After years of hype, Ford has pulled back the curtain on its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck.
The truck has been in development at Ford for the last three years and is the follow-up to the Mustang Mach-e which was revealed in 2019. There’s a lot riding on the electrification of the F-150 considering Ford’s F-series trucks are the most popular vehicles sold in North America.
The truck starts at $58,000 CAD and a range of 370km. The more tricked-out ‘XLT’ version starts at $68,000 CAD and can drive 483km per charge. This is roughly $10,000 CAD more than it costs to convert the U.S. base price of $39,000 USD (roughly, $48,000 CAD).
This starting price puts it more in line with Tesla’s Cybertruck that starts at roughly $50,980 CAD, and vastly undercuts the presumed expensive electric Hummer and the Rivian R1T, two other hotly anticipated electric trucks.
The Lightning is also the fasted truck that Ford’s ever made with a pretty snappy 0-60km time of 4.4 seconds. It’s no Porsche Taycan, but for a truck, it’ll likely turn some heads.
The highest-end Hummer EV says it can do it in three seconds and Elon Musk says the fastest Cybertruck trim can hit 100km in 2.9 seconds. That being said, he also said its windows were strong enough to stand up to a huge ball being thrown at them, and we all know how that went.
Overall, Ford might not have the quickest truck off the line, but when it comes to EVs that instant torque feels pretty nice no matter what car you’re driving. For instance, the Volvo XC40 Recharge I reviewed had a 1-100km time of 4.9 seconds and it still felt like a pretty fast SUV in every practical sense.
EVs also have a lower centre of gravity and Ford says the Lighting is perfectly balanced which also makes it the best handling F-150 ever.
The Ford Lightning has a 2,000lbs payload capacity and a 10,000lbs towing capacity. to help this, the truck has 563hp and 775 foot-pounds of torque. To help users keep track of their range when carrying a heavy load, users can optionally add scales to know exactly how much a full load will impact battery life.
One of the cooler features Ford announced at the show is that the Lightning F-150 can power a house via reverse charging during an outage.
Ford’s expecting to start getting electric F-150s into the hands of the people by mid-2022. MobileSyrup has reached out to Ford for more Canadian-specific information.
Design
ford hasn’t changed too much about the exterior of the electric F-150 Lightning which I’m sure will please current F-150 owners who looked at the Cybertruck and just shook their heads.
To make it stand out there’s a new front lightbar framing the grill to give it a subtly modern look. I’m actually a pretty big fan of the design, to be honest, and I think it should help current truck owners look seriously about owning an electric version. I think the Rivian R1T, which Ford is actually invested in, still holds my heart with its design, but all in all, the F-150 Lightning is a very truck-looking truck.
There’s also a rear tail light bar that stretches from one side to the other.
The real standout though is the massive front truck that Ford says can fit up to 400 litres of gear. Plus there are even some plugs in the front trunk and the bed so people can power tools and other electrical gadgets. Ford says there are 11 outlets stationed around the truck.
Inside the lightning Ford rocking a 15.5-inch display with a portrait orientation like the Mach-e and a 12-inch screen for the instrument cluster. Notably, it’s also retained the giant volume knob from that electric Mustang.
All versions of the F-150 Lightning are going to come with a large crew cab design making it sit five people.
Smarts
Not only is the truck outfitted with electrical outlets
More to come…
