How Fast Does The Ford F-150 Lightning Charge?

The 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning will be hitting the showroom floors within a matter of days, and while much of the vehicle’s capabilities have been discussed, explained, and debated here on InsideEVs and on other news sites, very little has been learned about how well the vehicle will charge, outside of the basic data that Ford has provided. 

Here on InsideEVs were known for our EV charging deep dives, more so than any other electric vehicle site, and Ford has been noticing. While I was at the F-150 Lightning First Drive event, both Darren Palmer, Ford’s vice president of Electric Vehicle Programs, and Linda Zhang, the F-150 Lightning’s Chief Engineer, presented me with charging data for the Lightning and told me they wanted me to be the first person to view it because we do such good charging analysis.

It was a line chart that had that charging power in relation to the state of charge and also charging time, so it wasn’t something we could just publish without converting it to the type of charging curve that most people are used to viewing. 

Ford has already published that the Lightning with the Extended Range battery pack will recharge from 15% to 80% in 41 minutes. Vehicles fitted with the Standard Range battery pack will need 45 minutes to accomplish the same feat.

Even though the Standard Range battery is smaller, it takes longer to charge from 15% to 80% because the maximum charging rate will be slightly lower, and the charging curve, less aggressive. Larger batteries allow for a higher charging rate deeper into the charging curve, which accounts for the slower charging time.

The estimated charging time for the F-150 Lightning with Extended Range battery pack.

We took the info provided by Ford and created our best guess at the full charging curve, along with time estimates for the entire 0 to 100% charging session, and put it all together in this video.

Ford is using 400-volt battery architecture in the Lightning, as they did with the Mustang Mach-E, leading to some criticism concerning possible long charging times on road trips. However, we found the charging curve to be aggressive enough to recharge the Lightning in an acceptable time frame since the vehicle will maintain at least 100 kW of charging power right up to 80% state of charge. 

There’s definitely room for improvement, but we believe most owners will find the Lightning will charge quickly enough to allow for long-distance driving, provided they have access to 150 kW or 350 kW DC fast chargers along their route. 

So check out the video and let us know what you think in the comment section below.