Well…this is awkward. As I sit down to write this, rumors have been swirling that the end of the 2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum and all Lightnings for that matter is nigh. Ford’s EV F-150, a model that was first delivered in early 2022, a vehicle that the company never made a red cent on, will fade off into the automotive history books and it’ll likely go through the same process most discontinued cars go through. There’s the initial “that was a bad idea and a failure” stage where people will deride the company and people that green-lit the model in the first place. Next there will be a “you know, it was kind of interesting,” phase and eventually there will be a rosy historical perspective on the role the F-150 had in either moving the EV scene forward or maybe proving its lack of viability in the larger picture.

The truck was born of a different time and place and while Ford was telling 10s of thousands of them per year, the juice no longer justified the squeeze for the 2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum. It’s an amazing thing to consider that with 30,000 of these sold just this year alone, it is still not a sensible or responsible thing to keep the truck in production in the business sense.

On its face the F-150 Lightning was the smartest answer to the question facing Ford when it was designed. Federal mandates on fuel economy and things like EV volume as a percentage of vehicles sold meant that companies needed to get creative and Ford was in a position where their options were clear. For the sheer volume of F-150s this company sells each year, creating an EV pickup truck using the existent chassis or as much of it as possible seemingly killed two birds with one stone. It was also smart to raise the corporate average fuel economy for the company. This was, at least in the boardroom,. a triple threat of a truck that checked multiple business boxes all at once.

There was a lot to  anticipate when the Lightning came out in 2022. The controversy soon followed. The biggest issue that the Lightning had was that it wasn’t so great at truck stuff. Famously testers and influencers attempted to tow with the rig and saw range decimated. People were draining the batteries in less than 100 miles with reasonable loads being pulled. It quickly turned the public perspective on the Lightning into one of it being a kind of glorified electric sedan or a truck in name only. Payload capacity was not that robust and suddenly the Lightning became the one thing no actual truck owner wants to be…uncool.

Interestingly though, the F-150 Lightning didn’t need F-150 replacers to sell in some volume. It attracted new people to the pickup truck space. People who wanted an EV and never considered a truck were shopping and buying these things. They got the feel good EV they were looking for and were suddenly driving a full-size half ton truck, a vehicle that they likely would have never considered in anything BUT EV form. The bad news for Lightning is that there wasn’t enough of them.

The tough part is that the 2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum is really nice to drive. It’s simply not a great truck but as a vehicle to actually get in, operate, and use on a daily basis? These are very, very good. The built quality is super high, the cab is like an isolation chamber of quiet, the power is phenomenal. These trucks, especially in Platnuium trim with the most powerful motors, can make it to 60mph in four seconds flat and can run the quarter mile in the mid 12s.

How physics of that massive front end and the gearing of the truck kills some of the top end charge at the drags but down low and off the line, the launches are breathtaking. It’s really shocking to be in something this large shoving your backside into the seat with such g-force. It’s just a hilarious experience.

The cab of the 2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum is a highly elevated experience because of the tech, the materials, the layout, and the cavernous space. At this point it would be hard to imagine an American who has not been in a crew cab F-150 this decade, so there’s no point in reinforcing that point. It’s huge in there. The touch screen is the largest one we have ever seen in a pickup truck, it is beyond massive and it runs the whole show.

That screen is a centerpiece of technology and while screens are not everywhere, this one is striking and it works well, to boot.

The leather Platnium badges seats are highly comfortable and beyond that, what else is there?

The most massive issue with the 2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum is the fact that the truck as you see it here is $88,460 MSRP. Nearly $90,000 for a well appointed but largely useless as a truck, F-150. Spending that same money on a gas engine equipped F-150 would get you a beautiful and well appointed truck that could tow, haul, go off road, and not require the issues that come along with the EV life of charging and more.

The 2025 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum as well as the rest of the Lightning lineup, is done. When they are sold off the lots none more will be made and at the rate they were selling we think that the remainder of them will be gone in short order. History will write its own tale about the F-150 Lightning, what it meant for Ford, and what its spot in F-150 history will be.

There’s a been a shift in the whole EV power structure over the last year and change. The F-150 Lightning is a victim of it, seemingly. The first, but definitely not the last.