Ford’s Platinum Black F

By Umar Shakir, a news writer fond of the electric vehicle lifestyle and things that plug in via USB-C. He spent over 15 years in IT support before joining The Verge.

Photography by Owen Grove

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Ford’s making a special new factory matte black Platinum Black edition of its all-electric F-150 Lightning truck. Revealed today, this Lightning looks like Batman’s Tumbler Batmobile from The Dark Knight trilogy, with some glossy finish remaining on the door handles, roof, and elsewhere. Ford spokesperson Susannah Evans tells The Verge that under the factory wrap, the vehicle is finished with Ford’s glossy agate black paint.

Ford will only make 2,000 of these murdered-out pickups that start at $97,995, which is about $6,000 more than the regular Platinum tier and roughly the same as the price before Ford dropped prices on the truck in July.

In today’s announcement, Ford says that midway through the second year of production, it “is on track to triple F-150 Lightning production by fall” as production accelerates toward building 150,000 of the electric trucks every year. At the same time, as we reported in June, the limited availability of its cheaper entry-model “Pro” Lightning has caused some buyers to back out — so refocusing attention to a limited-release model makes a lot more sense now that Ford is confident about how many trucks it can build.

Deliveries are expected in early 2024, and starting today, anyone interested can sign up to be notified when preorders open. If you do manage to get one, it will even have an aluminum plate in the frunk and driver door jamb imprinted with the limited-edition production numbering.

It includes subtle additions like a smoked finish on the front light bar and a black (and not blue) Ford oval under it. It doesn’t quite have the monster truck F-O-R-D impact that lovers of Ford’s F-150 Raptor are into, but the Platinum Black still looks like a real tough guy ride. And those tough guys can be really handy, too, as the 9.6kW Pro Power option will now ship with the ability to power appliances while the truck is powered off, and it includes new power usage visuals.

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Plus, it’s still hard to get fast charging for your new truck in some areas of the country, as Ford CEO Jim Farley recently discovered. And despite the new arrangement with Tesla, the company still won’t ship trucks with built-in North American Charging Standard charging plugs to natively use Supercharger stations for a long while.

Like the standard Platinum trim, this one comes with the 300-mile extended-range battery standard and the Platinum-exclusive “Nirvana” contoured leather seating with a 10-way power driver seat — but, of course, it’s in a luxe black finish in the limited-edition model. It also gets a blacked-out version of the 22-inch wheels and black “Lightning” graphics on the standard-to-this-model twin glass roof. The Platinum Black also includes standard power-deploying running boards with a gloss black finish, reflective black lightning badges, and a soft-shell black tonneau cover to hide a Batcycle under.

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