Ford F-150 Lightning (2022): price, horsepower, range

When connected to the home network via the wallbox, which is even standard in the higher-end variants, the energy in the up to 130 kWh battery is sufficient for an average family for around three days without restrictions. “And if you’re frugal, you can even make ends meet for ten days,” says Stover. “Even the longest blackout can no longer harm you.”

Although the winter storm in Texas was an exception, local blackouts are the order of the day in the USA, just like severe weather, bush fires, storms and tornadoes – and that is also in addition to their penchant for leisure activities in the fields, forest and meadows and of course the high proportion on farms and corporate customers is one of the reasons why the pick-up is firmly anchored in the American soul.

So it’s no wonder that around two million new trucks are sold every year. “Anyone who buys a pick-up wants to be prepared for anything and everything,” says Darren Palmer, who is responsible for the development of all e-models at Ford, summarizing the requirements – for sports with horses, quads or motorcycles, for camping and the holidays outdoors, for the move, for the factory or the farm – and now also for Armageddon.

Because that seems to be in the offing at a time when the climate is going visibly crazy and world peace is now beginning to falter. Palmer has only a mild smile for competitors like Rivian and Tesla. For some, because the R1T only serves the elite and has about as much in common with the Lightning as a Porsche 911 has with a Mustang. “Both sports cars on paper, but in practice and in terms of price in different spheres.”

And for the others, because the Cybertruck is still in the stars more than two years after its premiere. “The Lightning, on the other hand, is the real deal, the really big thing,” says Palmer, after all, the F-150 is the US car par excellence and has been at the top of the registration statistics for almost half a century. “So we are not only electrifying the most important car on the market, we are also opening up electromobility to a completely new target group.”

Invulnerable through the rush hour

In order for this to succeed, his project manager Linda Zhang has put a car on wheels that is more than equal to the conventional F-150 – and with a price range between almost 40,000 and almost 100,000 dollars it is almost identical. “The Lightning pulls just as much as a combustion engine, has the same payload, digs just as bravely through dirt and mud and is just as durable,” says Zhang and talks about millions and millions of test kilometers under the most adverse conditions.

Above all, it offers the same feeling of invulnerability and reliability. In the rush hour you tower over things and nobody gets too close, and in the wilderness you quickly feel that there is always and everywhere a way for the Lightning.

You quickly get used to looking at the range display: Even the basic model has 98 kWh and travels 370 kilometers according to the US standard, and the XL version comes with 130 kWh to over 500 kilometers – that’s how big the gaps in the charging network are even in the rearmost hinterland then not.

In one point, however, the Lightning differs from the normal F-150: it drives much better. Yes, even an F-150 Raptor gets the blood pumping. But where it unfolds its 450 hp with the sensitivity of a steamroller, lightning strikes without warning. Just casually swimming along in traffic, a pole position at the traffic light, a courageous kick and a clear lane afterwards are enough to immediately turn the world upside down and shake the coffee out of the mug on a wide armchair.

Slowly at the charging station

Of course, that’s no wonder, with permanent all-wheel drive as standard, instead of otherwise switchable all-wheel drive and 452 hp in the basic version or even 580 hp in the top version and with a maximum of 1,050 Nm, which are almost immediately available. With a sprint value of less than five seconds, the pick-up, which weighs around three tons, feels suspiciously like a Porsche when it kicks down, and with a little more than 170 km/h Ford has even given it a little more leash than the classic pick-up , which are usually braked at 160 km/h.

Only at the charging station is the F-150 not the fastest: Because Ford looked at the money and even more at the time, Detroit decided against an 800 volt system. The Lightning only charges up to 150 kW, so it takes around 40 minutes from 10 to 80 percent. In the land of fast food, that might be too long a break. Especially when not only luxury brands like Tesla, Lucid or Porsche charge faster, but also Hyundai and Kia.

The Lightning looks like any other F-150 except for the LED staging on the front and rear and the large tablet in front of the center console inside, because project manager Zhang does not scare the millions of existing customers with a spaceship design. But of course the platform truck is on a new platform with the battery in the floor and the motors on the axles, which has made another innovation possible for Zhang: the biggest frunk that has ever been seen in an electric car.

There, where otherwise the burners slog, there is now 400 liters of storage space, which is protected from dirt and thieves for the first time in a pick-up. If you want, you can connect your tools to the sockets under the hood just like on the platform, or cool drinks in the tub that can be rinsed out with the drain plug, or bring your catch home from fishing.

Proven qualities and new achievements – that’s obviously going down well with the Americans. It is not for nothing that Ford received so many orders within a few weeks that they stopped accepting 200,000 orders in Detroit last December. Even if the production capacity has already been doubled, it will probably take more than a year for these pre-orders alone to be processed.

One person’s joy is another’s sorrow: While chief developer Palmer steps off the stage with broad shoulders and an even broader grin, Ford in Europe should make long faces at these figures. Because even if the Lightning were the perfect train number for the switch to a purely electric fleet for passenger cars by 2030 and commercial vehicles by 2035, export is probably a long way off for the time being.

Ford F-150 Lightning Specifications

Four-door, five-seat pickup

• Length: 5.92 meters
• Width: 2.03 meters (width with exterior mirrors: kA)
• Height: 1.98 meters
• Wheelbase: 3.70 meters

standard range

• Two electric motors; 332 kW/452 hp
• maximum torque: 1,050 Nm
• all wheel drive
• Entrance automatic
• 0-100km/h: about 5.5s
• Vmax: 175 km/h
• Battery capacity: 98 kWh
• Range (US standard): 370 kilometers
• Price: from $40,000

Extended range

• Two electric motors; 426 kW/580 hp
• maximum torque: 1,050 Nm
• all wheel drive
• Entrance automatic
• 0-100km/h: about 4.5s
• Vmax: 175 km/h
• Battery capacity: 130 kWh
• Range (US standard): 515 kilometers
• Price: from $53,000

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