[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hi, and welcome to Talking Cars.
I'm Jennifer Stockburger.
I'm Jake Fisher.
And I'm Mike Quincy.
So this week, super exciting.
We are talking about finally our first impressions of the Ford
F-150 Lightning, one of a series of electric, fully electric
pickup trucks that we're getting our first hands on.
Could be game changers, certainly
for the EV market and the truck market if they all take off.
So just a little bit of specs.
We rented from Ford an F-150 Lightning Lariat
with the long range battery.
About $87,000, $90,000 truck at this point with the options
we had in it.
Dual electric motors, 580 horsepower.
So very, very nice truck.
Impressions, Mike Quincy.
Again, could be a game changer this truck.
Well, it could be, but I guess we'll
get into that later, because when I think of trucks, I think
towing, hauling.
And as we all know, adding extra weight and loads
to an electric vehicle tend to kind of lower
its driving range.
But I know we're getting ahead of ourselves
and we are in the lightning round,
so we need to move forward.
I see what you did there.
But talk about a buzz.
I mean, a lot of people are really
excited about any electric pickups.
Just a reminder, pickup trucks are the number one selling body
style in the United States, and have been seemingly forever.
So there's obviously a lot of built-in audience here.
I think one of the things that really struck me
about the Lightning is it's just the prodigious amounts of power
and torque.
I mean, we're talking 775 pounds feet of torque.
Whoa!
So it's super fast.
I had the pleasure of driving this truck doing
B-roll on the track for Anatoly the Great.
And man, is this fast.
But boy, is it heavy.
I mean, which has its strengths.
The extra weight make makes the ride pretty nice.
Extra weight makes the steering kind of slow.
But I'm going to, I don't want to hog the spotlight here,
I mean, lightning can only strike twice.
So Jake, come on, man, help me out here.
I'm reeling over the puns.
Yes, no pun.
I'm gonna need a moment.
I'm not permitting it.
No puns.
So let's stay on way back here.
Lightning, Ford Lightning.
So for those of you who remember,
about 20 years ago, there was another Ford Lightning,
which was like this performance version of the Ford F-150.
And to your point, Mike, this thing's way more powerful
than that thing ever was.
So that's first.
But of course, that thing used tons of gas.
This thing doesn't use any.
So it's first of all, I mean, good for Ford
for going through the parts bin of names
to come up with Lightning.
I mean, how perfect can you be for an electric vehicle?
But it's kind of like amazing I mean,
how fast this thing moves, how it gets around.
So full disclosure.
Last night I was driving around our Rivian.
We have a Rivian, that we have, a test vehicle.
And a lot of people talk, oh there's
the Rivian and the F-150 and you see pictures of it.
So you look online and you see a picture of a Rivian
and you see a picture of the F-150.
Like, oh, both pickup trucks.
Maybe similar pricing depending on how they're equipped.
They're very different.
I mean, let's just lay that out.
I mean, the F-150 is, Lightning is a full size pickup truck.
This is a large vehicle.
Anyone who's been in an F-150, it's like that.
The Rivian is not.
I mean, it's really more like a Ridgeline.
The bed is quite small.
In fact, it's not even as long as the Ford Maverick
when we measured it out.
So it's like a different animal.
You get in the F-150 Lightning, if you've ever
been in a full sized pickup truck, it's very familiar.
There's lots of room, there's lots of room around you,
there's tons of room for your stuff.
This is kind of like a thing about, it just useful.
Whereas you get into the Rivian, not so much.
It's kind of like if Tesla made a pickup truck kind of.
It's like a different animal.
So you brought up the Rivian.
OK, this is going to open up a whole kettle of fish.
Oh, no, no, [AUDIO OUT] episode.
I handed the Rivian off to you the other day, and I had,
I'm sure I gave you an earful of how crazy I
think those controls are.
Not the Rivian episode yet.
No, not the Rivian episode.
It's the lightning round.
Jake brought it up though.
I admit it.
But yes, I had a hard time getting away from you
that morning.
I've got to go!
But here's, but wait, it's important to put
that perspective.
Because the issue is, that a lot of electric cars
try to dazzle you with a lot of, I
don't want to say gimmicks, but like a lot of new features.
And it's like, hey, it's an electric vehicle,
hey, it's for early adopters and we're going to have all,
everything's going to be different
and we're going to change the way you start
the car and the way you change your mirrors
and there'll be giant screens everywhere.
This is very conventional.
I mean the Lightning F-150, sure, it's very fast
and it's got all those great things about electric vehicles.
Instant torque.
It just gets out of its way.
Low center of gravity, so around the corners it's better.
Doesn't use a drop of fuel, all those kinds of things.
But it's a very conventional experience.
You don't feel out of place, you're not
like waving this flag around, look at me, I'm an electric.
I mean, it looks like an F-150.
So I get a question.
It just jumped out at me.
Because we've driven the Rivian and we
really don't like the controls.
Not the Rivian episode.
The F-150 is much more conventional.
So it's a question to you guys.
So for Ford to bring this to market as quickly as it did,
they did have to go into the parts bin
and use what was already there.
But, if they had more time, do you
think they would have made their new Lightning like Tesla
and super complicated to do all the party tricks that Jake just
mentioned?
I think this is by design.
I think they recognize, well, Jen agrees with me.
I do.
I won't disagree with you either.
But seriously, I just wonder, would they have said, well,
we going to be like Tesla.
I mean, sorry, Jen, I didn't mean jump on that.
Oh, no.
But I totally agree with Jake.
I think this is by design.
Not only do, and we, I just had this discussion.
EVs are coming with more innovation
than they need to be, in my opinion.
So it needs to be an early adopter who's
comfortable with the touch screen and the craziness
in the interior to want the EV.
I absolutely think Ford did this by design.
One, to gain their existing F-150 buyer, which you just
mentioned, there's hundreds of thousands of them.
Yes.
People like my husband, who say, I want it to look like a truck,
I want it to look like an F-150.
To Jake's point, in that photo, you'd
be hard pressed if it weren't for this LED bar
across the front of the hood to tell you
that's a Lightning versus a regular F-150.
And I think that's intentional.
It looks and it feels like your F-150,
but you get now these EV advantages.
They're talking again on this longer range battery,
over 300 miles of range.
Game changer there.
And getting over 300, 240 on the regular length battery.
But feels very much like the truck you're leaving.
But to me, with some amenities.
The gas is just the big one, obviously.
But better ride.
This is a different suspension than the regular F-150.
Feels tremendous in terms of not being a trucky ride.
Power, obviously.
The frunk is huge!
Power, power hood frunk with all this capability, including
power ports that they show pictures
on Ford's site of all these tools and things in that frunk.
You think of somebody who's working
on a house or something who's setting up
a generator every day.
What if the truck is the generator every day?
So really nice things that could make this not just a truck
for the early adopter, but for the contractor,
for the truck guy who has the truck now.
Quiet.
Mike Monticello wrote our preview
on the website, which everybody can read, consumerreports.org,
and the lead is this story of him pulling up
to next to one of our facilities guys in his 2,500 series diesel
and pulling up next to him in the F-150 Lightning and one,
not being able to talk to him because the diesel was so loud.
And then literally launching away from him
like it was effortless.
So truck to truck, you know, is that enough?
Quiet, powerful, great ride, I don't know, could be.
So I think it's, you brought up truck
to truck, which, I'm looking over my notes and I'm thinking,
when you want to do trucky things,
and I mentioned this when I started talking is,
you're putting stuff in the bed, you're
putting people in the back seat, you're towing a trailer.
Electric vehicles of any shape or form
are still going to be behind the curve
when it comes to doing trucky things.
Now the question is, are the Lightning buyers
going to actually use it to do trucky things?
Right.
Like our work, our maintenance colleagues
with their 2500 series diesel trucks, and the elephant
in the room is, are they going to do trucky things
in the cold with an EV?
Right.
Well, so here's the thing.
And you started it out how, many trucks are sold in the US.
I mean, the top one, two, three vehicles,
I mean they always seem to be full-sized pickup trucks.
The issue is that not everyone wants
to do the same trucky things.
Right.
So look, if I want to go tow a trailer across the states,
this isn't my vehicle, no.
But there are plenty of people who could use
this for what they need to do.
You got a boat and you want to take it down to launch it,
you're towing around locally.
I mean, even like you talk about the facilities guys,
I mean, if you're working but you're on a site,
I mean even contractors, depending
on how far they're going, I mean,
you think of how many lawn guys are using their pickup
trucks around town.
They're not going very far.
But, wow, it would be nice to have
that kind of on board power.
So I think there is definitely a segment,
and I am sure this thing is going
to be sold out until eternity because I
think there is enough people who are doing that.
And again, let's go back, Ford just
being really unique about not waving that flag, look, I'm EV,
look, I'm different.
And I think we've already seen some evidence that there
is definitely that market.
I mean, in terms of electrification, I mean,
let's talk about the Maverick.
The Maverick, no, it's not a full EV,
but it's a hybrid that's a very fuel efficient hybrid.
It looks like a pickup truck.
And it doesn't really scream.
And when you drive the Maverick, I
know it's not the Maverick episode, but I mean,
it drives conventional.
It drives like a normal vehicle.
And I think that is something magic about that.
Because like what the Hyundai came out with their Santa Cruz
and it looks like something that you're
driving around the moon with or something and it's like,
there isn't that excitement about it.
So I think Ford almost using that, we're
the pickup truck guys, making these pickup trucks that
also are, don't use gasoline.
And some people are getting a little tired of the gas prices
where they are, so I get it.
Particularly when you're driving an F-150 with a giant tank.
Right.
That's 100, that's 100 spot to fill that, trust me.
Right.
But I mean, and just so you guys know,
and Talking Cars audiences know, I'm not anti EVs,
I'm not anti electric trucks.
But before I was in automotive journalism, I was a landscaper.
And I was using trucks for trucky things.
I'm not just hauling around bicycles.
I'm hauling around lawn mowers and all kinds of heavy tools
and towing wood chippers and stuff like that.
And so if we're going to be Consumer Reports
and we're going to talk to our audience, we need to say,
this isn't one of those trucks.
And I think that's, I think that's fair.
I mean, Ford is talking.
You look at Ford marketing for the Lightning,
they do talk about its towing, and they say,
oh, we took it out in the cold and it's awesome.
And I'm just, we haven't done actually formal tests for this
yet, but I've got to think that this is not going
to be one of those vehicles.
So certainly range is going to get hurt in terms of the cold,
and certainly range is going to be hurt when you're towing,
there's no question about that.
But again, if you're the landscaper and maybe
you're doing 50 miles a day because you're
doing a bunch of yards that are in your town, why not, Mike?
This could be great for that.
Again, if you got some accounts that are across the state,
uh-uh.
Right.
It all depends on what your usage is.
And I think for a lot of people this is going to work.
Yeah, I don't I don't disagree with that premise of keeping it
local, absolutely, absolutely.
Yeah, I think it does again, I think
when we first talked about the Lightning,
they had me ask my husband, who's an F-150 driver,
would you buy this truck.
He said, what will it do for me?
That was the question.
Not whether you would buy an EV, but will
it do something for me.
So I think it'll be interesting to see how it pans out
and what it gives and what it gives up
in terms of the traditional truck buyer
and the EV adopter who says, oh, now I can have a truck
and not be over complicated with controls or any of that
as well.
So very interesting.
Of course, we already have our F-150 Lightning on order.
So we will be following all those things.
Range, cold, towing, day to day living, regen braking.
We didn't even talk about regen breaking, but all those things
that are EV-ish and whether this strikes
that balance between the two.
So stay tuned for that testing.
So yeah, super exciting.
Obviously, we are all passionate about that truck
and this whole line of EV pickups
is going to thread that balance very differently, thus
the Rivian, et cetera.
So moving on to your questions.
We love them. talkingcars@icloud.com
written or video clips.
This question this week is from Mark in Oakhurst, California.
Take a listen.
Hey, Talking Cars, excuse the lighting.
I was trying to get my Mustang in the background,
but I think the sunlight has escaped me.
I have a 2014 V6 manual and I need
to get all new tires for the car.
So I'm looking at the Continental Extreme Contact
Sports.
The thing is, those are summer tires.
And so I kind of have a two-part question.
The first part is, can I use those summer tires year round?
Because most of the time it's above 40 to 50 degrees
and that's kind of cold for over here.
About two months of the year we'll
get mornings at about 25 to 35 degrees.
But by noon, those are kind of warmed up.
So the first question is, can I use those tires year round?
And the second question is, those Continental Extreme
Contact Sports, they seem to have really good ratings,
but they weren't, as far as the high performance summer
tires go, they weren't in the top of the list.
And so are there metrics that I'm missing?
I think something that's really important to
me is the rolling resistance for fuel economy,
as well as the handling just because these 2014s didn't
quite handle quite the best.
So anyways, hoping to get your input on this
and keep Talking Cars.
All right, so before we actually answer Mark's question,
I got a question for you, and I might be dating myself.
Do you remember the movie The Blair Witch Project?
Oh, yeah.
Early '90s.
All I could think of when Mark's video, and he says,
I didn't get the lighting quite right.
[LAUGHS]
That was in The Blair Witch Project.
No, Mark, made fun, he didn't even make fun of himself,
but he knew his lighting was [INAUDIBLE]..
But anyway, that's all I could think.
So maybe we should answer his question.
[LAUGHS]
The first was, can I use them year round?
So I had to look up where Oakhurst was, Mark.
It's kind of central California.
So when you alluded to that you do get some cold temperatures,
so I think, yes, you can use your Continental Extreme
Contact Sport year round, as long as you
are aware of the limitation.
So that's a summer tire.
When you're talking 25 to 40 degrees,
you have to know that those tires are not
going to grip as they are when it's 50, 60, 70,
if not even hotter.
So you got to probably drive a bit differently.
I'm thinking you don't get snow and ice, but maybe you do.
They're going to be useless in snow or ice.
But you need to drive much more carefully.
I don't know if you guys agree.
I know we've had performance cars here
that even when just the temperature tanked that we
saw differences in performance.
Yeah.
I mean, temperature is a funny thing.
So I mean, and we see this on the track.
So I mean, there's air temperature,
there's track temperature, there's tire temperature,
so there's a lot of things.
I think on a cool day, they may warm up quicker, pretty quick.
So I mean, if it's a cold, if it's a cold road, for sure.
You're going to have some issues.
But the truth is that with a decent sunload, it can warm up,
and you're probably going to be, depending on where you are,
they could be OK.
But again, just keep that in the back of your mind.
First thing in the morning you don't have the sun
out, cold tires, you might have a little bit of surprise
if you're not ready for it.
Yeah.
And I just think Ryan Pszczolkowski is relieved
because you can do the tire answers and he's off the hook.
Yes, so we could have brought him in, brought him in.
And Mark was considering the Continental Extreme Contact
Sport.
That's a very highly rated ultra high performance summer tire.
So just be aware of the temperature conditions.
And for everybody's benefit, we do
have new ultra high performance tire ratings coming out
very soon, so there'll be others to choose from as well.
So as always, thank you, Mark.
We didn't really mean to make fun of you,
it just struck me as similar.
And keep your questions coming. talkingcars@icloud.com.
This episode was produced and edited
by David Abrams and Anatoly Shumsky.
Keep watching, keep listening, and we'll see you next week.