A Superior Choice Over the Lightning

It’s not very surprising that Ford hit the pause button on its Lightning earlier this fall. Don’t get me wrong, the Lightning is an excellent product. The problem is what we’ve seen across the board with EVs: the markup feels high vs. buying a conventionally powered F-150. Mind you, with America’s most popular truck, pricing already covers a significant spread, from just under $40,000 for a basic one-box XL with rear-wheel drive, to scraping $80,000 for a Platinum-trim F-150 with 4WD. So price is hardly the only reason buyers aren’t snapping up the Lightning, but it is a significant reason.

Another reason could be that Ford offers its hybrid PowerBoost F-150, which is a truck that offers more muscle than Ford’s own V-8 (420 horsepower and 570 pound-feet), and roughly the equivalent fuel economy of the average five-passenger crossover. Also, because this is a hybrid, the PowerBoost yields nearly 800 miles of range between fill-ups. What’s more, you’ve also got some of the portable battery advantages of a full EV.

Here’s what I found during my week with the F-150 PowerBoost, and how it may be the truck that killed the Lightning.

The Electrified Pros

Level setting the F-150 and its too-many grades, my loaner was a SuperCrew 4X4 with a base price of $63,360. To swap from the V-8 to the PowerBoost hybrid technically costs $1,900 more. But it also requires another $7,725 in upgrades, including a high-end B&O sound system and Ford’s BlueCruise Level 2+ assisted driving tech. Now you’re north of $70,000, which is hardly a bargain.

The Power Is The Point

What you get, however, is a much more powerful truck—that’s also 21 percent more fuel efficient.

Ford F-150 V-6 PowerBoost Hybrid V-6 vs. 5.0-liter V-8

Those numbers above reflect total system output. The twin-turbocharged, 3.5-liter V-6 in the PowerBoost is augmented by a 47-horsepower electric motor that sits between the engine and the 10-speed automatic transmission. The way you get 578 foot-pounds of torque out of this system is via a stonking 221 foot-pounds coming from the electric side of the ledger. What that feels like is bravado. The PowerBoost isn’t quite Raptor stupid-fast, but 60 MPH takes a mere five seconds to arrive. Though the real benefit of PowerBoost is easy acceleration from 40-70 MPH. Even the best turbocharging has some throttle delay, but with the PowerBoost, you’re launched forward. Acceleration is instant and easy. You’re going to burn less gas because you’re just never deep into the throttle.

The Other Kind Of Power

Because you’re rolling around with a 1.5 kWh battery, out of the gate, Ford includes a 2.4-kW output system. That’s decent; it includes an in-dash wall-style plug that delivers enough power to run a portable tire inflator, charge a laptop, or top up a GoPro battery. But for $850 extra, I’d definitely get the 7.2-kW system, which is where the PowerBoost really challenges the utility of the Lightning. Ford says the combined 7,200 watts (four plugs in the tailgate) offers enough juice to run a plasma cutter, TIG welder, compound miter saw, 1.5 horsepower compressor, angle grinder, and work light—simultaneously.

Home Power Backup

Interestingly, the system enables the F-150’s V-6 to cycle on and off to augment the battery, and with a 30-gallon fuel tank, you’re essentially turning your F-150 into a very large portable generator. This wouldn’t be Lightning silent, but the hope is you’d only need a system like this during a power outage. Even at a job site, you’re unlikely to rely on your truck to power saws, nail guns, and drills all day long. Mostly, you’d be topping up the batteries of those portable tools. Still, if the grid goes down, having this versatility is definitely a bonus.

Pro Access Tailgate

It seems like, since the invention of the pickup, designers can’t resist messing with the tailgate. Ford’s engineers cut the middle out of the F-150’s gate to let it swivel open rather than fold flat. Yes, they also could have just added a second hinge (that’s been done by Ford themselves with past station wagons, in fact), but instead the Pro Access Tailgate serves a slightly different function.

It allows you to get a lot closer to the bed for loading and unloading, since a drop-down tailgate requires you to reach forward to grab that table saw or lift and slide it aboard. Also, having the door swing within the frame of the truck mitigates the chance of opening a full-sized gate into a car parked right beside you, or into traffic.

Short Bed Head-Scratcher

I understand why large-cab, small-bed trucks are a thing. Mostly, they’re being purchased for hauling people, not gear. So the 5.5-foot bed of my loaner makes perfect sense. The cabin is humongous (see next), and a great place for doing the “business” of carting a crew—or a family. However, this truck’s bed also came with a fold-up hard tonneau cover. Once folded, that bed topper blocks the innermost third of the bed from carrying anything tall. Tonneaus offer security, and they make a truck more aero, but with a short-bed truck, they can also worsen utility. I was able to carry this mountain bike to the trailhead because I own a tailgate cover, but I was fairly tempted to just take the bike into the cab instead. Which, no, you wouldn’t think would be necessary with a “truck.”

You’re Buying This Ford For Interior Utility

If there’s an especially good reason to own a modern full-sized truck, it’s for the cabin, not the bed. Consider that the F-150 in SuperCrew configuration has a massive 43.5 inches of second row legroom. That’s more than in the front seats of just about any car or crossover on the market. All that roominess means that all sorts of folks—from parents with young kids to empty nesters with lots of chores that require interior space—find the full-sized truck formula a no-brainer.

Why The F-150?

There’s serious loyalty in full-sized trucks. The Maverick proved that there’s still room for attracting new buyers to the mid-sized segment, but most full-sized customers just rinse and repeat. Manufacturers keep tweaking their offerings. So, with Ford, they sell a so-called Mobile Office package that lets you flip over the center armrest to create a work station for using a laptop. To be honest, I don’t get it. The back of the F-150 SuperCrew should just have fold-down airline trays. That way, you could slide into the backseat and face forward (not sideways) and tap away on a laptop much more easily than across the center console.

TopSpeed’s Take

Arguing that the PowerBoost is superior to the Lightning is a little like telling you that the price of everything isn’t going up: Don’t believe your lying eyes. Meaning that by most metrics, not just the cost of fuel but the toll of maintenance, owning an electric F-150 is going to cost you less. The problem is that the MSRP for the same trim of the electrified F-150 is higher, and Ford admitted as much when they announced that they had to entirely rethink the cost of manufacturing EVs. Chinese brands have already leapfrogged everyone else because, like Tesla, they weren’t retrofitting their thinking around making gas cars into EVs.

Meanwhile, the hybrid PowerBoost offers a hedge until Ford fixes this cost equation. Just as Scout’s forthcoming EREV hybrid is the way a lot of buyers are betting. That’s just smart. Sure, an EV cost breakthrough is a matter of when, not if. But that ‘when’, for Ford anyway, won’t arrive in 2026.