AUTO

Base F-150 Lightning Scores 230 Mile EPA Rating

March 16, 2022

The Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup is set to start with a base price under $40,000, but what you’d get for that money wasn’t really clear – until now, that is. The base Lightning just received an official EPA range rating of 230 miles!

Ford got a lot of attention when it announced that its upcoming F-150 Lightning electric pickup would start at just $39,974, and offer a range of “up to” 300 miles – but not at that price.

So, what do you get for $40K? The EPA window sticker for the “base” F-150 Lightning’s Standard Battery pack has been leaked, and it shows that Ford achieved the expected range of 230 miles and it received an efficiency of 68 MPGe. A bigger battery pack offers up to 300 miles of range, but Ford packages that with a number of other options and they ratchet the price up to well over $70,000.

Ford F-150 Lightning Window Sticker

Interestingly, the EPA test cycle shows the Rivian R1T being 2-3% more efficient, overall, than the F-150 Lightning, using 48 kWh to travel 100 miles, versus 49 kWh for the Ford. On city streets, the Ford is a little more efficient than the R1T (76 vs 74 MPGe), but a lot less efficient on highways (61 vs 68 MPGe), which may speak to the Rivian’s more car-like aerodynamics and tires.

Is that overall gain enough to tip the scales one way or another? Take a look at that Monroney window sticker up there and check out all the standard features that come along with Ford’s “base” F-150 Lightning, then let us know what you think of the bargain electric pickup in the comments section at the bottom of the page.