F-150 Lightning Owner Says Year’s Charging Matched One Month of Raptor Gas

An anonymous Ford F-150 Lightning owner says nearly a year of electricity for the full-size pickup cost about $450 the same amount the owner previously spent on one month of gasoline for an F-150 Raptor. The Lightning covered roughly 9,000 miles during that period and reportedly used a public fast charger only once.

That works out to approximately 5 cents per mile for electricity, based on the owner’s figures. It is a striking comparison between two versions of Ford’s best-known pickup, but it is also a particularly favorable use case for an electric vehicle: charging was overwhelmingly done at home, where electricity generally costs less than energy from public fast chargers.

Home charging drives the comparison

The result is best understood as a charging-location story rather than a universal Lightning-versus-Raptor forecast. The owner did not provide the local electricity tariff, gasoline prices, the Raptor’s monthly mileage, either truck’s model year or measured charging losses. Without those inputs, the $450 figures cannot establish a controlled cost-per-mile comparison between the two vehicles.

They do show what can happen when a driver replaces a substantial gasoline bill with residential electricity. The owner’s reported annual charging expense averages roughly $37.50 per month if spread across 12 months, compared with the stated $450 monthly gasoline expense for the former Raptor. That comparison covers energy only. It excludes purchase price, insurance, depreciation, maintenance and the cost of installing the home charger.

Electricity prices can change the result dramatically. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s June 2026 data placed average residential electricity revenue at 18.34 cents per kilowatt-hour, up 5% from a year earlier. Among the contiguous states, California, Massachusetts and Rhode Island had the highest averages, while New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming had the lowest.

That regional spread appears in another Lightning owner’s estimate. A Massachusetts driver said comparable electricity consumption would cost about $1,500 locally more than three times the first owner’s reported expense although the driver still estimated it would be cheaper than gasoline for an F-150. The two accounts illustrate why a national average is less useful than the all-in rate on a household’s utility bill, including applicable delivery charges and time-of-use pricing.

Energy drawn from the wall is the relevant number

Charging calculations also need to include energy lost between the outlet and battery. Conversion electronics generate heat, and the truck may consume additional power to manage battery temperature while plugged in. Charging losses can vary with equipment, temperature and battery conditions; a rough expectation is that an EV may draw 12% to 15% more energy than the amount ultimately added to its battery.

For owners checking their own costs, the useful measure is therefore electricity purchased from the utility, not merely the energy displayed as added to the battery. Dividing the charging-related portion of the electric bill by miles driven provides a more complete operating-energy figure. A dedicated charger or vehicle charging history may offer a cleaner measurement when household consumption changes seasonally.

Public fast charging introduces a different price structure. Kelley Blue Book’s 2026 example used 18.11 cents per kilowatt-hour for home electricity and 50 cents per kilowatt-hour for public fast charging. At those illustrative rates, the same amount of purchased energy would cost almost three times as much at the fast charger. Network, location, membership and time-of-day pricing can move the actual figure in either direction.

The Lightning owner’s single fast-charging session is consequently one of the most important facts in the account. Drivers who can plug in overnight are purchasing most of their transportation energy through a residential utility tariff. Drivers who depend heavily on public infrastructure may face much higher rates, reducing or potentially eliminating the reported advantage.

Other owners have reported widely different outcomes, including $85.76 in monthly Lightning operating costs and, in a home-solar example, 97 cents of electricity for a 40-mile round trip. Those remain individual accounts shaped by their own energy sources and driving patterns. The original $450 comparison is plausible as a bounded home-charging result, but its defining condition is access to inexpensive electricity where the truck is normally parked.

By Thomas Caldwell — AMI’s senior editor for mechanical and mobility engineering, covering vehicle electronics, systems integration, electrification, chassis systems, propulsion, and safety policy.