to see why there’s so much demand. The Ford F-150 Lightning that just rolled through the Autoline Garage has a lot going for it that truck buyers will like. First, there’s tons of cargo space. From the typical truck bed, to the huge frunk and optional storage below the rear bench seat there’s plenty of places to put stuff. Then there’s the gadgets. Both the tailgate and frunk open and close automatically, optional power outlets in the bed allow you power tools and equipment and even the shift lever will fold down flat at the push of a button, which really opens up the center console to make it easier to work.
The Lightning also feels like a truck. It has a trucky ride, but not so harsh that it will rattle your fillings out thanks to front and rear independent suspension. With the massive battery packs – either 98 kWh or 131 kWh – mounted between the frame rails beneath the truck you can really feel the weight down low. But despite all that heft, the Lightning is fast. Like, really fast.
We drove the version with the larger 131 kWh battery pack, which means the dual motors produce a combined 433 kW or 580 horsepower, it will do 0-60 MPH in 3.8 seconds and get around 320-330 miles of range. It really is the kind of power that plants you into your seat.
That bigger battery also mean it can tow up to 10,000 pounds with the optional tow package. But this is where I think the story of any electric truck gets interesting. If you haven’t seen the videos of how much range an electric truck loses while towing you might just be living under a rock. In some cases it’s slashed in half or more.
I think that’s one thing electric truck owners are going to have to get used to, energy consumption in certain scenarios. While we don’t do any towing, we still noticed a wide range of energy usage in our test. During ideal conditions, i.e. 70-degrees and no need to run the HVAC, the Lightning showed really impressive efficiency. The readout on the dash was registering over 4 miles per kWh used, which better than some of the best EVs on the road today. And that includes sedans. But the moment the batteries need to warm up when it’s cold or you have to switch on the A/C, that efficiency falls off a cliff. In the cold mornings we were seeing that mi/kWh figure drop off to below 2, which is more along the lines of 9,000 pound GMC Hummer EV.
Then custmers will have to wrap their head the price tag. The commercial version of the truck starts around $52,000 and while Ford didn’t provide us with the cost of the one we drove, it did leave the window sticker in the truck with all it’s options. Plugging that information into an online configurator it spit out a price of $85,500. And as we said before Ford has stopped taking orders, so good luck getting one.
By: Sean McElroy
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John McElroy is an influential thought leader in the automotive industry. He is a journalist, lecturer, commentator and entrepreneur. He created “Autoline Daily,” the first industry webcast of industry news and analysis.
