The Ford F-150 Lightning took the world by storm, no pun intended I swear. Ford Motor Co. delivered a real-life, full-size, all-electric truck well before most of the market, including some highly publicized electric trucks that took a bit more time in the incubator than planned. However, it hasn’t been a completely smooth ride. The F-150 Lightning started to hit its production stride at a time when the popularity of EVs started to normalize. Still, the future is looking bright for electric trucks with the new 2024 Chevy Silverado EV inbound, the F-150 Lightning Flash trim being added to the meat of the Lightning lineup and the new Ram 1500 REV coming for 2025.
So, when Ford tossed me the keys (fobs?) to a new 2023 F-150 Lightning Platinum for a week, I had to have a go. Here are five good and five bad things I encountered during my time in the F-150 Lightning. Ka-chow!
5 good things on the Ford F-150 Lightning
First up, ohhhh she quick! I got a chance to have a short go in an F150 Lightning in a big ole parking lot when they were first introduced. It gave me the giggles running the F-150 Lightning through the egg-shaped autocross-style course. However, it wasn’t nearly as much fun as experiencing the Lightning as a daily driver. Damn this thing is fast. The dual-motor, extended-range Platinum trim will hit 60 MPH in about 4 seconds, which isn’t just quick, it’s ridiculously quick. My Jaguar F-Type R is somewhere around 3.5 seconds, but it weighs 3,079 pounds less, which is just amazing.
It’s super comfortable too, every bit of the top-trim domestic truck you’d expect. The Platinum has upgraded leather with heated, ventilated and massaging front seats. That made it a great highway cruiser, with tons of comfort features and upgraded interior trim.
Just because it’s got a truckload of batteries underneath, you don’t lose any of the full-size interior truck space. There is plenty of room for all five passengers, with the same big transforming center console that can act as a workspace or lunch tray. The Platinum (and Lariat with the 511A High package) has the upgraded storage under the rear seats as well. Add in tons of cupholders, lots of stowage space as well as a great (and secure) spot to charge your phone, and it was pretty easy-to-use as a daily driver. Well, as long as you don’t have passengers while you’re running errands — more on that in the next section.
It’s also full of all the technology you’d expect as well. Not only does it have the 15.5-inch touchscreen to control all the essential stuff, but it’s also got wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration, wireless charging, and eight-speaker B&O audio system and a whole lot more. In my week with the F-150 Lightning, it all worked flawlessly, I linked my phone to CarPlay on the very first attempt, and it stayed connected the entire time.
Finally, it’s shockingly quiet. Sure, that’s an EV thing to be quiet, but to experience it in a truck is a little weird. Adding in a heaping helping of comfort and convenience features is great, but if they end up attached to a lumbering noisy giant, it diminishes the experience. Not only is the F-150 Lightning comfy and it rides well, the silence is serene (mostly). It made a long tedious drive through D.C. all that much easier.
5 bad things on the Ford F-150 Lightning
With the good comes the bad, and the “worst of the bad” is still the EV charging network. Your results may vary, but where I live just outside of D.C., I get consistently poor charging conditions. It’s why I sold my Mach-E after a year of owning it as it just wasn’t feasible to live with on a daily basis. On a dark and rainy night, I navigated the Lightning into an EVgo station at a Safeway grocery store. The only available charger at the station was a non-functional fast charger, so I parked across the way and did my shopping while waiting for a functional charger to open. When I came out, a spot had opened up, so I grabbed it, needing to have the F-150 Lightning charged for a swap to the new Bronco the next day. After fighting with the payment processing software for 5 minutes I finally had it going. By the time it was done, I was sitting in a cold dark truck with a rear seat full of groceries. I do believe it’ll get better, but for now this should count as two bad things.
The grocery run brings me to truck life in general. I know I’m on the wrong website to have issues with trucks, but it’s hard to reconcile some day-to-day chores with a truck as my only vehicle. I have three kids and I’m trying to imagine going grocery shopping with them. Where does the stuff go? I assume someone has made a clever aftermarket bed divider, but then my groceries are still in the cold (or hot, or maybe wet) truck bed. This isn’t a dig on the Lightning, but in my week with the electric F-150 Lighting, there were a couple of times I just wasn’t sure how it would work in some life situations.
The technology is great, but sometimes it’s a bit much. I know I’m old school in wanting to have some more physical buttons, but for some functions it just feels right. When you hop in and it’s cold and you want the heated seats on, navigating through a series of menu items is annoying. A minor gripe, but I was cold and wrote it down.
Now let’s talk about that MSRP. This truck is incredibly expensive. The Platinum trim starts at almost $92,000. As tested our Lightning loaner came in at $97,674, which makes for quite a purchase conundrum. That’s $30,000 more than the starting price of a regular F-150 Platinum, so your calculation on whether or not the EV version makes sense is going to be pretty important.
Finally, it’s shockingly quiet. Sure, I ended the last section with that, and I’m doing it again. Deal with it. All EVs are quiet, and most EVs suffer from that just a bit. Not hearing any sort of powertrain means that you can hear a lot of things that you wouldn’t normally hear. I don’t just mean stuff like road noise and tire noise, in the F-150 Lightning you can even hear the windshield wiper motors.
The bottom line
You might be reading this, thinking I spent a week with a Ford F-150 Lightning, and I didn’t really even do any “truck things.” That’s true. I didn’t haul anything, and I didn’t tow anything. I just drove it with people and things in the cab, which is how I would use a truck 99% of the time living in an urban/suburban area. And the F-150 Lightning handled it amazingly well. I absolutely loved driving it. It’s fast, it’s comfortable, it’s got loads of the latest tech, and if the charging system were a bit better, I’d definitely consider one. Maybe not the top trim, but the lower-to-mid XLT and Lariat look like great options.
Also, let’s end on a joke: Why can’t any automaker name their vehicle the “Thunder” now? Because Thunder always comes after (wait for it) Lightning! Ka-Chow!
