2022 Ford F-150 Lightning vs 2022 Ford F-150 Raptor _ EV or ICE, No Wrong Choice!

Here's a comparison unlike any other. Ford Lightning, Ford Raptor. Two of the most expensive, fastest, and technologically advanced trucks you can buy. They are the most desirable Ford trucks, but guess what? You can't buy a Lightning right now. This one is sold out this year and into next. There are hundreds of Raptors out there, but good luck finding this one. It's got 37s. So, if you want the ultimate Ford truck, what does $90,000 get you? Stay tuned, I'll tell you. Side note, if you want either of these trucks, sell your truck first and do it with CarGurus. You'll get the best cash offer from dealers nationwide, and you don't have to go anywhere. They'll pick up your pickup. We live in a time where the things we want, we can't have. It'll get better soon, and if it doesn't, well, life is short. Buy a super truck. Get something you'll love to drive every day. I take one look at a Raptor or a Lightning and immediately I'm in a better mood. Sorry if you can't see the Lightning back there. Anything the Raptor gets in front of, it casts a shadow. Now, this thing is two and a half inches higher than the Lightning. It's another six and a half inches wider, and it's almost five inches taller off the ground. That's because this is the Raptor 37 Performance Package. It's got 37-inch tall tires as compared to the standard puny 35s that we've tested before. Now, along with that, you get retuned shocks. You get all the same goodies. Otherwise, all the skid plates, the big F-O-R-D grille, these clearance lights, the domed hood. It's absolutely insane, and the wheels are a little different too. It's a very expensive package, but nothing else is this tall. The Raptor 37 comes with special beadlock wheels that are not like the other beadlock wheels. Just a slightly different design, but those locks help keep the tire secured to the rim in the most extreme situations. In terms of measurement, well, I'm five foot 11. This comes right up to my waist, so I'm roughly two Raptor tires high. Truck people, I know you got to show off and tell everybody what you're driving, but these should go. Just press the delete option on that one. And before you think I'm making fun of anybody, I don't like side-flank graphics on just about anything, including the Aventador. On the SVJ, get rid of it. It looks a lot better. Ah, now you can see the full Lightning. This is a street truck. It's only 8.4 inches off the ground. It rides on special aerodynamic 22-inch wheels. These are street tires. You're not going to be doing anything crazy with this truck, especially not this one. This is the top-of-the-line Platinum. Now, check out our other standalone review. Matt Smith has reviewed the White Lariat. That's also very expensive. This one's even more. It's got all the trimmings. But any Lightning, you're going to see this redesigned front bumper and grille. It's all solid. You get this really cool light bar. That's the full giveaway. You also get a full LED light bar on the whole tailgate and the back on the upper trims. Other than that, well, yeah, there's a few slightly different things like these side ports that you'll see. Only one of them is a real charge port. But other than that, it's an F-150 just like any other F-150. You like engines? Let me show you an engine. 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6, 450 horsepower, 510 pound-feet of torque, 10 gears. And underneath all the running gear, low-range transfer case, you've got a limited-slip front diff, a locking rear diff, all these driving modes, and each of those tires, more than a foot of travel in the suspension. It's just absolutely crazy. When you go over to the Lightning, well, what you can't see here is 580 horsepower and 775 pound-feet of torque. And this one's powered by golf clubs. Really? There's a massive battery pack underneath this truck, more than 130 kilowatt hours. There's two electric motors and no gears. And there's absolutely no chance that the Raptor can keep up. Gosh, it just sucks your face back. There's no other way to describe it. Chills are going through my brain and down my spine. Zero to 60 is four seconds. That wasn't even 60. It's, yeah, everything about this name is real. It is not a marketing gimmick. Lightning is truly that. This is zero to 60 in four seconds in a vehicle that weighs almost three and a half tons, which is well over two Toyota Priuses. Like, what? And it will still chirp the tires. This is an all-wheel drive vehicle with two motors, and it still struggles. Here, let's try that again. Yeah, you still get that. It's so funny. And of course, you can hear it because everything is dead silent. Now, I can add a little propulsion sound here on the touchscreen. Kind of makes it sound like the Raptor, but we all know that's not what this is. There's also one-pedal driving, which I don't really like. I think it's a little too aggressive, but not even hitting the brakes. Now I'm on the throttle again and just, yeah, it's very aggressive, especially you feel it with all the momentum and mass of this vehicle, especially more so than other EVs. But everything is just incredible. There's really very few other vehicles just like this. The amazing thing is that you can drive like this, like a sports car in a Ford F-150. No one, other than people that know Ford F-150s, they'll have no clue what this is. That's the fun part. So say you're doing, I don't know, 20 miles an hour, and then you just need to pass somebody. Done. And you're braking, you're recapturing that energy, and then you just need to go again. It's crazy because some of the fastest sports cars can't do that. This is actually just as quick as a BMW M3 from several generations ago, up until maybe the previous generation. Go look up the times. Car and Driver has tested it. We don't do performance testing, but it can guarantee that it's going to be just as quick. That's really inconceivable. Just stunning. There's no other word for it. It's so, so smooth, not just how it accelerates, but how it rides. This is the first ever F-150 with an independent rear suspension. Now that Raptor, it has a live axle. There are five links and coil springs, but it's not a true independent setup. This one is because what they needed to do was fit that gigantic battery along the frame, and the regular F-150 suspension wasn't going to cut it. Of course, most EVs are very silent. It's the same type of thing in here. You could be in a Lincoln or a Mercedes. It is ultra quiet, ultra plush. This is a vehicle that you just take for long trips. Now, unfortunately, you can't really go on too many long trips because, well, you only have about 300 miles of battery with this platinum, up to 320 on other models with the extended range, and there's only 230 max range. This is all EPA estimates with the standard range battery. So that works for the most part, but if you want to actually tow and use the Lightning's 10,000 towing, you are not going to be towing horse trailers and boats across state lines. It's just not going to happen. You'll be waiting a long time. We just got passed by a state trooper in a Ford Explorer. I don't want to embarrass him, so I'm just going to settle right here. I don't want you guys to get confused because this is still a truck. It has truck-like levels of grip at the limit. You know, it's not going to be a sports car by any means, but compared to that Raptor, well, there's a lot less body lean and roll and pitch. It doesn't have a lot of that. So when you're going to take a turn, for example, pretty good, pretty good. Considering, again, how much this thing weighs, all of that mass, and there's 1,500 pounds in just the battery alone. It's mounted so low that, well, kind of helps versus a regular F-150. Ford's Blue Cruise is a hands-free driving assistant, just like now. I think this is really kind of crazy to let a three and a half ton vehicle drive itself, but it will, but it doesn't always work very well because it's ping-ponging. It just randomly tells you to resume control. It's not quite as good or as finished as Cadillac and General Motors' Super Cruise. Watch my Escalade video. You can check out that whole system in action. It's way more accurate, even though Ford claims you can do a hundred thousand miles all over the country. That's the amount of mileage that they have mapped into the system that they keep updating all the time. But I've found that my testing with the Lightning, it's not quite finished. And before you think you're truly saving the planet by driving a Ford Lightning, consider how much energy you're actually using to power this almost three and a half ton vehicle. Now, among trucks, it's okay. It's better than the GMC Hummer, but that thing weighs as much as a drawbridge. I don't understand how they can make a vehicle that heavy. That's about another 3000 pounds more than a Lightning, almost. It's about the same in terms of weight as a Rivian R1T. And that truck does a little bit better, but I'll give you the numbers. 73 city, 60 highway, 66 combined. Pretty good. Check out the numbers for the other competitors. And there's only two of them, the Rivian and the GMC. But among EVs, well, of course the numbers are way down. When you see Teslas and even plug-in hybrids pushing 90, 100, 110, you know that it takes a lot more to power a vehicle like this. A nice little bonus for your $90,000, Ford throws in a home charging station when you buy a Lightning with the extended range battery. And it's 80 amps. It's a pretty good system. The installation that's going to be extra, but the charging station itself, those can usually be a thousand, $2,000 or more. So that's kind of nice. But then when you actually want to charge on the road, that's another story. You can knock Tesla all you want, but they've set up supercharger stations from the get-go. They designed their own system. It's more reliable. It's faster. You can just look up all the reports or just drive a Tesla. I don't even have a Tesla, but I know that those systems work so much better. So as it stands, if you get a very cool EV like the Lightning, you really have to plan ahead. Yes, it's got the navigation. It'll tell you what stations are working. Ford will even take off stations that it says are not running anymore. That's kind of nice that they're monitoring these things for you. But the reality is this cannot charge that fast. It goes up to 155 kilowatts at a station when a lot of cars, including Teslas, are pushing 250, sometimes 300 or more. So this Lightning, even though it's good, it still takes a long time to charge. Remember this battery over 130 kilowatt hours, pretty big. You don't hear this in a Lightning. Oh, I was missing internal combustion. Yes, I was. If you're going to get 15 miles to the gallon and spend $200 to fill up the tank, this is how you do it. You're up so high in the Raptor, but you kind of forget that because this feels like a sports car. It got metal paddle shifters here, got rev matching downshifts and a pickup truck. Yeah. And 10 gears. It just works so well. It really does. There's four different modes for the exhaust, all accessible from a button on the steering wheel. That's my kind of system, because when you want to go loud, this thing goes really loud. So loud that they say you're not supposed to use it on the street. Once you get over the fact that Ford straight piped the Raptor in Baja mode, and that's really what it is, the response gets really good versus any other normal pickup truck compared to the Lightning kind of feels like it's several beats behind. And that's weird to say. I felt the exact same way when I drove the Ram TRX, which has over 700 horsepower comparing it to the Raptor. It's like the Raptor just keeps getting beaten down. It's not its fault. It's really not any truck with this much power. This thing still does zero to 60 in just over five seconds. So it's quick, but it's not lightning quick and everything about the steering. It's a little bit more ponderous. This vehicle is almost seven inches wider and these knobby BF Goodrich all-terrain tires. They do not have the same road feel as the Lightning's 22 inch tires. Not at all. So yeah, it takes a lot more work to keep this pointed straight. It's a good thing. There's a red mark to tell me if I am, you won't have trouble stopping and thank goodness it sounds good. It's fast. What could get better than this? I'll say it again. The Lightning can get better than this, but this has a 36 gallon fuel tank. And guess what? Refueling it takes a few minutes versus if you're lucky on a fast charger, maybe an hour. I've got the Lightning charging nearby just a few minutes up the road and it's on its second hour. Now it's on a 50 kilowatt hour charger. That's the best that's available. And guess what I can do while I'm waiting. Normally I'd say it's not worth the wait, but not when I'm in this. So the Raptor 37 adds more ground clearance. It's all from those taller tires. To me, it doesn't feel any different than the 35s. I drove the red Raptor. You should check out that review. It's basically the same exact vehicle, only it just costs more. Really this truck is meant to be driving at 70 miles an hour or more on sand dunes. It's meant to really take big air and come down without a problem. But for now we don't have that, but I will take it on some rocks at least, you know, some pebbles, at least something to kind of exercise this truck a little bit. So what you give up on some on-road control off road, you get all of the comfort and stability that this truck was made for. It's entirely overkill and a lot of trails you just won't fit because it's just too wide. There's not too many vehicles that come straight from the factory with giant tires. Jeep is really the only other one. They put 35s on the Wrangler, but you get the extreme Rubicon. I drove that, but things just keep getting bigger. I don't know why they just, they just can't stop doing it because they know, they know you're going to do it in the aftermarket. So why not make money from the factory? So the Raptor has true off-road modes because it has true four-wheel drive. The Lightning does not. You're not going to take the Lightning in anything more than a very light trail. It's so much lower to the ground. It's got street tires. I mean, it's a vehicle that does zero to 60 in four seconds. It's basically a BMW M3 from the past few years. That's what that is in pickup truck form. But the Raptor is not. It's very proud to be up this tall and to still drive very, very fast. But even if you're going slow, like I am right now, it's a piece of cake. The only problem was just trying to fit it through places. The great thing though about 37 inch tall tires is that there's just a stupid amount of clearance there shouldn't be in most vehicles, but wow, you can just kind of just drive over anything. What was that? That was a river crossing. That was a little rock. I mean, like if it wasn't for this front camera, I wouldn't know what the hell I was driving over. All of the off-road control is just great. It's so comfortable. It's so easy to place. You just point and go all of the imprecise nature that it does have when you're going quickly on pavement just totally disappears. And you don't have to be going fast in the Raptor to enjoy it. Both trucks feel like luxury cars. The Raptor has blue leather and suede Recaro seats that hug you in every direction. There's carbon fiber trim, power everything, power outlets, an 18-speaker stereo with speakers in the headrest and big digital screens. There's a power folding gear selector in a fold-out table with gorgeous animations and graphics on these screens. The Lightning has all that without the race seats or the carbon trim. You get five massage programs and a central screen that's 15 inches across. It controls almost everything. Check out the panoramic moonroof. Most apartments in New York, they're not as well furnished as either truck. The Raptor has some unique touches inside like these switches up here. They're auxiliary switches so you can add winches or lights without ripping all the wiring apart. That's nice. They also sound pretty cool. Metal paddle shifters. Gotta love that. Don't see that in any other F-150. And this red hash mark at the 12 o'clock position because when you're drifting and turn it all over the place, you want to know if you're headed straight. All these drive modes, they show up right on the instrument panel. I love the animations too. It's very useful to see what's going on here. The Raptor gets a 12-inch display that's standard on the lower trims of the Lightning. Now this one may not be as big, may not be as crazy looking, but I actually think this is simpler and faster to use. On this screen, it's still very big. There's plenty of information. Not only can you view two-thirds over here at this little section here, but look you can do. You can change all your information. You can even see the zone lighting and the bed camera. Let's put that on. As you're driving, that's really, really useful. And you can switch back and forth here. So I like how SYNC 4 works at this size. There's also really useful features like Pro Power. Now it's not fully electric or the F-150 Power Boost Hybrid. So this only goes up to about 2,000 watts only. There's still plenty of plugs on here that you can use to run a total lot of things here. Generator mode will keep the vehicle running at a higher rev. Pretty impressive. Zone lighting will put spotlights all around the truck without having the vehicle on. Pretty impressive. At night, it's just a lot of fun to be basically lighting up the whole place like a campsite. I love that. And finally, if you're towing, Ford has that great feature that lets you automatically reverse and steer the trailer without you really doing anything. That's really cool on the F-150. The Lightning has all the features the Raptor does, but it makes up to 9.6 kilowatts of onboard power. It's got 21 power outlets all over the truck in the frunk, the front trunk, inside here in the console, deep in this console, the rear seat, and the bed. It's honestly got more AC power outlets than my bedroom. So in addition to all this onboard wattage that you can plug in anything, you can actually power your house. Now, that's roughly a $10,000 solution. You got to buy a special inverter. You got to pay to have it installed. But Ford says that you can use a fully charged Lightning to power your home for a few days. There's also onboard weight scale. So as soon as you put something in the bed, the sensors underneath will tell you if you've overloaded the truck. This is actually a really, really amazing feature that I wish more trucks would have. And Ford has it only on the Lightning. It will also re-estimate the range of the vehicle when you have payload or a trailer. There's also just so many more settings to customize. On this screen, this is SYNC 4A as opposed to SYNC 4. It's the same system you'll find in the Mustang Mach-E, exact same size. And there's just so many other options that you can have and choose. It's a little laggy though. I would like to see a faster processor. I don't know if it needs more memory or what, but it's not as quick as the Lightning name. There's not much value in a Ford Lightning or a Ford Raptor. Look at these prices. My goodness. Yeah, it's true you can get a Lightning for just over $40,000, but to get the bigger battery you'll want is more than $72,000. That's roughly where the Raptor starts. And it goes crazy high from there. These are super trucks and there's hardly any competition. With the Raptor, it's only the Ram TRX, which is way faster. But a Raptor R is coming for 2023. With the Lightning, it's the GMC Hummer and Rivian R1T, but they're just as hard to buy. So what do you do? Wait. I know it's hard to delay pleasure and get everything you want all at once, but that's what you're going to have to do if you want a Lightning. Honestly, for the max performance and the most amazing technology in the pickup truck segment, this is it. Now, the Raptor is so much easier to find comparatively, but I don't think it's the choice right now, especially not the way gas prices are going. But until the Raptor R comes out with 700 horsepower, well, that's going to be a totally different video. And yeah, we are going to make one. So what do you guys think? More comparisons, more reviews? Check us out at CarGurus.com, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and we'll see you next time. Thanks for watching.