How Much Does It Cost To Charge Ford F-150 Lightning At Home? Cheaper Than Gas?

Is it economically logical to exchange the gas cost of operating your vehicle to cost of electric power? This is a very good question to ask is you are considering getting an electric truck, especially if the motivation to do so is saving money.

In average, the cost to charge a Ford F-150 Lightning at home is $69 per month for the standard 98 kWh battery version of the truck. This is based on the average cost of electricity in the US of $0.14/kWh.

The quick answer above is not too straight forward and requires some considerations that you would normally not think about but if you want to calculate the real life close to actual cost this is what we have to do. As you keep reading this article I will walk you through all the calculations “in English” so it is easy to understand how we arrived at the $69 per month number.

Also keep in mind that there are two types of batteries available in the Ford F-150 Lightning, a standard 98 kWh battery and an extended-range battery that is 131 kWh. It obviously takes more power to charge the extended-range one and with that comes the extra cost. So we’ll be looking at both options.

Cost Of Charging The Ford Lightning With The Standard 98 kWh Battery

While the electricity cost varies across the country, state-by-state, the cost is close to average in most places with the exception of Hawaii and Alaska, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The price varies between $0.09 to $0.19, with the highest 4 states at about $0.21 and $0.23 per kWh.

Based on the average electricity price of $0.14 per kWh and the battery being 98 kWh, that’s $0.14 X 98 kWh = $13.72 to charge the battery one time. Assuming you would charge the truck once a day, you would charge it about 30 times per month. So that is $13.72 X 30 = $411.60 per month. It would cost you about $411.60 per month to keep your Ford F-150 Lightning charged up, if you drive the entire 230 miles per day, every day for a month and charge it every night for about 10 hours.

Keep in mind that these numbers are based on driving 230 miles each and every day of the month and draining the battery completely every day. This is highly unlikely, so if we take a look at the actual average miles driven by a driver per month, which is 1,191 miles, that comes out to about 39.7 miles per day which is more realistic, which is about 17% of the 230 miles we calculated before.

So 17% of $411.60 is $69 per month which is realistically what you will spend on charging the electric Ford truck if you are an average driver.

Cost Of Charging The Ford Lightning With The Extended-Range 131 kWh Battery

Whew! That was a lot of numbers there. Now let’s run through the 131 kWh battery version of the truck.

With the same information from above, with the average price of electricity being about $0.14 per kWh, charging the 131 kWh battery would cost about $18.34. To get the monthly cost we’ll multiply this by 30 days and get $550.20. It would cost you $550.20 to keep your extended-Range Ford F-150 Lightning charged per month if you drove the full 300 miles that this version of the truck is rated for, every day of the month and charge it every night for about 10 hours.

If we consider the average driver actually only driving 39.7 miles per day instead of 300 miles, you will see that the monthly cost drops down significantly, to only 13%. So the cost will also drop to 13% which is $71.52 per month.

So realistically, you can expect to spend about $71 per month to keep your Extended-Range Ford F-150 Lightning truck running if you are an average driver.

Cost Of Charging The Ford F-150 Lightning Per State

Because the cost of electricity is different in each state, let’s take a look at how much it would cost to charge the truck in each state. You can take a look at the chart below and find your state to estimate the approximate cost for you to charge this truck. As you can see it can get pretty pricey if you are in Hawaii and Alaska, Connecticut or Massachusetts.

State	Electricity Cost 2021 $ / kWh	Standard 98kWh Battery	Extended 131 kWh Battery
Alabama	0.1241	$62.03	$63.40
Alaska	0.2254	$112.65	$115.16
Arizona	0.1316	$65.77	$67.23
Arkansas	0.0999	$49.93	$51.04
California	0.1990	$99.46	$101.67
Colorado	0.1228	$61.38	$62.74
Connecticut	0.2162	$108.06	$110.46
DC	0.1321	$66.02	$67.49
Delaware	0.1205	$60.23	$61.56
Florida	0.1137	$56.83	$58.09
Georgia	0.1226	$61.28	$62.64
Hawaii	0.3276	$163.73	$167.37
Idaho	0.1058	$52.88	$54.05
Illinois	0.1256	$62.77	$64.17
Indiana	0.1202	$60.08	$61.41
Iowa	0.1381	$69.02	$70.56
Kansas	0.1156	$57.78	$59.06
Kentucky	0.1056	$52.78	$53.95
Louisiana	0.0937	$46.83	$47.87
Maine	0.1616	$80.77	$82.56
Maryland	0.1392	$69.57	$71.12
Massachusetts	0.2111	$105.51	$107.85
Michigan	0.1607	$80.32	$82.10
Minnesota	0.1409	$70.42	$71.99
Mississippi	0.1155	$57.73	$59.01
Missouri	0.1323	$66.12	$67.59
Montana	0.1185	$59.23	$60.54
Nebraska	0.1131	$56.53	$57.78
Nevada	0.1167	$58.33	$59.62
New Hampshire	0.1963	$98.11	$100.29
New Jersey	0.1564	$78.17	$79.90
New Mexico	0.1337	$66.82	$68.31
New York	0.1930	$96.46	$98.60
North Carolina	0.1124	$56.18	$57.43
North Dakota	0.1207	$60.33	$61.67
Ohio	0.1264	$63.17	$64.58
Oklahoma	0.1072	$53.58	$54.77
Oregon	0.1102	$55.08	$56.30
Pennsylvania	0.1438	$71.87	$73.47
Rhode Island	0.1864	$93.16	$95.23
South Carolina	0.1291	$64.52	$65.96
South Dakota	0.1239	$61.93	$63.30
Tennessee	0.1079	$53.93	$55.13
Texas	0.1136	$56.78	$58.04
Utah	0.1063	$53.13	$54.31
Vermont	0.1850	$92.46	$94.52
Virginia	0.1240	$61.98	$63.35
Washington	0.0979	$48.93	$50.02
West Virginia	0.1157	$57.83	$59.11
Wisconsin	0.1428	$71.37	$72.96
Wyoming	0.1230	$61.48	$62.84

* Cost in the table above is based on the statistically average number of miles driven per month (1,191 miles) rather than the range capacity of the battery.

Comparing The Cost Of Running An Electric VS Gas VS Diesel Ford Truck

Now that we know the cost of charging an electric Ford F-150 Lightning, let’s compare it to cost of driving the same distance on a gas and diesel Ford truck. With the average miles driven per month being 1,191 miles, and assuming that the price of gas is $4.33 per gallon and $5.13 per gallon of diesel, as it was in March 2022.

Truck	MPG/kWh	Cost Per Gallon/kWh	Cost Per Month (1,191 miles)
Ford F-150 Lightning - Electric	98 kWh	$0.14 / kWh	$69.97 / mo
Ford F-150 Lightning - Electric	131 kWh	$0.14 / kWh	$71.52 / mo
Ford F-150 - Gas	17 MPG	$4.33 / gal	$303.10 / mo
Ford F-250 - Diesel	13 MPG	$5.13 / gal	$471.96 / mo

Gas powered Ford F-150 truck has an actual average of 17 MPG, as reported by 414 actual owners of this truck. We will take the 1,191 average miles driven per month and divide it by the 17 MPG and see that we will need 70 gallons of gas to drive the truck for a month. 70 gallons X $4.33 price of gas per gallon = $303.10. So it will cost $303.10 to drive the same amount of miles using a gas-powered Ford F-150 truck.

A diesel-powered Ford F-250 truck has an actual average of 13 MPG, as reported by 82 actual owners of this truck. We will take the 1,191 average miles driven per month and divide it by the 13 MPG and see that we will need 92 gallons of diesel to drive this truck for a month. 92 gallons X $5.13 price of diesel per gallon = $471.96. And we see that it will cost $471.96 to drive the same amount of miles using a diesel powered Ford F-250 truck.

Is It Cheaper To Drive An Electric F-150 Lightning Than A Gas or Diesel Truck?

As you can see it is significantly cheaper, I mean $400 per month cheaper per month and just shy of $5,000 per year cheaper. It makes all the sense to switch to electric if you are even a little economically cautious. As we have covered in other articles on this website, it you are interested in having a good truck for average home-owner needs or light commercial needs, Ford F-150 is your best option. Not only will you get great tax deductions for owning an electric vehicle but you will also save insane amounts of money by not having to pay for gas or diesel.

Another benefit of owning an electric truck is that it has less moving parts and requires less maintenance expenses which will also save you lot and lots of money per year.

I don’t mean to be salesy at all… I am just impressed at all the savings as i’m researching all this and writing about it. I hope you find this info useful. Please leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts about this.