Biden Drives The Ford F-150 Lightning EV, And We Get A Peek

May. 18, 2021 8:16 PM ET by Jake Lingeman Electric Vehicles / 152 Comments

President comments, "This sucker is fast!"

The 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning officially comes out tomorrow night, but President Joe Biden was at the Ford plant in Dearborn today and gave us all a pre-embargo sneak peek. The President was in town talking electric vehicles with The Blue Oval and even had the chance to drive the truck, which looks very fast.

"The future of the auto industry is electric. There is no going back," Biden said in remarks from Ford's electric vehicle plant. "Right now China is leading in this race. Make no bones about it. This is a fact."

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"Folks, the rest of the world is moving fast. They're moving ahead. They're not waiting for the United States of America," Biden continued. "We have a playbook that'll work. We're going to set a new pace for electric vehicles."

A few weeks ago at a two-day climate summit, Biden pledged to to cut emissions by 50%-52% from 2005 levels, which was the country's peak at about 7,500 million tons, by 2030. Those emissions include CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases. CO2 makes up the lion's share of this. The most popular vehicle in the world adding an electric variant would certainly help.

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We expected the F-150 Lightning to be fast, but Biden's takeoff looks otherworldly. We're sure there are a few Tesla Cybertruck fans, including Elon Musk himself, watching breathlessly. Biden took a shot at guessing the 0-60 sprint time too, saying it felt like 4.3 or 4.4 seconds. Ford brass told him that info hasn't been released yet. Even the President gets stiff-armed sometimes.

Check back here tomorrow at 9:30 PM for the big reveal. Ford built a mega movie screen at its HQ in Dearborn to project the introduction live to tons of fans. But you can just come here for all the details instead. And check back Thursday morning to see how it drives.

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