Can Lightning really strike twice? A more powerful electric Ford pickup may tell.
Ford’s return to Formula 1 racing in 2026 is, by every measure, the biggest car enthusiast news out of the brand in quite some time. The announcement that Ford will be joining up with Red Bull Racing sucked up so much oxygen, you might have missed that Ford also revealed some of its future plans for high-performance EVs, racing, and the crossover between the two—plans that appear to include some kind of high-performance, apparently street-oriented electric pickup truck.
On the infographic above, you can see that truck as a blanked-out profile with a question mark over it. To our eyes, that generic truck clip art seems to be an F-150 Lightning, MotorTrend‘s 2023 Truck of the Year.
However, before you get too excited over the idea of a sportier, more powerful Lightning appearing in your local dealership sometime soon, peep the product bucket it lives under on that graphic: Ford Performance “EV Performance Demonstrators.” Not one of the other vehicles shown in that same bucket are production models, not the Mach-E 1400, not the electric Cobra Jet Mustang, not the electrified Ford F-100 pickup, and not the resurrected Super Van.
That leads us to believe that, whatever electric, Lightning-based creation is coming will be just like those flights of fancy: Examples of what electric Fords are or could be capable of when pushed to the outer reaches of their power outputs and handling abilities.
This is backed up by a tweet from Ford CEO Jim Farley, which includes a nod to “demonstrators” and a photo of himself and Red Bull Racing driver Daniel Riccardo peeking at what appears to be a sport-truck-themed F-150 Lightning beneath a sheet. Color us excited to see a proper street truck hit the concept-car scene for the first time in many, many years—especially given how these days, performance trucks tend to be off-road-focused behemoths like the F-150 Raptor or Ram 1500 TRX. We think ’90s truckin’ fans will be thrilled.
Speaking of, somewhat ironically, if indeed based on an F-150 Lightning (and it looks to be so), this electric performance truck concept would be like the 1990s-era Lightning sport trucks were to their mainstream F-150 counterparts. That would make it, uh, a Ford F-150 Lightning Lightning, if you will. Our jokes aside, we can’t wait to see what Ford Performance cooks up with a Lightning-based project—and whether they opt for a “lightning can strike twice” marketing strategy around it.
