Oh the weather outside is frightful…
And so is the cold weather range in Ford’s all-electric F-150 Lighting, according to popular auto reviewer Tyler Hoover of YouTube’s Hoovies Garage.
Hoover’s story, which published December 5, is one of a growing number of negative reviews from auto buffs across the country concerning lackluster battery power in Ford’s first full-size electric pickup.
After googling "F-150 Lightning range" on December 6, six out of the first 10 search results addressed issues with range. A road trip story from Automotive News appeared to sum up best what drivers are concerned about most with Lightning.
“Range anxiety. I felt it intensely last week when I took a Ford F-150 Lightning on a roughly 300-mile trip from Detroit’s northern ‘burbs to a little town in Ohio called Pandora about 19 miles southwest of Findlay,” writes reporter Richard Truett in a story published November 8. “After 9 hours on the road, I limped home with the equivalent of about a gallon of fuel left.”
While Truett points to a lack of charging infrastructure as a big factor for range anxiety, Hoover’s story cites cold temperatures as a more credible threat.
While driving his F-150 Lightning XLT Lariat on a cold morning hovering just 5 degrees above freezing, Hoover is astonished to see how a cold powertrain battery can accelerate range depletion.
