Ford F-150 Lightning Owners Use Their Trucks for 'Truck Stuff' - Even More Than ICE Owners

A frequent remark about EV pickups is an argument that thanks to the limitations of electric motors and their attendant batteries, trucks powered by electrons can’t do the same amount of work as their gas-powered twins.

Turns out, if Ford’s findings are any indication, some EV pickup owners are actually using their workhorses more frequently than ICE owners. 

According to a Ford study cited by the Detroit Free Press, 74 percent of F-150 Lightning owners use their trucks once a month for home projects such as moving things like mulch, dirt, flooring, or drywall. Contrast this with owners of F-150s with internal combustion, a group of whom 51 percent used their truck once a month for such projects. Drilling further into the data, 27 percent of Lightning buyers are apparently using their truck’s bed for home project hauling once a week versus just 14 percent for F-150 ICE buyers. Roughly 3,500 buyers participated in the digital survey, carried out between September 2021 and October 2022.

There could be a couple of factors at play here. It is documented that a not-insignificant number of Lightning buyers are first-time truck owners, suggesting they’re experiencing the wonders of simply being able to make a Home Depot run for the first time. Specifically, more than half of Lightning buyers are coming from a non-pickup compared with roughly one-third for the standard F-150. After all, if people are trading out of a snazzy SUV or crossover (and some are) then they may be more likely to load up on mulch for their backyard garden or cart home supplies for a home improvement project. Newfound abilities can be exciting. How long it lasts until the bloom falls off the rose is a conversation for another day.

And while the novelty of having a pickup surely plays a role in these usage statistics, there’s also the realization that Lightning owners can deploy the utility of their truck’s enormous frunk as part of these hauling activities. It’s unlikely most would pile smelly compost in that area, but it can absolutely be used to haul home ancillary project gear sized correctly to fit in the frunk’s cube-shaped space.

Elsewhere in the survey, Ford says more than 60 percent of Lightning owners are under 50 years of age, and very nearly all (90 percent) are trading out of a non-electrified vehicle. Roughly 70 percent have a bachelor’s degree, compared to 42 percent in ICE trucks, and one-third have a graduate degree. Roughly 14 percent of ICE owners can claim the latter, apparently. In other words, it seems the Lightning is bringing a markedly different type of customer to the table than its gasoline-powered cousin.

[Image: Ford]

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