SPEAKER: Stuck in traffic.
Glamorous, I know.
Most of the time here at Edmunds when we're testing cars,
it looks a little bit like this or maybe like this.
As cool as those things are, that's
not how most people use their vehicles.
Most of the time, it's in a situation like this.
Now, you may be asking how I ended up here.
And ever since I started here at Edmunds,
I've sort of had this "say yes" policy that I'm currently
very much reconsidering.
But they did promise me snacks.
I'm in our 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning.
And this is a member of our long-term fleet,
and it's one that we really like.
It's kind of a do-everything truck
that we've put through a whole bunch of different stuff
from pulling things that are way too heavy to putting up
some really impressive numbers on our test track.
But one of the things that we haven't done with this vehicle
or haven't done and shown you at least
is to see how it handles the daily commute.
Now, you might think that something like a Honda Civic
or another kind of sedan is more of a commuter car,
but that's not the case.
These days, people use these full-sized trucks
for everything.
They're family vehicles, they're daily drivers,
and that means they need to be as
adept at handling Los Angeles traffic
as they are at towing or hauling.
In our stuck-in-traffic test we're
going to cover four different categories-- comfort, cabin
features and technology, driver aids,
and my favorite-- the wild card.
The Lightning is a full-sized truck,
which makes it less than ideal for something like parking.
And even when you're driving here on the road,
it feels really big.
Although, that's sort of a feature for some people.
They really like feeling like they take up a lot of space
in the lane.
One of the benefits, though, of a full-sized truck
is you get a full-sized cabin.
And as you can see, tons of headroom here
for both the front and the back seat.
And in the F-150, seats are generally pretty supportive,
not quite as nice as the ones that you
get in like the Ram 1500, let's say, but I'm
pretty comfortable.
The climate control system also nice.
Ford actually gives you three different automatic fan
settings.
Most other automakers only give you one.
So it's kind of easy to add or take away as much fan speed
as you want.
The other nice thing is that our F-150 Lightning
has the update that our long-term Mach-E is lacking.
So this center volume knob here can actually
transform and allow you to control things
like the fan speed or to change the temperature.
It just makes it a little bit easier to use.
Our Lightning has heated seats front and rear, which is nice.
But the real exciting thing is that we have front ventilated
seats.
The F-150 lineup has some of the best seat coolers around.
Seriously, these things are ballistic grade.
And there's nothing worse than sitting in traffic than being
sweaty and sitting in traffic.
One of the other nice things about driving
these full-sized trucks around is you get a really commanding
seating position.
So from here on my perch atop the traffic,
I can look out way forward and I can
see that I'm not really going to be going anywhere anytime
soon at all.
But still, the more you know.
[GENTLE JINGLE]
Of the nice things about the Lightning's electric powertrain
is that it helps to keep the cabin pretty serene,
so you don't get any engine noise.
And it does a pretty good job of keeping outside noise
outside as well.
So it's easy to have a conversation in the cabin.
Right, Casey?
CASEY: Yeah.
SPEAKER 1: And like many other electric vehicles,
the Lightning also comes with a one-pedal-drive mode.
That means you can do all the accelerating and all
the braking through one pedal.
I didn't actually anticipate liking this feature
as much as I do in traffic, but it's actually
kind of nice to drive slowly without having to constantly
move your foot back and forth from brake to throttle
to break the throttle and just be
able to leave your foot on the accelerator
and have the vehicle sort of handle all that for you.
Another nice thing about the Lightning's electric powertrain
is instant torque.
So that means that when a little gap shows up
in traffic one lane over, I can just shoot in instantly
and fill it.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
I'm not sorry.
It's kill or be killed out here.
The Lightning like the Mach-E has one large kind
of center screen that houses all the vehicle's
controls for better or worse.
The screen, very responsive, actually very well
placed, easy to reach from the driver's seat on both sides.
Sometimes, these large screens can
be difficult to reach the far side of, especially,
in a truck where the dashboard is so big.
But the Lightning, the ergonomics, they
did a really good job with this vehicle.
The other nice thing is too if you're
using smartphone mirroring, it comes with wireless Android
Auto and wireless Apple CarPlay.
And it actually takes up about 3/4
of the screen when you go into either, so you can get the maps
a really nice big size, easy to see.
The [? Lightning trim ?] also comes
with an 8-speaker Bang & Olufsen sound system with a subwoofer.
But overall, the system does lack
some low end grunt and the highs can get a little bit tinny.
Ford also offers an 18-speaker Bang & Olufsen system
on the higher trim levels.
And I think that one probably slaps a little bit more.
The nice thing, though, about this cabin,
like I mentioned before, it's very quiet.
So that means that you can listen to podcasts
or have phone conversations via the Bluetooth
at pretty low volume.
For the phone calls, the nice thing
is that the voice comes out of all the front speakers not just
the center one like it does in some vehicles.
And I called multiple people to see how well the microphones
worked in the Lightning, and they
said that my voice was distressingly clear.
SPEAKER 2: Thank you!
SPEAKER 1: One of the other strengths of the Lightning's
cabin is its front storage.
So you get a really big bin right here,
you get some extra storage even under the screen.
You have two glove boxes.
You have two pockets in the doors as well.
There's just plenty of space for all your stuff.
Now, this big screen isn't the only way
that the Lightning is a technology powerhouse.
The Lightning comes with a pretty long list
of standard safety features.
But for the situation that we are in, the most important
among them is BlueCruise.
And that is Ford's level 2 self-driving system.
And to find out more about the different levels
of self-driving systems and safety technology,
hit the link right here.
BlueCruise is very similar to GM's Super Cruise.
It's a hands-free system.
That's why it's kind of liberating for a hands
talker like me.
So in certain situations, where you're on a divided mapped
highway, like the one that we are on,
the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles-- a.k.a.
Hell-- you can go hands free.
Now, there's a little sensor here next to the screen
that watches my eyes.
I still have to pay attention to the road
for the most part or the system will beep at you
and tell you to start paying attention.
But it does free my hands up to talk to you, to eat a snack,
to do kind of whatever.
Now with this camera watching your eyes,
some of these systems can be very sensitive,
like in the Prius Prime for example,
if you looked away for just a second,
the car would immediately start yelling at you.
Here in the Ford, it does give you a little bit of leeway
to turn away for a moment, and then turn back
without being too annoying.
BlueCruise turns on automatically
when you activate the adaptive cruise control on one
of these mapped highways.
And the network of mapped highways
is continuously kind of growing.
So to turn on BlueCruise, get on the highway,
turn on adaptive cruise, a little prompt
shows up that tells you that BlueCruise is active,
and then you have to wait for another icon
to appear here on the left side of the screen that actually
tells you you're in hands-free mode.
Without that icon, you're actually
just driving in the regular adaptive cruise control.
And in that case, you have to keep a hand on the wheel.
The system is pretty good when it works.
As part of research for this piece,
I've been driving in traffic a lot in this vehicle,
and I've noticed that the system has a tendency
to sort of shut off at random.
When it exits hands-free mode, it gives you a little prompt
in the screen and chimes, so you have
to take control of the wheel again,
but it seems to happen sort of at random.
It's not really tied to what lane
you're in or if there's an exit coming up or what the speed is.
There are just times where it will shut off,
and you have to take the wheel.
And one of the other issues that I found with this system
is that it doesn't really do a great job of centering
the vehicle in the lane.
BlueCruise combines a whole bunch of different things.
It's looking at cameras, it's looking at the maps,
it's looking at the radar.
But one of the factors that it uses to sort of figure out
where to position the vehicle is based
on the vehicle in front of you.
So if the vehicle in front of you
is kind of drifting off to the side of the lane,
guess what, you're drifting off too.
BlueCruise is a bit of a follower in that way.
Both the adaptive cruise and BlueCruise work all the way
down to a stop, so you can be in traffic
and it will handle all the stopping and starting for you.
And it's generally pretty smooth at both.
If you do get cut off, it can break a little bit abruptly,
but that's mostly for safety and I would rather have that
than the system allow vehicles to cut in without it reacting
in that way.
When you do come to a stop, at a certain point,
you are going to have to hit the throttle a little bit
or a button here on the steering wheel to resume.
But that delay time is pretty high,
so you can actually sit there for upwards
of 5, 6 seconds and not move, and the vehicle is still
actively looking for that car in front of it to take off
and it will follow.
Overall, I would say the BlueCruise does improve
your experience in traffic, but it would just
be nice if the system could make up its mind about whether it
wants to stay on or turn off.
The system that most people would compare this to
is Tesla's Autopilot.
And in that regard, I'd say the two are about equal, even
though Autopilot does a little bit better job of actually
staying on.
The good news for our vehicle though,
is that help may soon be on the way.
So our Lightning has BlueCruise 1.0,
but Ford actually has released BlueCruise 1.2.
And that is supposed to improve the vehicle's lane centering,
add hands-free lane changes, and add
a feature that helps it to slow down for curves in the road.
We should eventually get this via over-the-air update.
And if you want to see our thoughts and impressions of it
when it does arrive, be sure to check out our long-term blog,
link in the description.
In this vehicle, we considered a bunch
of things for our wild card.
But what eventually went out for me
was a feature that makes it unique among pickup trucks.
So one of the problems that you have with a pickup
is that there's really not any secure storage.
You're either keeping something in the bed
or you're keeping it in the cabin where
it takes up passenger room.
But in the Lightning where there is no engine up front,
it actually turns that into a pretty decently sized storage
space.
So you can put groceries, backpacks, other things
up there, and still have space for the kids in the back,
unless you don't like them, because they'll
fit in the frunk too.
Using our handy Edmunds Traffic Hate-O-Meter,
I would say that the Lightning helps me
hate traffic a little bit less.
The commanding seat position helps me to feel like a king.
The climate controls are great.
The one-pedal-driving experience helps to reduce driver fatigue.
The only thing really holding the Lightning back to me
is sort of the BlueCruise.
And the problem isn't so much the system itself,
it's that it just kind of turns off and on at random.
So if it could have some consistent performance--
and hopefully, that's something that the update helps to fix
as well--
it might bump the Lightning even higher on the meter.
Oh, I almost forgot the most important part--
the snack.
All right, let's see what we got.
Oh.
Flamin' Hot Cool Ranch Doritos, the finest
of the new Doritos flavors.
Mm!
Hot, not too hot, tangy, still get a little ranch, 8 and 1/2
out of 10.
Dude, you have a Sentra.
Are you serious?
You took the muffler off yourself?
I hate it here.