Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum Review: Time’s Up for ICE Trucks

I come from an extended line of F-150s. Considered one of my earliest vehicular reminiscences is bouncing round behind a purple, late-90s step-side that my grandpa trucked round his cattle ranch within the Sierra Nevadas. That truck finally gave strategy to a silver 2004 mannequin that received handed all the way down to me in 2014, then a blue-green 2015 mannequin that I inherited when Gammy and Papa (as I nonetheless name them) offered the ranch a couple of years later. And I have been driving them exhausting across the Pacific Northwest ever since.

For myself and Papa Corridor, now in his mid-eighties, vehicles are instruments. Although he did shell out for extras like an extra-large tank (“in order that I would not should pay for fuel in California”), they had been for hauling firewood, towing trailers, and driving a collection of black and brown labs to go duck looking. He banged his F-150s up so typically that he had a devoted bumper man named Mort.

The brand new F-150 Lightning Platinum—a completely electrified truck with a large touchscreen, heated and cooled seats, and a panoramic sunroof—can be unfamiliar to my grandpa. It feels, appears to be like, and smells extra like a German luxurious automotive than the canine hair and mud any of our F150s ever did.

And but, after really utilizing it to haul a trailer throughout city, my two muddy canine from after the park, and a pair lots of of kilos of apples to a cider press, I’ve come to see my future. These vehicles aren’t posh facsimiles of the tough and tumble autos Papa and I owned and cherished. The F-150 Lightning does every thing I’ve requested it to do, in just about all instances higher than fuel fashions.

Until you’re a renter with out entry to a charging port, or a continuing long-hauler who tows a journey trailer typically, that is most likely essentially the most succesful car for any state of affairs you may ever face. For individuals who can swing the upfront price, it is the Leatherman of vehicles.

Grease-Much less Lightning

{Photograph}: Ford

This is not the primary F-150 Lightning. A pair a long time in the past, Ford made a super-fast gas version of the F-150, nonetheless considerably slower than this newer electrified model, with the identical identify. Apart from the truth that the brand new F-150 Lighting Platinum with towing package deal that I examined does 0-60 mph in about 4 seconds, the brand new Lighting and Ye Olde Lightning don’t have anything in widespread.

My evaluate truck (the $92,000 Platinum trim) compares pretty on to a high-end hybrid F-150 Restricted with all of the trimmings (about $83,000). Just like the fuel truck of us know and purchase in droves (for these unaware, the F-150 has been the best-selling automotive in the US since 1981), my crew cab evaluate unit arrived with an enormous array of different bells and whistles that you just’d count on from any premium truck in 2023.

It has heated and cooled seats, adaptive cruise management, an enormous sunroof, and a 360-degree digital camera. Like many EVs, it gives one-pedal driving that means that you can by no means contact the brakes, and it may steer for you on many roads. Ford’s Blue Cruise performance goes as far as letting you are taking your palms off the wheel throughout segments on main highways, offered you look out the entrance window. To do that, it has sensors that take a look at your eyes and be sure you’re watching. Sure, it feels as nuts to drive with no palms because it sounds.

The interiors between fuel and electrical vehicles are close to equivalent, however the F-150 Lightning has an enormous entrance trunk the place its engine must be. The “frunk” of this factor can match, Ford claims, three units of normal golf golf equipment. Stated frunk additionally contains 4 120-volt energy shops and two USB shops (one USB-C, one USB-A), which implies you may plug in your gadgets when you journey, or cost up your laptop computer or instruments on the way in which between job websites (or fields on a ranch).

Motown Energy

The rear of the truck has 4 extra 120-volt energy shops, in addition to a 220-volt outlet above it. Sure, you should utilize the Lightning along with your full-size dryer, scorching tub, and even cost one other electrical automotive off of it, with the power to inform it when to cease so you have got sufficient vary to drive house. That is each epic and superior. The hybrid truck also can do that within the Restricted trim, however energy technology caps out at 7.2 kWh of energy in comparison with the Lightning’s 131 kWh. Normal fuel fashions could be geared up with 2.0 kWh or 2.4 kWh, relying on trim and engine.

On the Lightning, there may be additionally an choice to let the huge 131-kWh battery of extended-range vehicles (versus the 98-kWh battery from standard-range fashions) act like a generator to your home, so long as you buy a $1,300 wall charger from Ford. That charger and the extended-range battery sound quite a bit cheaper if you begin pricing out whole-home generators, their upkeep, and the price of fuel.