Ford F-150 Lightning

What a difference a couple of years makes. The Ford F-150 Lightning debuted for the 2022 model year as the first regular-production, all-electric pickup truck from a mainstream manufacturer. When it first went on sale, the Lightning’s only electric pickup competitor was the Rivian R1T, which beat it to market by about six months. Now it has more rivals, including the Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC’s Hummer EV Pickup and Sierra EV. We’ve tested those rival pickups, and while they all have strong points, the Lightning still stacks up well against them despite not having seen any major changes since its debut.

We’re still waiting for the 2025 Ram 1500 REV electric pickup; it was originally slated to hit dealerships in the fourth quarter of 2024, but Stellantis recently announced it won’t launch until the first half of 2025.

Related: 2024 Ford F-150 Lightning Gets New Flash Trim Level, Starts at $52,090

It’s no secret that the market for all-electric vehicles, including pickups, is uncertain at the moment, as consumer demand has been less than expected. The Lightning’s pricing has reflected this uncertainty, with Ford changing it multiple times for 2024 alone. The most recent redo brought significant price cuts for all but the line-topping Platinum trim.

Here in a Flash

Ford cooked up a new Lightning trim level for 2024, the Flash, that seems intended to allow buyers to take advantage of a $7,500 federal tax credit for EVs. The Flash bundles several of the Lightning’s desirable available features — including a 131-kilowatt-hour extended-range battery, a 15.5-inch infotainment touchscreen (instead of the base 12-inch touchscreen), a wireless charging pad, an eight-speaker B&O audio system and a heated steering wheel — at a starting price $9,000 below the Lightning’s penultimate Lariat trim (which the Flash slots beneath).

We’ve already evaluated the Lightning in multiple ways beyond our original review, including testing its towing and fast-charging capabilities and seeing how its cargo bed compares with its rivals. Those impressions hold true for 2024 (and for next year given the 2025 Lightning receives no significant changes), and here we’ll add some quick impressions of the new 2024 F-150 Lightning Flash.

Conventionality Is a Plus

One of the F-150 Lightning’s biggest strengths is simply that it’s an F-150. The automaker’s F-Series trucks have been America’s bestselling vehicle for more than 40 years, and Ford saw no need to reinvent the wheel to make an electric version of the F-150. All of the Lightning’s rivals veer at least a little from conventional controls and pickup truck design — and the Tesla Cybertruck veers a lot — but the Lightning shares most of its design with the standard F-150. It’s easy to acclimate to this truck, especially if you’re already familiar with the conventional F-150. The Lightning also offers standout F-150 features like Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free driving system, an onboard scale function and an EV version of the Pro Power Onboard integrated generator.

In terms of both price and equipment, the Flash trim hits a sweet spot in the F-150 Lightning lineup. It starts at $70,090 (including a $2,095 destination fee), so even with a few options, the sticker price will almost certainly fall under the $80,000 retail price cap that makes domestically produced EVs eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit. Our test vehicle was equipped with Ford’s 9.6-kilowatt Pro Power Onboard generator ($1,200), BlueCruise with a three-year subscription ($2,100), Max Trailer Tow Package ($1,100), spray-in bedliner ($595) and a couple of other options, and its as-tested price was $75,745.

Honest Cabin

The Flash’s interior isn’t quite as, uh, flashy as higher F-150 trim levels. At first blush, the ambiance — fabric seats and all — is underwhelming for a vehicle that costs more than $70K, but the more time I spent in it, the more I liked it. It’s a pleasant, honest pickup truck cabin, and I suspect its more utilitarian materials will hold up better over time than the posher trimmings of our long-term 2021 F-150 Limited did. 

The Lightning inherits lots of good things from the regular F-150, but also some annoyances. I find the F-150’s oversize gearshift lever awkward to use; it’s too large to grip easily, and the button is oddly placed at the front of the shifter. The Lightning’s big, vertically oriented infotainment screen is slick for the most part, but it absorbs most of the climate controls, and screen-based buttons are less ideal than traditional hard buttons and knobs. Changing the fan speed or turning on the air recirculation is a multistep process that’s more tedious than using a simple physical control would be. The exterior touch-sensitive lock buttons on the front door handles almost never worked for me on the first try, and while the doors will lock automatically when you walk away from the vehicle with the key fob, I’m old-fashioned and prefer to do it myself. 

Smooth, Strong, Silent

When equipped with the extended-range battery, the Lightning’s horsepower rating rises from an already-impressive 452 to 580 hp; its torque rating — 775 pounds-feet — is the same whether you get the standard- or extended-range battery. In our acceleration testing, a 2022 Lightning Lariat, which has the same powertrain as the Flash, accelerated from 0-60 mph in just 4.19 seconds. With 1,220 pounds of sandbags in the bed, it did the run in 4.79 seconds. That’s really moving, especially for a full-size pickup that weighs almost 7,000 pounds.

In addition to being quick, the Lightning is smooth and exceptionally quiet. Its electric powertrain has no gears to shift, and conventional engine noises are absent. Its smooth accelerator- and brake-pedal responses make the Lightning very pleasant to drive and help its close-quarters maneuverability. In general, the Lightning rides and handles well for a full-size pickup, but you still feel its substantial heft in corners even with the bulk of its weight sitting low in the chassis.

More From Cars.com: 

• Ford Launches EV Routing With Google Maps for Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning Owners
• Ford Power Promise: Free Home Charger for EV Buyers
• How Do Car Seats Fit in a 2024 Ford F-150?
• Pickup Truck Buying Guide: How Much Truck Do You Need?
• Shop for a 2024 Ford F-150 Lightning Near You

Downsides and Conclusion

EV powertrains offer a lot of advantages, but they also have a couple of significant drawbacks, and the Lightning doesn’t sidestep those. Its extended-range battery gives this truck a generous 320 miles of range, but that number can drop by about half when towing, as we found in our testing. (Note that it’s not unusual for conventionally powered pickups to be similarly affected when towing.) To go from a 15% to 80% battery charge can take about 40 minutes on a DC fast charger in good conditions, which is not the fastest. 

An EV’s price premium is still a detriment, as well. Even though Ford has dropped the Lightning’s price over the course of the 2024 model year, it still costs quite a bit more than a comparable gas-engine F-150 — more than $10,000 more. 

Those problems, however, are essentially the same for any of the Lightning’s newer competitors, so if you’re in the market for an EV pickup, the Lightning is absolutely worth a test drive. 

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