While EV trucks may lessen your “environmental impact,” some most definitely fail to perform what should be one of a truck’s most basic functions — towing over long distances. Take the 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning, for example.
Automobile savant and commentator Tyler “Hoovie” Hoover decided to test the Lightning’s towing capacity in a video uploaded to his YouTube channel on Friday.
The experiment didn’t go so well, to say the least.
Hoover’s goal was to drive the truck 32 miles with only an empty trailer in tow, load up his recently purchased 1930 Ford Model A pickup truck and then tow it back the same 32 miles.
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The automotive aficionado was originally going to make the trip a second time, so he could load up something heavier to test the Ford’s maximum tow capacity. After the first trip ended in “total disaster,” however, Hoover determined it wouldn’t even be worth trying.
Upon simply loading up the empty aluminum trailer and driving roughly one-quarter mile out of his neighborhood, the EV had already used up 3 miles of range. By the time Hoover traversed the first 32 miles, the Ford had lost a whopping 68 miles of range. As you might imagine, once he loaded up the Model A truck, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse.
Despite having the EV charged for 200 miles of range at the start of the 64-mile trip, by the time he returned with his Model A truck in tow, only 50 miles of range remained.
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“Are you kidding me? That’s almost 90 miles of range in 30 miles. Are you serious,” Hoover said in the video, clearly bewildered.
“That’s nuts. What a joke,” Hoover added as he laughed.
At the end of the video, Hoover gave a brief overview of the experience.
In his view, if you’re wanting to buy a truck for appearance’s sake, the Ford F-150 Lightning is a fine vehicle.
However, if you need a truck that actually functions like a truck, Hoover recommended his viewers not opt for an EV.
“If the future is electric, there has to be some kind of solution for this,” Hoover said, speaking to EV’s towing issues. “If a truck towing 3,500 pounds can’t even go 100 miles … that is ridiculously stupid.”
“This truck can’t do normal truck things. You would be stopping every hour to recharge, which would take about 45 minutes a pop, and that is absolutely not practical.”
This isn’t the only time the F-150 has failed to tow effectively. Two journalists from MotorTrend tested out the truck’s towing range capacity, and their test didn’t go much better than Hoover’s. “With the largest available battery pack, a fully charged 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck has less energy onboard than a regular F-150 with four gallons of gas in its tank,” the two journalists reported.
Similarly, YouTuber Fast Lane Truck ran a test on the Lightning’s towing range capacity, finding that the truck’s range was left wanting. The EV needed to charge roughly 85 miles earlier than initial estimates indicated.
According to Autotrader, towing large loads reduces the range of electric cars significantly, sometimes by as much as one-third or one-half.
Maybe transitioning to electric is the future.
But in the here and now, EVs like the Ford Lightning simply cannot replace their fuel-powered counterparts when it comes to towing something farther than your city limits.
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