EV Review: 2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Flash | Reviews

Article content

We woke up on the morning of the move to lungfuls of smoke. Wildfire smoke, to be precise. “Smell that?”, I muttered to my better half, peering through haze which could easily have been lifted wholesale from the set of Dazed & Confused.

There was good reason for concern. By the middle of August, essentially two months had passed without much rain; typical for Phoenix, perhaps, but deeply unusual for rural Nova Scotia. Rivers had dried up faster than Canadian vacation money in Vegas, while soil in many areas developed the consistency of a bag of Robin Hood flour. Dad reported he didn’t even get his Kirkland jeans wet whilst kneeling in a marsh to pick berries. The area needed rain. Lots of it. And soon. The place was drier than a popcorn fart.

It might seem glib to joke at such a time but that’s what East Coasters do. It’s how we manage a lifetime clinging to a crag of rock jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean, made fun of by the crowd from Ontario and accused of stealing jobs out west while paying inflated prices on everything from groceries to gasoline. Even housing isn’t cheap anymore, not since residents of other provinces moved here en masse during Covid. Might as well have a chuckle at it all. Laughter is the best medicine, apparently.

Our wildfire senses had been on high alert since late July after fleeing a raging inferno which came within metres of my parents’ hometown in seaside Newfoundland. When everyone’s phone blared with an evacuation alert around 9:00 a.m. on Sunday and ash fell from the sky, the town kicked into high gear, helping the elderly and those who couldn’t help themselves get moving. No one panicked and there weren’t traffic jams getting out amid the thick smoke and roar of low-flying water bombers but you can bet dollars to donuts there was a scramble to secure essentials. That scene in the first season of The Walking Dead when Rick points out his family is still alive because framed photos are missing off the walls sprang to mind, so I grabbed those too. It’s funny where your mind goes in a crisis. If not for a stroke of luck with prevailing winds and the work of local volunteer firefighters (read that again: volunteer), there was every chance in the world the entire town would have been reduced to ash. Mercifully, not a single structure was lost.

Less than a month later, there we were, in the driveway of my own home this time, fearing the same. However, on that day we learned the Cheech & Chong quality haze was from a wildfire burning on the other end of the province, one crews were working hard to get under control. Yet, the smoke presented as if flames were just over the hill.

It was moving day at our house, the culmination of 12 years in school for a young lad on his way to university to explore the finer points of an engineering degree. And the finer points of the campus bar, if he takes after his father. Good job each generation gets smarter and more sensible.

A red Ford F-150 Lightning stood ready to help, though its 5.5-foot box was predictably of insufficient length to lay flat a mattress long enough for an NBA-sized teenager. Its frunk, measuring 400 litres or about 14 cubic feet, swallowed all manner of college-bound detritus including science books and a rather detailed mini replica of a Fallout character. “It was a gift,” Boy grinned. I’m sure it was.

Taking a look to the sky, and checking a weather app, while strapping down the last items revealed nothing but clear conditions — for the umpteenth day in a row. Hitting the highway, this Lightning’s fully charged battery promised a range of 425 kilometres, some 50 clicks more than needed. Still, with a 100 kilometre charging desert ahead a bit of cushion never hurts, so we stopped 90 minutes into the trek finding a lone charger occupied by an ID.4 towing a trailer and another public charger 20 minutes hence deader than disco. We pressed on despite a range readout dropping more quickly than normal thanks to strong headwinds. What was 50 km to the good was now about five short. Time for some hypermiling techniques with regeneration, then.

The relatively new Flash trim, with an $84,370 MSRP or $88,910 as-tested, was born of a Blue Oval desire to offer a Lightning to bridge the price gulf between XLT and Lariat trims. It is equipped with the 123-kWh extended-range battery as standard and also comes with niceties like the jumbo 15-inch tablet infotainment screen, a trial of BlueCruise, LED lights in the box; all useful gear. In building it to a price, though, Ford deleted items like a power tailgate and wireless device charger while making features such as the excellent 9.6kW Pro Power Onboard system an option. And I don’t care what Ford says, that’s cheap old-school vinyl on the seats.

Our first clue about the impending (and unforecasted) storm should have been that wind. By the time we were roughly 30 minutes from the lad’s new apartment, rain drops the size of dinner plates were smacking the Lightning’s windshield with vigour. “Rain!” we rejoiced, praising pharaohs for the liquid bounty. “This is exactly what’s needed right now,” everyone crowed as the truck’s wipers slapped the windshield. Suddenly, all hands got extremely quiet before shouting in unison.

“THE MATTRESS!!”

Toggle full screen modePrevious Gallery Image

1. 

2. 

3. 

Next Gallery ImageToggle gallery captions

View All 3 Photos

1 of 3

All 3 Photos for Gallery

Function Not Available

Full Screen is not supported on this browser version.

You may use a different browser or device to view this in full screen.

OK

So much for well-laid plans. After that wind and biblical downpour, all the coverings we had secured were protecting nothing and everything was soaked, creating the type of spongy and springy mess one might imagine if a Sealy Posturepedic factory was downstream from a dam break. Everything in the frunk was protected, a vote for the benefits of such a feature on electric pickup trucks. And the Lightning worked flawlessly as a moving rig, proving Ford knows how to build a useful truck no matter its source of energy.

Guess its next task is to fetch a new mattress from IKEA. Hopefully the weather holds.

Wildfires continue to rage across our country, many of them classed as out-of-control conflagrations. Still, brave firefighters run towards them while everyone else flees for safety. If you can support the effort — in any manner — it is only Canadian to do so.

Pros and cons of the 2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Flash

Pros

✔ Retains all the practicality of a gasser F-150, plus a frunk
✔ Interior is light years ahead of GM’s electric half-ton pickups
✔ Power galore, delivered seamlessly

Cons

✘ Slower to refill with energy than a gas-powered truck
✘ Cheap-feeling seat upholstery on this trim
✘ Flash trim bins some features which should be standard

Sign up for our newsletter Blind-Spot Monitor and follow our social channels on X, Tiktok and LinkedIn to stay up to date on the latest automotive news, reviews, car culture, and vehicle shopping advice.