- The F-150 Lightning is the iPhone of pickup trucks.
Like it's not new new, we've had pickup trucks before,
but this is the first very clearly
in a new generation that will all be different.
And so Lightning also Lightning so yeah.
(hip-hop music)
- Okay, so if you've ever driven around the United States
and just looked, for more than a few seconds,
you'll find it impossible not to notice that
there are Ford F-150s everywhere,
and it's not just on construction sites, it's on the roads.
It's at grocery stores, it's taking the kids to school.
It has been the most popular vehicle,
not the most popular truck, the bestselling vehicle,
in America for the past 30 plus years in a row.
And it shows.
And so that's exactly why the F-150 Lightning
is a really big deal, especially for Ford.
It's kind of like, you probably know someone like this.
People who have older iPhones, who are not really
considering getting any other phone,
other than a new iPhone,
don't really know which new iPhone
but eventually they will upgrade
to one of the newer iPhones.
It might not be you and I, but there's a lot of people
just like that here with their Ford trucks.
So I've been driving and living
with the all-electric F-150 Lightning for a couple days now
enjoying its tons of features, living in a world
of an electric pickup truck.
And I am very impressed, but it's not me
they have to impress, it's the whole world
of F-150 loyalists and pickup truck buyers that are waiting
for the next convincing F-150 upgrade,
before they buy one again.
Basically, if the future of cars is electric,
then this is one of the most important cars in the world.
(upbeat music)
So in a lot of ways,
it doesn't actually matter how this thing drives.
Like I could talk to you all day about driving dynamics,
but most people buying a truck like this
aren't too concerned with that.
But the fact is, it is actually better
than a regular F-150 in a couple of ways.
One it's much quieter.
You can turn on the propulsion sound, which I haven't,
but it's very quiet for a truck.
And then two, it is much smoother.
I am a big fan of the one pedal driving option.
A lot of EVs don't have the option.
You should always have the option.
This gives you that.
And so the regenerative breaking is pretty smooth.
The pedal calibration's pretty smooth
and overall, it drives pretty well.
And if you wanna kick it in a straight line,
you definitely can.
This happens to be the first F-150
with independent rear suspension.
And that's actually just a result
of the way they built the car
with the battery pack underneath.
But otherwise it drives the same way as the other F-150s.
If you're used to a big truck, it drives like a big truck.
If you're used to being high above the road,
it's still high above the road.
And that's actually important.
It's gotta feel familiar.
It's gotta feel like truck you're used to.
And in so many ways, it still does, just a little better.
But clearly it does not look too outta place on a road.
I drive past other F-150s all the time.
It looks exactly the same from the outside.
If you don't look at the badges,
if you don't know what to look for
as far as the bar headlights and the bar taillights,
yeah this is very much familiar.
And that's a good thing. It's supposed to be.
We just need an EV version of a car
that's already very well accepted.
And Ford did that with the name Mustang,
but they really did it
with the entire truck here with the F-150.
Even if nothing else is different
about the F-150 Lightning against the gas F-150 Lightning,
the one thing it does have is called the Mega Power Frunk,
which will make a lot of sense.
If I open it, it beeps for a second
to let me know it's gonna open.
Then it opens to reveal 400 liters
or 14 cubic feet of enclosed storage,
which pickup trucks normally don't have.
That's bigger than the trunk of a Toyota Corolla.
So it's a real trunk.
You can put up to 400 pounds of stuff in here.
There is a false floor at the bottom,
underneath which you will find space
for your charging cable.
But even without that there's plenty of space
for bags, grocery shopping.
You can fit a full set of golf clubs in here,
like I've done in the past,
but it's also called the Mega Power Frunk,
because you can kind of just operate
again work out of the frunk.
There's four full size outlets over here,
a USB-C port, a USB-A port,
or if you just wanna use it as a tailgating,
but what's the opposite of a tailgate, whatever.
As a cooler, you can fill it with ice
and there's a drain hole in the bottom.
So this becomes the place where you sort of party
out of your truck.
It's just multipurpose in every way.
But really the cherry on top is
this is the feature that would visually
differentiate it and make it obvious
that this truck was different from the others.
Like this would pull up in a parking lot
alongside all of the rest of the other trucks there.
And no one would bat an eye,
unless you recognize the badging
or the taillight bar or the headlight bar.
You wouldn't know but the second the front truck opens,
that's when other truck owners heads would turn like,
"Wait that's not the same thing as the truck I have."
So that is the main fun part
of the Lightning's Mega Power Frunk.
(boot clanks)
You could also fit a human body in it.
So I could point out the work truck theme
and how it's present all over the F-150 Lightning,
but it would also be kind of redundant,
because that's all over every F-150,
spraying truck liner, how massive this thing is,
all the measuring equipment on the side.
But my favorite part is definitely
how many power outlets this thing has,
and everything it can power
because it's essentially a giant battery bank,
probably the biggest battery bank you'll ever have.
So the trunk has a whole bunch of 120 volt outlets.
It has a 240 volt outlet.
That's your power tools, your air compressor,
whatever else you want it to be.
But then the inside of the cab,
you've got full size outlets in there too.
USB ports, wireless charging.
The frunk like I said, also has power,
but the best part of it is the truck can power your house
if you wanted it to.
So Ford sells an inverter, you put it in your garage,
and you plug this thing in and it can back up your house
if it loses power for days at a time.
Several times the size of a Tesla power wall.
So that's pretty sick.
I guess the point I'm making is even though
I'm not in the market for an F-150 Lightning,
I love this thing.
Some new EVs are super different
from the rest of the company's lineup.
But as I keep saying,
this one's basically the same and that's on purpose.
Of course, the similarity in parts makes for much easier
cheaper manufacturing, which by the way,
is already topnotch from the company
that literally invented the assembly line.
And the familiarity of the F-150 brand lends itself
to people being more likely to give it a shot,
but also not only is this just another F-150,
but it's the best F-150 ever made.
The F-150 Lightning is more powerful
than the most powerful gas F-150.
It has more horsepower and more torque
than the best gas F-150.
It has a massive max towing capacity,
the most covered cargo space, the most high tech features.
It has the least maintenance.
It's the least expensive per mile to run and own.
And by the way, it's the fastest, quietest,
smoothest and the easiest to drive
if any of that matters to you.
So it delivers, it delivers on the promise,
and I can see it making
a lot of the pre-order holders happy.
We even used a second F-150 Lightning
to shoot this first F-150 Lightning.
So it's already putting in work.
My only question going in was about range.
You might have remembered some of the things
left unclear from my impressions video.
So this extended range version promised 300 miles.
I lived with it for a week and I found that
real world use gets you a little bit below that,
which is not surprising, about 280,
but then there's even a sick feature that measures
how much you're either hauling or towing
with a built-in scale and then adjusts your estimated range
from there, which is a great idea for a truck,
which will be towing and hauling all the time.
So here we are, Ford's gonna start shipping these.
We'll see how fast they can ramp up manufacturing.
And now it's up to the rest of the competition
the electric Ram, the electric Toyota Tundra,
even the Cybertruck, the ones on the horizon,
it's up to all of them to catch up to this one.
Thanks for watching.
Catch you out in the next one. Peace.
(hip-hop music)