By Kamil Kaluski
To many, electric trucks are still controversial. Old school pickup owners sneer at them and the people that bought them seem to love them. In my own experience, the Ford F-150 Lightning is like any equivalent F-150, except faster, and in need of more frequent “fill ups”, which is expected. But until now, I haven’t put one to work.
My friends at Ace Performance needed a large, enclosed, three-axle empty trailer moved from its storage location in Durham, NH to the shop in Tewksbury, MA in preparation for a race. This is distance of less than 60 miles.
The trailer was 32 feet long, just over eight feet tall, and weighed approximately 6500 pounds. The max towing capacity of this 2025 F-150 Lightning Platinum is either 7700 or 8000 pounds; I saw both numbers in Ford’s specs and couldn’t determine which it was. This trailer was therefore within its tow limitations and was probably the biggest trailer that someone would safely and/or sanely attach to it.
Before we left Tewksbury, I charged at a local Electrify America fast charger. I was able to charge only to 85% at that location. We then drove the empty truck to Durham. Upon connecting the trailer, we had 64% battery left, which resulted in a range of 184 miles (empty).
As you’ll see in the video, we made it to the shop with about 11 miles of range left. To go by numbers, this translated to roughly 1 mile per 1% of battery, which gives an unscientific driving range with this trailer of 90-100 miles. It should be noted that we absolutely did not plan for this. Our focus was to be on how the Lightning tows a large trailer.
And boy, did it tow well. The ride was smooth. The power was plentiful, steady, and there was no obvious additional stress from the motors that one may notice from a gasoline engine. There was minimal sway and the ride was comfortable. We even drove through some rainy and windy weather, which was hardly noticeable. Part of me wants to say that a lot of it was due to Lightning’s additional weight over the gasoline model, and to its instant and substantial torque.
My conclusion is that the Lightning is really great at towing; safe, easy, and smooth. Range is the predicable factor. At highway speeds, the aerodynamics of the trailer may have a lot to do with this range. If you use your pickup truck to tow your 7000-pound boat/trailer combo 80-miles from storage to the lake and back, the Lighting will happily do that for you. If you want to trailer your spec race car, with tools, spare parts, and fuel, 400 miles each way, you way want to consider a more conventional truck.
Jeff Glucker