Did Ford Massively Understate the Range of the F-150 Lighting?
Turns out, the all-electric F-150 Lightning might travel much further on a charge than Ford’s claimed 300 miles.
When Ford revealed the all-electric F-150 Lightning last week, people had mixed feelings about the truck’s estimated 230 miles of range with the standard battery and 300 miles with the extended range battery. These numbers aren’t terrible, but they aren’t great either, perfectly suitable for daily use but a bit limited for those that want to tow things across long distances. However, as we saw with the Mustang Mach-E when it launched, it appears that Ford may be sandbagging the actual range of the F-150 Lightning by a fair amount.
This is the case with pretty much every EV maker, save for Tesla, which produces vehicles that simply aren’t capable of hitting their EPA ratings in the real world. But in the below video from YouTuber Marques Brownlee, we can see that Ford might actually be understating the Lightning’s range by not just a few miles, but rather a lot of them.
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Brownless was able to get an up-close and personal look at this Lightning prototype, which led to quite the revelation. “I was actually able to learn something from the people at Ford that I haven’t seen anywhere else that is definitely worth sharing,” Brownless said. “That 300-mile range that I talked about for the long-range version is the EPA-estimated rating with 1,000 pounds of cargo in the truck.”
Obviously, this means a Lightning without said cargo should be able to go much further on a full charge. “So this truck in our studio, with no weight in the trunk, was quoting me 367 miles. And from the indicator on the dashboard, the battery was about 80-ish percent full. Which, if I’m doing the math right, that extrapolates out to about 460 miles at 100 percent.”
This would mean that the battery in the Lightning is somewhere between 140 and 200 kWh, which is quite large. If true, this would obviously be game-changing news. A range of 460 miles would beat out the much-more expensive Rivian R1T extended range battery model’s range of 400 miles handily, and put the F-150 Lightning within spitting distance of the Tesla Cybertruck tri-motor’s estimated 500 miles of range. Given Tesla’s history of overstating range, the Lightning would likely beat it out in the real world.
Perhaps more importantly, this would also go a long way in convincing ICE-powered pickup owners to go electric. For most, driving 400 plus miles a day is a lot, even when taking a road trip. Sure, there are some that rack up 1,000 miles or more in a day, and this won’t be enough for them. But for the majority, 460 miles is plenty, and it only makes this game-changing, feature-rich EV pickup more appealing than it already was.
What do YOU think, dear reader?
Does this make the Lightning more attractive to traditional truck owners???