America’s Finest-Promoting Truck Is Now All-New and All-Electrical
Ford says the all-new, all-electric 2022 F-150 Lighting is “the truck of the longer term.” In that case, then the longer term seems vivid in some ways. Ford plans to steer in car electrification by committing $22 billion to electrifying its vehicles, crossovers, SUVs and vehicles by 2025. The primary was the 2021 Mustang Mach-E, subsequent was the 2022 E-Transit cargo van, and now the engaging 2022 F-150 Lightning.
It’s one factor to construct a brand new car, however growing one providing so many alternative interesting applied sciences and options will draw patrons with broad pursuits and life. These patrons could have one factor in frequent: feeling the enjoyment that comes from driving an all-electric pickup. Ford says 75-percent of F-150 Lightning patrons will likely be new to the model, whereas 80-percent are new to proudly owning an EV.
Idea To Manufacturing
Ford early-on knew the incorrect technique to develop their first-ever electrical pickup truck was to do it with preconceived concepts on what customers wished, or would purchase. So off they went to Texas (which is truck loopy) and California (which is EV loopy) to ask truck house owners a variety of questions on vehicles. Not electrical vehicles, however vehicles.
Ford held focus teams with cardboard cut-outs depicting design options to check acceptance. With a truck being a truck whatever the model, there needed to be one thing very distinctive about these slabs of cardboard. One excited the main target teams: the frunk. When Ford confirmed a entrance trunk, the place a gasoline or diesel engine must be, this caught the curiosity of the attendees. They grew to become keen about this new-found storage compartment even earlier than realizing there wouldn’t be a standard engine.
Since Ford anticipated the frunk can be a well-liked promoting characteristic (because the Mustang Mach-E has one), they needed to engineer a technique to embrace it in an area that often is crammed (ever appeared beneath the hood of a truck?) with an engine, wires, cooling radiators and different important mechanical elements. Not solely did Ford cleverly design a 14.1 cubic foot frunk, however they loaded it with comfort options. The push-button energy operated frunk has a drain so it may be an ice chest, two 2.4kW 120V shops, 4 9.6kW 120V shops, LED lights, and a 400-pound weight capability. This is just one instance of the improvements Ford developed on the Lighting.
F-150 Lightning Specs
Commonplace Vary Battery
4×4 with a single-speed transmission
Twin electrical motors
98 kilowatt-hour (kWh), liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery
452 horsepower (hp)
775 pound-feet of torque (lb.-ft.)
0 – 60 mph: 4.5 seconds
Driving Vary: Professional, XLT, Lariat: 230 miles
Payload: 2,235 kilos
Most Tow Score: 7,700 kilos
Prolonged Vary Battery
4×4 with a single-speed transmission
Twin electrical motors
131 kWh, liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery
580 hp
775 lb.-ft. of torque
0 – 60 mph: 5.0 seconds
Driving Vary: Professional, XLT, Lariat: 300 miles. Platinum: 280 miles
Payload: 1,952 kilos
Most Tow Score: Professional, XLT, Lariat: 10,000 kilos. Platinum: 8,500 kilos
Charging
Probably the most handy and anticipated place to cost will likely be at dwelling utilizing the Ford Cellular Charger that’s included with the acquisition of a Lighting. When on the street, charging is a seamless transaction by the BlueOval Cost Community.
Utilizing the FordPass app, Lightning house owners have entry to greater than 20,500 charging stations, in North America, by suppliers similar to ChargePoint, EVgo and Electrify America. No fee is required on the time of charging so long as there’s a stability on the account. Ford has made entry to possession even higher by together with 250kW of free charging at these areas.
Commonplace-Vary Battery
Degree 3
150 kWh
10 minutes: 41 miles
44 minutes: 15 – 80%
Degree 2
80 Amp
1 hour: 19 miles
10 hours: 15 – 100%
48 Amp
1 hour: 19 miles
10 hours: 15 – 100%
32 Amp/240W Cellular Charger (supplied with the Lightning)
1 hour: 14 miles
14 hours: 15 – 100%
Prolonged-Vary Battery
Degree 3
150 kW
10 minutes: 54 miles
41 minutes: 15 – 80%
Degree 2
80 Amp
1 hour: 30 miles
8 hours: 15 – 100%
48 Amp
1 hour: 20 miles
13 hours: 15 – 100%
32 Amp/240W Cellular Charger (supplied with the Lightning)
1 hour: 13 miles
19 hours: 15 – 100%
Energy Something, Anyplace
Ford has accomplished extra with the F-150 Lightning than merely make it a strong, emission-free truck, it’s also an influence supply. With a full battery the Lightning can energy a home for up-to three days (10 days if conserving electrical energy), or run a job website, or a campsite.
Charging at dwelling is simple and simple to do. The F-150 Lightning can cost at anytime, any day, 24/7, but additionally has the power to solely cost on the time of day with the bottom electrical charges, which often is in a single day. However that’s electrical energy going into the Lightning, however what about going out?
When on a job or campsite, it is so simple as plugging into an outlet like at dwelling. The shops on the sprint, rear of the middle console, within the truck mattress and within the frunk, can run electrical building tools or a cappuccino machine when glamping. A warning comes on when the battery is at 30-percent cost so you may have sufficient battery life to get to a charging station.
The place the F-150 Lighting is usually a life saver will likely be within the case of an influence outage. The Lighting can retailer 9.6kW of electrical energy to energy a house, workplace or retailer. A house often makes use of 2.6kW each day, so as much as three days of emergency energy is accessible–or extra if not all home equipment are used, giving the electrical utility time to revive energy.
The Ford Clever Backup Energy seamlessly turns the Lightning into an exterior energy supply when utilizing the Professional Energy Onboard system and buying and putting in the SunRun Dwelling Integration System. When plugged in and the ability goes out, the system robotically reverses {the electrical} circulate and begins powering the home. This sensible system then returns to charging the Lightning when the ability is restored. This works in case your energy comes from the utility firm or photo voltaic panels, which could be supplied by a program Ford has with SunRun.
Silent Working
Clear Fleet Report lately had the chance to drive the F-150 Lightning at a media occasion in San Antonio, Texas. We hung out on the freeway, driving the curves of the Texas Hill Nation, and an off-road course that replicated the kind of terrain on which the Lightning mostly can be used.
We first tackled freeway driving, which was clean, with the horsepower and torque simply permitting for merging and getting as much as the circulate of visitors. We activated Ford’s Clever Adaptive Cruise Management and the Blue Cruise Palms-free Driving know-how to expertise driving in visitors at freeway speeds between 65 and 75 mph. Regardless of what number of occasions we use a hands-free driving system, it takes some getting used to, and within the case of Blue Cruise, there was quick and simple studying curve. There have been no surprises with staying in lanes, slowing, accelerating or trusting the Lightning to go down the street with our palms not on the steering wheel.
The trip was calm with minimal wind noise from the mirrors or the 275/50 Hankook DynaPro AT2 tires on 20-inch vivid machined aluminum wheels with Ebony Black painted pockets. Many occasions all-terrain tires scan be loud or tough on the freeway, however not on this case, which was appreciated because the street noise throughout our all-electric driving was stored to a minimal.
Subsequent was driving by the Texas Hill Nation at speeds between 30 and 50 mph on gently winding rural roads. Rural driving previous sheep, goats, cattle and even an armadillo, set the scene for a way many individuals will use their F-150 Lighting. The dealing with, for the 6,171-pound Lightning, felt flat with no harsh physique roll, helped partly by the low middle of gravity because the batteries are positioned under the passenger cabin. We did discover a bent to push when cornering, even on the posted pace restrict, however by no means felt uncontrolled and it was simply remedied by slowing.
We towed a 5,500-pound horse trailer for about 10 miles and, because the Lightning Platinum we have been in has a tow ranking of 8,500 kilos, we needed to repeatedly look within the aspect mirrors or turn-on the rear view trailer digicam to verify we have been nonetheless towing a trailer. The Tow Package deal comes with trailer backup and trailer hitch help, trailer reverse steering, trailer brake controller, a wise hitch, onboard scales, trailer digicam and a wise trailer tow connection.
Between the freeway and nation driving, house owners will put the Lightning to the check of Ford’s motto of “Constructed Ford Robust.” Being on-and-off the accelerator, and using the one pedal driving characteristic, the place the Lightning’s pace could be managed utilizing the accelerator which reduces the necessity to use the brake pedal, we received a really respectable 2.7 miles per kilowatt.
Our last check was the off-road course on the Singing Water Winery in Consolation, Texas, which had steep rocky sections, water crossings, deep ruts, and simply sufficient sharp rocks to the place utilizing the entrance view digicam was a should. The locking rear differential made the distinction just a few occasions to get us out of robust spots. The Lightning is off-road succesful for all the pieces simply shy of great rock crawling.
Know-how
The F-150 Lightning is accessible with the up to date and improved superior driver help know-how (ADAS) with options that assist make driving safer and extra assured. These embrace computerized emergency braking, blind spot and energetic lane management monitoring, put up influence braking, evasive steering help plus adaptive cruise management. Right here is an overview of the system for the Mustang Mach-E, which is similar as on the Lightning.
FordPass Join is customary, providing a 4G LTE Wi-Fi that may deal with cell devises and permits for over the air software program updates. That is additionally the place electrical charging could be managed, together with charging and fee, by the FordPass Charging Community, the most important such community in North America.
Ford’s proprietary 15.5-inch vertical touchscreen handles the subsequent era Sync 4 connectivity system that features FM/AM/SiriusXM, wi-fi Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Ford+Alexa and Waze navigation. In case you get the Lightning Platinum mannequin, the non-compulsory 18-speaker Bang & Olufsen Premium audio system sounded nice.
Pricing
The 2022 Ford Lightning is available in 4 trim ranges, with the selection of a Commonplace Vary or Prolonged Vary battery. These costs are earlier than any choices however do embrace the obligatory $1,695 vacation spot cost. You could qualify for federal and particular person state tax incentives. Please communicate together with your tax skilled or go to a authorities web site for extra info.
Lightning Professional $41,669
Lightning XLT $54,669
Lightning Lariat $69,169
Lightning Platinum $92,569
Warranties
Bumper-To-Bumper – Three years/36,000 miles
Electrical Car Parts – Eight years/100,000 miles
Aluminum Physique Panels – 5 years/Limitless Miles
Paint Adhesion – 5 years/Limitless Miles
Roadside Help – 5 years/60,000 miles
Observations: 2022 Ford F-150 Lighting
Ford stopped taking reservations for the F-150 Lightning once they hit 200,000 mark. They’re assured that is solely a small variety of clients who will likely be enthusiastic about proudly owning the all-new, all-electric Lightning. And we agree.
There are numerous options and know-how not lined on this Flash Drive evaluation, which was meant to present an summary and a style of what the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning is all about. In case you are available in the market for a really succesful, fashionable truck and electrical energy matches your driving way of life, then contact your native Ford vendor.
Clear Fleet Report could have an entire evaluation of the all-new 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning within the coming months. We hope you can be as impressed with the Lightning as we have been.
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Story by John Faulkner. Pictures by John Faulkner and Ford.
Disclosure:
Clear Fleet Report is loaned free check autos from automakers to guage, usually for every week at a time. Our street checks are based mostly on this one-week drive of a brand new car. Due to this we don’t handle points similar to long-term reliability or complete value of possession. As well as, we are sometimes invited to producer occasions highlighting new autos or know-how. As a part of these occasions we could also be provided free transportation, lodging or meals. We do our greatest to current our unvarnished evaluations of autos and information irrespective of those inducements.
Our focus is on autos that supply the very best gas financial system of their class, which leads us to emphasise electrical vehicles, plug-in hybrids, hybrids and diesels. We additionally characteristic these environment friendly gas-powered autos which can be among the many prime mpg autos of their class. As well as, we intention to supply critiques and information on superior know-how and the choice gas car market. We welcome any suggestions from car house owners and are devoted to offering a discussion board for different viewpoints. Please tell us your views at [email protected].
