2023 Ford F-150 Lightning Ends Up on the Salvage Car Market Months After Leaving the Plant

This 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning is a sad picture to look at. Just a few months after it rolled off the production line of the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, have passed, and the vehicle is already on the salvage car market, looking as if some TLC would really not fix much. But is it really as bad as it looks?

Considering what the photos show, the model must have been involved in a head-on collision. And by the looks of it, it probably occurred at a speed that was not very high. Otherwise, things would have looked a lot worse than they do right now. Yes, the front fascia looks bad, indeed. The headlights are gone, the front grille is smashed to pieces, and the hood is badly deformed. The bumper front is also a mess.

But the front end is where the frunk is. So, there might not be as much mechanical damage as a car with a front-mounted internal combustion engine would sustain in a head-on collision.

The car does not seem to have sustained any damage anywhere else. The front axle and suspension seem intact, and so do the doors and the rear end, together with the load bed. But the driver’s and front passenger’s airbags were deployed in the crash, curtain and knee airbags included. The photos in the listing show that the curtain airbags in the rear were also deployed.

The odometer of the Ford shows 18,318 miles (29,480 kilometers), all covered this year, because, as previously mentioned, it is a 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning with only months spent on the road. Or off-road, if it got the fortune (or misfortune, considering how it ended up) of getting in the hands of one of those owners who don’t buy a pickup truck just for driving it around the city to the office or to the grocery store.

The listing mentions both all-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive. So, for a starter, it turns out a bit unclear which type of F-150 Lightning we are dealing with. The Blue Oval-branded model starts at $49,995 in the United States. That is how much money customers would have to pay if they want to drive home the Pro entry-level variant of the electric pickup truck.

The Pro comes with a dual-motor setup, which develops a total of 436 horsepower (442 PS) and 775 lb-ft (1,050 Nm) of torque. The entry-level variant only comes with the Standard Battery. The unit has a capacity of 98 kWh and brings along 240 miles (386 kilometers) of range on a single charge. Payload capacity is rated at 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms) and the vehicle can tow up to 7,700 pounds (3,429 kilograms).

This poor 2023 F-150 Lightning, painted in dark blue over gray leather sadly ended up on the salvage car market. Located in Oklahoma, it is scheduled to go under the hammer with an Exportable Certificate of Salvage on October 31, with an estimated winning bid between $31,487 and $33,766.

The vehicle is listed on several websites with a $50,000 Buy It Now option. So it most likely is a range-topping variant. The top-of-the-line Ford F-150 Lightning is the Platinum, which starts north of $90,000. It also comes with a dual-motor powertrain, but this time, the motors generate a total of 580 horsepower (588 PS) and 775 lb-ft (1,050 Nm) of torque.

Those figures make the truck flash from 0 to 60 mph (0 to 97 kph) in less than 4.0 seconds, which is almost supercar territory. Keep in mind that this is a vehicle that weighs 6,500 pounds (2,900 kilograms).

That is 35% more than the F-150 powered by an internal combustion engine. That is because the battery, the Extended Range version in this case, weighs 1,800 pounds (800 kilograms). That is almost as much as a compact car, for instance. The massive 131-kWh unit equals a drive of up to 300 miles (483 kilometers) before the electric pickup truck needs to be plugged in again. In terms of power and torque, the Lariat gets as much as the Platinum. That would be 580 horsepower and 775 lb-ft of torque.

One of the websites where the EV is listed indicates that we are dealing with a Lariat variant. That one starts at $69,995. But is it worth paying that much for a car that might as well be a write-off? Or would a repair project cost south of $19,995? Even if it would, the one paying $50,000 should really-really-really fall in love with this not-so-special, blue-painted, no-face Ford F1-50 Lightning to want to put that much money, time, and heart into it.