Ford Tests F-150 Lightning in Extreme Cold Weather, Fails to Answer One Key Question

Published on March 3, 2022 in Electric by Guillaume Rivard

Ford F-150 Lightning reservation holders who will be lucky enough to take delivery of their fancy new electric pickup starting this spring are probably very curious to find out how it will handle the harsh Canadian winters.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, Ford engineers spent a dozen days on a military base in Alaska, with temperatures as low as minus 34 degrees Celsius, to put the vehicle to the test once more and fine-tune its performance ahead of the first deliveries.

“Alaska provides us the extremely cold temperatures, snow and ice-covered surfaces that we need to push the F-150 Lightning in this type of testing, which is really focused on dialing-in how the truck delivers its power to the ground on slippery surfaces,” said Cameron Dillon, F-150 Lightning powertrain engineer. “Customers may not regularly see minus 34-degree Celsius mornings like we are seeing here, but they will see winter cold, snow and icy roads, and they should feel confident their F-150 Lightning is ready for all of it.”

As we can see in the video below, the truck was extensively tested in loose snow, packed-groomed snow, complete ice, half ice-half concrete surfaces and more—sometimes on flat ground, other times going up and down hills:

“F-150 Lightning in the snow is a very different ballgame compared to gas vehicles,” said Nick Harris, F-150 Lightning powertrain engineer. “The responses are extremely quick and the dual motors make it as if you have two engines pumping out power in one vehicle. A lot of our work is to coordinate the two motors to work together to best deliver torque to the ground, so that customers who drive in the snow and ice ultimately feel very confident.”

The F-150 Lightning relies on a permanent 4x4 system, standard electronic-locking rear differential and selectable drive modes allowing it to tackle various terrain conditions.

That’s all nice, but Ford doesn’t say or show how much of an impact the cold has on the battery and the truck’s range, with or without a trailer in the rear, which is arguably the biggest concern of many potential customers in Canada. We’ll have to do our own tests to find out for sure.

The good news is that EV charging keeps improving and more and more DC fast chargers are being installed across the country. Ford claims the F-150 Lightning will charge from 10-80 percent in just 41 minutes using a 150kW charger.