The 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning Is a Shockingly Good Electric Pickup Truck (Jalopnik Review)

The 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning Is a Shockingly Good Electric Pickup Truck
Detractors might say it's not a real F-150 because it's electric, but they're wrong. The battery-powered pickup has great range and real truck capabilities.

https://jalopnik.com/2023-ford-f-150-lightning-ev-pickup-jalopnik-review-1850195139

The large portrait-oriented central dashboard screen is sharp, responsive and super easy to use

Click to expand...

I will happily smoke whatever the reviewer's smoking. That screen is neither particularly sharp or remotely responsive.

Jalopnik is full of EV haters so this is surprising

F150ROD said:

Jalopnik is full of EV haters so this is surprising

Click to expand...

They probably like it so much because it smells and tastes like a ICE truck, haha!

meow said:

I will happily smoke whatever the reviewer's smoking. That screen is neither particularly sharp or remotely responsive.

Click to expand...

Compared to? My 12 screen isn't bad, certainly better than others I've used. Maybe they get worse? On my third week of use I noticed it lag ~1/4 second once or twice

F150ROD said:

Jalopnik is full of EV haters so this is surprising

Click to expand...

They are full of haters of EV brands that don’t advertise on their website…

Maybe I've been lucky but I have 4.2.1 and I don't find the UI unresponsive, wireless CarPlay works just fine and the wireless phone charger works just fine.

Yah my Android Auto has really started acting better once I switched to a newer S23+. The charger doesn't heat the phone so much as it constantly stops charging, particularly if I go over normal bumps in the road.

s_c said:

Compared to? My 12 screen isn't bad, certainly better than others I've used. Maybe they get worse? On my third week of use I noticed it lag ~1/4 second once or twice

Click to expand...

Compared to my iPad or iPhone. Or any decent modern/recent smartphone or tablet. The 15" is a bit slow, and has a noticeable delay between touch and response - especially when you're trying to do something super edge-case like change the temperature or volume.

Howard_Scott_Warshaw said:

" Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard and work like a charm." Anyone else have a good chuckle at this?

" There’s also a wireless charging pad," I like to refer to this as a wireless phone heater instead.

Click to expand...

I would agree with "work like a charm" only now it's been 2 ish months since it last crashed on me. That said the sometimes 20+ seconds for it to connect when turning the car on just makes me want to tape an iPad over the screen

Does the wireless charging pad actually charge anyone's device? It doesn't even keep our phones charged if they're connected to the vehicle.

s_c said:

Compared to? My 12 screen isn't bad, certainly better than others I've used. Maybe they get worse? On my third week of use I noticed it lag ~1/4 second once or twice

Click to expand...

Yeah, the Lightning's screen is just fine... For the auto industry. No, it sucks compared to any iPad over the last 5 years or such, but compared to all the other screens out there in cars/trucks, it's fine. The latest and greatest from Rivian and Tesla are still laggy pieces of sh!t, so there you go. People complain about Ford's software and all that... Once again they're fine. Rivian is struggling like crazy here. Tesla is doing OK, but I'm not wild about their UI design and they have a mature product vs. what Ford is trying to do with this 15" screen thing. I guess one can argue that Ford has a mature product in Sync, which they do, but it seems like they can't figure out what they want to do with it.

Anyway, it's fine... It's not amazing. It's just "fine"... As in OK... It gets the job done and isn't going to impress anyone who's used a current computer/tablet device in the last 5 to 7 years. I guess it runs better than the ChromeBook the school supplies my kid. Heh.

Performance aside, there's a lot of work they could do to improve user experience. The Ford navigation is really truly awful. Not from a navigation perspective, but in terms of usability and features. Like it should be able to let me add stops along a route or it shouldn't be so brain-dead when it comes to charger routing. I mean, the stupid thing wants me to charge at the next charger, even though I'm at 80% SOC when there's an equivalent/better charger just 120 miles down the road along my route. And I'll have to listen to it tell me for the next 18 miles that I need to turn around before it realizes that I should go to the next charger that all my other navigation tools have already directed me to...