Edmunds 3 year Lightning review

[TRCarr]

Just went over 80,000 miles on my April ‘23 (2023 model) Lariat ER. Maybe 1/2 of my miles are towing. No rattles.

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[22legit2quit]

The ram charger, if it is ever realized, is going to change the game for vehicles. The realization being the big thing, if the oil companies and others have their way it’s going to be a esx 1 and 2 rerun. The depreciation is the same with anything considered a luxury item, and unfortunately EVs are still considered that way. The charging on road, with trailer that seems to be permanently attached is a little bit far fetched. These were my takeaways because it seems like they did everything possible to make it less palatable:

1. Everyone apparently has the issue of dealing with on road charging with a trailer that seems to be permanently attached at the tow capacity. I feel like they went out of their way to be ridiculous. Like towing a tesla on the trailer or towing another vehicle on a trailer when it would have been more economical to just drive the other vehicle.

2. The battery makes it heavy. Duh, thanks for that. Still a much lower cost of ownership for operation (gas, oil, etc when compared to charging).

3. The section of the video on things we didn’t like is about half the video, so I figured it would be this way.

4. It depreciates, but only about the same as the power boost. Any luxury item does, for two reasons. First, people who indulge in them often or their prevailing market doesn’t care and two, they’re already overpriced and it’s just a market correction.

99% of people who need a truck to do truck things or people who just feel like they need a truck to pickup the occasional piece of OSB or load of gravel to take the 10-15 miles across town this vehicle provides the most value, comfort and return on investment. This just shows me how out of touch or easily swayed Edmund’s is.

 

[MaintGrl]

In addition to what others have already noted

They talk about how it’s the best EV truck then they complain that it is heavy? Doesn’t handle like a sports cars I guess??
Then they complain about the range drop towing a 7500 pound trailer and say how great the hybrid is, but they don’t say what the range drop in the hybrid is!!!
The one guy said something about the rattles and squeaks, but perhaps the reason they notice them more is because of how quiet the vehicle is?
I have just over 21,000 miles now and I have had it for a year and a half and I don’t have any rattles and squeaks. The only difference is I do not tow trailers very often so I rarely see the range hit that they are complaining about! I also charge at home 99% of the time!
Overall, not a bad review, but their complaints are a little whiny in my opinion!

They bitch about stuff regarding the lightning, yet other trucks experience the same thing, ICE or Hybrid.
Re: the range, YES! Lightning was the truck to beat, First off the line, first to be challenged .
GM & Chevy had a vehicle that they could design against.... you have 3, well, we'll design in 4, you have this capability, we have that . . and this...So it is not surprising in that respect.
And , , they don't go into COST OF OWNERSHIP...Oil changes, maintenance, so on an so forth...
And . . IF, you also bought the lightning for the tree hugger aspect . . (pick me, pick me) then a some of the dings go away... JMO

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

“You’re gonna spend a lot less time filling up the F-150 Hybrid than you are gonna spend charging the Lightning.”

Weird. They must not have had a charger wherever the Lightning was parked.

It took me at least 15 minutes to fill up the tank for Tacoma when we were driving it exclusively. It required a refuel at least once a week. And I would have to fill up on road trips every 200-250 miles when I wasn’t towing. Each of those stops was 15 minutes.

Taking one road trip a month of 1200 miles cost me 5 to 6 fill-ups just to get to my destination. Then I’d have to fill up at least twice while there. Let’s round down and say it was 7 fill-ups for the trip, not counting the refill at the end of the trip. Plus a fill-up a week.

For a year, that’s 52 weeks *15 minutes + 7*12*15 minutes = 2040 minutes wasted on filling up the Tacoma.

My long-term median time spent at a DCFC with the Lightning is 25 minutes. I don’t spend any of my time filling up at home. For those same monthly trips, I stop four times total to charge; I have L1 or L2 charging at both ends of this regular trip. 4*12*25 = 1200 minutes.

I spend roughly half the time charging the Lightning than I spent refueling the Tacoma.

 

[Vulnox]

I also wonder how the depreciation issue will change with the end of the $7500 tax credit. I am not looking forward to it, but I suspect it's a big part of the EV depreciation equation that people that benefit from it seem to forget when they complain about depreciation.

We got the $7500 on our 2022 MME which was $55k before the tax credit but after A-Plan and rebate. 57k MSRP. A-plan was only worth like $800 at the time since Ford was selling the EVs at damn near invoice for MSRP.

When you take the tax credit out, that means it cost us ~$47,500.

We had the car for three years and sold it to the dealer at trade in, so not even private party, for $30k in May.

$30,000/$47500 means the car had a residual value of 63% or the purchase price after three years. That's really good, ICE F-150s are considered to have great residual values and even they range from 58% to 64% for three years.

But if you "ignore" the tax credit, or were one of the people that paid over MSRP around 2023, then it looks a lot worse. But that tax credit gets taken into account when determining the used value, even if you choose to ignore that you got it. Because someone buying new would also likely be eligible for it, so asking $40k for my 2022 MME when you could get a brand new one that wasn't three years old for $47,500 after credit would be a hard sell.


Also as others noted, the time spent is BS. Sure, on road trips, but I was spending almost $100/month in gas for our Hybrid F-150. I generally went to Costco for gas because of the much better pricing. Which meant I was spending time driving to Costco, almost always making a special trip to do so in order to get there early enough to beat the lines, then pumping gas, then driving home. I do exactly none of that now.

Either these people don't understand what the average EV ownership experience is, or they are intentionally misrepresenting it.

 

[PreservedSwine]

Exactly. Their biggest complaint is charging.
which makes ZERO sense. Anyone who owns an ev wakes up every day with a full tank of electrons.
Only reason stop at a gas station is to use the restroom.

This concept is completely foreign to them, as not having to fill up is incomprehensible to most gas users. It's so ingrained in their habits and DNA, the fact you never need to stop to fill up never even occurred to them.

 

[Jseis]

I roll just shy of 100 miles a day in our ‘23 Lariat. 45K to date and with all the gear/crap/empty water bottles/tools/coffee cups/safety gear/etc rolling around it does make noises on our roads. Still so damn quiet I could probably hear a mouse eating cheese behind the rear seats. Unlike my ‘99 7.3 SD that’d wake the dead on startup and leave you deaf after a 400 mile X-state journey.

 

[DavidYo]

I dunno.

Overall a pretty fair review but I think it kinda goes sideways towards the end. I feel like they were just trying to find something to complain about and of course towing and fast charging are the go-tos. Maybe it's just me but unless you're racking up crazy miles each day, I really can't see choosing the hybrid over the Lightning. I get the feeling that this truck gets passed around between staff members and nobody gets to fully appreciate it. I'd be curious to know who's paying to put gas in that hybrid.

Also, has anybody here with at truck over 20k miles experienced all the "squeaks & rattles" they note? I've seen very few complaints on this forum regarding that.

I have 22k on my 23XLT and no noises at all. The truck is miles above my 2013 xl 5.0. The caveat of course is the software is trash and slow as my old 386/33 but you already knew that

 

[Lytning]

A depreciating asset is a depreciating asset. There just isn't any other way to look at it.
All your points are spot on

I must admit that I have never considered any of my vehicles, other than my 1967 Pontiac GTO, a realistic asset. Personally, I consider an asset as something that I invest in with the expectation that its value will increase over time, as with my house, stocks and bonds. Financially, a vehicle is a tangible asset which depreciates over time, but I think of it practically as a transportation expense. I bought my GTO in 1970, and I plan to keep my Lightning for many years. Vehicle depreciation is irrelevant to me.

 

[Piquette]

The Edmunds truck didn’t have to have two battery modules replaced in the three years they owned it. I wonder how their conclusions would have changed if they had.

 

[Discwizard70]

I dunno.

Overall a pretty fair review but I think it kinda goes sideways towards the end. I feel like they were just trying to find something to complain about and of course towing and fast charging are the go-tos. Maybe it's just me but unless you're racking up crazy miles each day, I really can't see choosing the hybrid over the Lightning. I get the feeling that this truck gets passed around between staff members and nobody gets to fully appreciate it. I'd be curious to know who's paying to put gas in that hybrid.

Also, has anybody here with at truck over 20k miles experienced all the "squeaks & rattles" they note? I've seen very few complaints on this forum regarding that.

I just passed the 20k mark. I do not hear a single squeek or rattle in mine, but, I have a 2024, so maybe Ford fixed these little things before my model year. That being said, I also have had a fantastic experience with the truck. I travel medium distance for a living (thus the 20k in my 1st year) and I have had no real issues with it, and to be honest, I would not willingly go back to a ICE vehicle, and should something happen to my Lightning, I would by another to replace it. It's great for business, travel and pleasure activities, not to mention economic advantages VS a gas F150s.

 

[Vulnox]

The Edmunds truck didn’t have to have two battery modules replaced in the three years they owned it. I wonder how their conclusions would have changed if they had.

Probably similar to the people that need new transmissions or have an oil leak or whatever else that happens almost every day with the many ICE vehicles sold new but have manufacturing defects. It's a major headache and a bummer, but it's why warranties exist.

The number of posts in the ICE F-150 forums where someone complains that their sub 2000 mile engine needs to be opened up because of a manufacturing defect in a camshaft or whatever indicates that pointing to something like battery module replacement as an "EV problem" would be pretty ridiculous. Manufacturing and part issues happen, warranties are meant to cover them. You hope to not encounter them or have to use your warranty, and the manufacturer should work to limit these issues obviously, but...

 

[watts/up]

The Edmunds truck didn’t have to have two battery modules replaced in the three years they owned it. I wonder how their conclusions would have changed if they had.

It looks like they had at least one battery replacement though.

 

[Vulnox]

It looks like they had at least one battery replacement though.

Front parking sensors replaced? That's a new one.

 

[Twebmstr]

I have almost 30k on mine and have not had any issue or squeaks. This is the best trick I've ever owned. And yes. I charge at home.

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