2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Road Test and Review

2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Pro ・ Photo by Brady Holt

Most of the hottest electric pickup trucks are electric first, pickups second. It's almost like a memo went around that electric pickups had to look different. Tesla got everyone started with its robot-warrior Cybertruck. The Rivian R1T has the rounded-off cheerfulness of an eMac computer. The GMC Hummer can "crab-walk." The Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra EVs are sleek unibody-like vehicles rather than boxy body-on-frame trucks.

The 2025 Ford F-150 Lightning shrugs off all that. It’s pretty much a regular-looking pickup truck with electric motors instead of a gasoline engine. It beat nearly all competitors to the market, hitting the streets four years ago, and it was last year’s best seller. For this review, we spent a week testing a base F-150 Lightning Pro model to learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of an electric pickup – and whether Ford has created a solution that could work for you. Keep reading to find what we learned.

A Wide Range of Prices

When it debuted for 2022, the F-150 Lightning made headlines for its starting price of just under $40,000. These days, the base 2025 F-150 Lightning Pro starts at $49,780 with manually adjustable, unheated, vinyl-upholstered front seats. It does include amenities such as a big touchscreen with GPS navigation, a six-speaker stereo, blind-spot monitoring, forward and reverse emergency braking, and a Wi-Fi hotspot – to say nothing of “basics” like power windows, locks, and mirrors; a six-speaker stereo; a backup camera; cruise control; and air conditioning. 

This base Lightning Pro is only available for eligible business and government fleet customers who register with Ford Pro. Retail buyers must pay $5,000 more for the cheapest Lightning Pro, which buys them a bigger battery that we'll discuss later. However, this year marks the first time that any non-fleet retail buyers can get their hands on a Pro. 

It’s a big jump to the XLT, $63,345, with a power driver’s seat, heated fabric-upholstered front seats, a surround-view parking camera, and a leather-wrapped steering wheel. And that’s the price with a standard-range battery (rather than the extended range that you can get for $54,780 on the Pro). The $69,995 Flash bundles popular amenities like the plus-sized battery, a plus-sized touchscreen, hands-free highway driving, and a premium stereo. Finally, the $76,995 Lariat and $84,995 Platinum are where you find the most decadent features and upgraded cabin trim. 

As of October 2025, the F-150 Lightning and other plug-in cars are no longer eligible for federal tax credits. But as we’ll discuss, these prices can still pay off for the right buyer. 

2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Pro ・ Photo by Brady Holt

Up to 320 Miles per Charge

With its standard battery pack, included on the fleet-only Pro and every XLT, the 2025 Ford F-150 Lightning travels an EPA-estimated 240 miles per charge while averaging the equivalent of 76 mpg in the city, 61 mpg on the highway, and 68 mpg combined. The extended-range battery pack on other trim levels improves the truck’s range to 320 miles on the Pro, Flash, and Lariat (300 miles on the heavier Platinum), and efficiency is up by 2 MPGe as well. 

Towing a large trailer or hauling a heavy payload cuts sharply into those range estimates, and it goes farther in stop-and-go conditions than highway driving. However, one notable EV advantage is that they use little energy to idle. Also, while prices for gasoline and electricity will vary by region, the Lightning’s average fuel costs are typically around half that of the typical gas-powered F-150. 

It takes about 12 hours to fully charge the F-150 Lightning using a 240-volt car charger, like you’d install at home or find in many public stations. That means you’d return to full range by plugging in overnight. A public fast-charger can bring it from 15 percent to 80 percent charge in as little as 36 minutes. And even if you don’t find any car chargers, you can get about 2 miles of range per hour at any standard three-prong outlet.  

2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Pro ・ Photo by Brady Holt

The Weather Effect

We tested our 2025 F-150 Lightning Pro with the extended-range battery pack during mild mid-Atlantic September weather. We drove it 226 miles and finished with 36 percent of battery charge, which the computer estimated would last us another 116 miles. That comes to a total range of about 350 miles, well above the EPA estimate, in a mix of driving conditions. 

However, when we tested a 2023 Platinum model in wintertime, we were on track to get just 230 miles of range versus its 300-mile EPA figure. (Note that Ford added a heat pump in 2024, which improves cold-weather range.)

Put another way, we averaged 91 MPGe (2.7 miles per kilowatt hour) in our mild-weather test and 57 MPGe (1.8 miles per kWh) in the wintertime. On the plus side, either figure is incredible mileage for a big pickup – especially considering that the F-150 Lightning is also incredibly fast. 

2023 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum ・ Photo by Brady Holt

Speedy and Silent

The F-150 Lightning comes standard with two electric motors: one for the front wheels and one for the rear wheels. Torque is a mighty 775 lb-ft, while horsepower ranges from 452 with the standard battery to 580 with the extended-range pack. 

Like most EVs, the Lightning delivers smooth, nearly silent, and incredibly swift acceleration. Even sports cars are exciting when they reach 60 mph in just 4 seconds. It’s an even more absurd experience to do so in a full-size pickup truck, especially without the accompanying roar of a big engine. 

When you crunch the numbers on the F-150 Lightning, remember that you’re not just paying for efficiency – you’re also upgrading to the fastest F-150 on the market. And if that’s not a priority to you, don’t worry; the F-150 Lightning is also easy to drive normally. Just keep pushing farther and farther down on the throttle for wilder and wilder speed. 

2023 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum ・ Photo by Brady Holt

Better Ride and Handling, Too

It’s an old trope that full-size pickups have gotten better and better to drive, but sometimes that gets exaggerated. They still tend to have jiggly rides and clumsy handling by most standards. The F-150 Lightning is a rare exception. 

While this is still a body-on-frame truck, it replaces the gas F-150’s solid rear axle with an independent rear suspension. This change improves both the ride quality and the handling. So does the electric battery, which is heavy and low in the vehicle, providing a planted feel and a low center of gravity. Especially when paired with its smooth acceleration and lack of engine noise, the F-150 Lightning is an uncommonly sophisticated pickup to drive. 

And if you don’t want to drive it yourself, Ford’s BlueCruise system is standard on all but the Pro and XLT trim levels. It uses cameras and other sensors to operate the vehicle on more than 130,000 miles of pre-mapped highways across North America. Unlike most rival systems (the chief exception being General Motors’ Super Cruise), Ford explicitly allows you to drive hands-free. It’ll disengage if road conditions become too challenging, you leave a pre-mapped route, or the in-car camera senses that you’re not watching the road. 

However, when we tried it out in the Platinum, we’d sometimes glance down to see that the truck had handed control back to us without our notice. Super Cruise’s handoffs are more obvious. 

2023 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum ・ Photo by Brady Holt

Capable in Its Own Way

As we mentioned, towing and hauling cuts sharply into an EV’s range. The F-150 Lightning probably isn’t the truck for you to haul your boat or camper trailer across the country. However, it’s capable in other valuable ways. 

For shorter jaunts, the Lightning Pro and XLT can tow up to 7,700 pounds with their base battery, the truck can hit tow up to 10,000 pounds with the upgraded battery like on our test truck. Payload capacity ranges from about 1,600 to 2,200 pounds. Those are solid numbers for a half-ton crew-cab pickup. And like the gas F-150, the Lightning has a handy retractable bed step while you’re loading and unloading the truck. 

The Lightning has some unique EV-specific benefits as well. Its front trunk (or “frunk”) provides 14.1 cubic feet of dry, secure cargo room under the hood; that’s about the same as a sedan’s trunk. And you can use the Lightning’s battery as a portable generator – powering your tools at a job site, lighting your house during a power outage, or even recharging another EV. Note that while the gas F-150 has a wide range of body styles, every Lightning is a four-door crew cab with four-wheel drive and a 5.5-foot-long bed.

2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Pro ・ Photo by Brady Holt

Familiar F-150 Design

For the most part, the F-150 Lightning shares its body and exterior with the gas F-150. Ford dresses up the exterior with front and rear lightbars on most trim levels, and the grille and wheels are a bit different. But this isn’t an EV that screams “car of the future.” 

It’s a little flashier inside, where most trim levels now use a big 15.5-inch vertically arranged touchscreen versus the gas F-150’s 12-inch horizontal screen, shown here. (We appreciate the slightly smaller screen’s useful buttons and knobs, and you can also get this layout on the F-150 Lightning Pro and XLT.) Unlike every other electric pickup, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto phone mirroring come standard. 

Whichever Lightning you choose, you still get a physical PRNDL gear selector on the console, and the gauge cluster (while digital) sits behind a round steering wheel. Instead of facial recognition to unlock the car if you forget your key, you can punch a code into a keypad panel like it’s 1982. And an old-school mast antenna pops out of the hood to get the best possible radio reception. 

This isn’t a flashy luxury car, but if you like regular trucks, the F-150 Lightning holds onto that everyday functionality. 

2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Pro ・ Photo by Brady Holt

Cushy Seats

If you haven’t been inside a big pickup lately, you might not appreciate one of the reasons they’re so popular: huge, comfortable seats. And that’s exactly what you get from the F-150, including the Lightning. The interior may be more workmanlike than most expensive EVs, or even some rival pickups, but it’s undeniably cushy. We loved its well-padded chairs and ample space to spread out in both the front and rear. Even our base Pro model, with vinyl upholstery and manual seat adjustments, was a great place to sit. 

We also got to use our F-150 Lightning as a mobile office. In a feature shared with the gas model, the Lightning lets you fold down the gear selector and convert the center console into a workstation table. Throw in the in-car Wi-Fi and EVs’ ability to idle without quickly draining the battery or stinking up the neighborhood, and it’s a great place to open up your laptop from wherever you’re parked.

2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Pro ・ Photo by Brady Holt

F-150 Lightning vs. the Competition

As we mentioned, the Lightning is the most traditional of America’s electric pickups. It shares the body and interior of a gas F-150. Here’s how this approach stacks up to the competition. 

The Chevrolet Silverado EV (and its GMC Sierra EV twin) are more obviously electric, with sleeker lines and no division between the cab and bed. But they also take advantage of their uniqueness. In addition to a frunk, they have a fold-down panel that lets you extend the bed into the rear-seat area to carry longer cargo. They also have bigger optional batteries with EPA ranges of up to 494 miles per charge – much farther than the F-150 Lightning can travel. But the F-150 Lightning has simpler dashboard controls, and the GM trucks’ bigger batteries weigh a lot more – making these trucks less agile than the Ford.

The other competitors are even less traditional. The Tesla Cybertruck is a wild attention-grabber with similar pricing and specs to a high-end F-150 Lightning. But with prices starting at $79,900, it has no equivalent to lesser-trim Lightnings. The Rivian R1T, another luxury lifestyle vehicle, is more playful than either the all-business F-150 or the dystopian-future Cybertruck. It also has a longer available range, quicker acceleration, livelier handling, and a more luxurious interior than the Ford and Tesla, but it’s smaller and less spacious. 

Finally, as we mentioned, none of these rivals lets you use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Only Ford lets you choose between the native infotainment system and your phone’s mobile apps.

2025 Chevrolet Silverado EV LT ・ Photo by Brady Holt

The Meeting of Present and Future

An EV isn’t for every truck owner. It needs time to charge and a place to charge it. And it won’t work well with long-distance drives, especially with a trailer attached. 

But there’s still a lot to like for the right buyer. The F-150 Lightning not only cuts your tailpipe emissions and fuel bills, but it’s also a performance truck with sports-car acceleration and uncommonly sophisticated handling. And unlike many EVs, it doesn’t go overboard with gimmicky quirks like bizarre control layouts or fussy door handles. If you like a regular F-150, odds are you’d like this one even more, as long as you can make it work for your life. The F-150 Lightning isn’t cheap. But its lower operating costs will help it pay for itself, and the superior driving experience is worth its own premium. And while the electric GM pickups can go a lot farther on a charge and have more cargo flexibility, we preferred living with the Ford in everyday driving. 

Overall, with its power, efficiency, and smart features, the F-150 Lightning advances the traditional pickup truck in many ways without making things too weird or difficult. If you'd like to cut out gas, can charge up at home or work, and don’t often drive much more than 200 miles (or tow a big trailer more than 75 miles) in a single day, it’ll fit easily into your life. For longer drives, you’ll have to decide if the F-150 Lightning’s superlative driving manners are worth the time and bother of stopping to recharge along the way. 

2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Pro ・ Photo by Brady Holt