F-150 Lightning Fan Shares the EV Love

The electric, unstoppable power of the F-150 Lightning is something that has been fascinating fans for several years now. Whether you’re a loyal Ford driver, an innovator who’s intrigued by electric vehicles, or just someone who loves trucks, there’s room for everyone in the circle of Lightning lovers. Many have become involved in Lightning Clubs of America community meetings or events, and there’s one person behind that– a man named Joe Sholtes.

Sholtes used to be a loyal Chevy driver, along with his father and brothers, but when he tried an EcoBoost-powered F-150 in 2017, there was no going back. The F-150’s performance just blew him away! When Sholtes heard that Ford was planning an electric truck, he couldn’t wait to get his hands on it. “I really didn’t know that having that quick a truck was an option,” he said.

Sholtes had his F-150 Lightning delivered in the early days of its release, and found that there was much more to the vehicle than just spirited acceleration. A winter blackout led the entire Sholtes family to rely on the truck, using its Pro Power Onboard to keep not only their electronics charged and usable, but also those of the neighbors.

In spite of a busy life with a full time job as well as a newborn and a four-year-old, Joe Sholtes still made time to spread his passion for Ford’s groundbreaking electric truck. He founded Lightning Clubs of America as a forum to allow other Lightning owners to share their experiences, help each other out, and enjoy collaborating and sharing their love of the truck. Soon, the organization grew into nine regional chapters.

“The enthusiasm in this EV community really blew me away,” Sholtes said. “The clubs grew at enormous speeds – it was clear that these social groups really filled a previously empty area in the EV space.”

There are now over 900 members of the club in North America. Several of them came together with Sholtes to support a world-record breaking attempt for the first electric flight powered by electric vehicles. The powerful F-150 Lightning proved to be the perfect truck for this application with its Pro Power Onboard feature. Club members arranged a chain of locations to allow the plane to land and be charged by their trucks over the course of the journey. Select members of the club are also members of Ford’s “early access” group for software updates, allowing them to experience new software updates before anyone else and serve as a first line of reviewers to provide feedback to Ford’s engineers before the update reaches the rest of the ownership base.

Sholtes, dubbed “Joe Lightning” by some of his fellow truck lovers, realized that the clubs were getting too big too fast for a single organizer to manage alone. He’s now heading the mission to find other F-150 Lightning owners who can lead regional clubs, continuing to bring people together over their love of what electric trucks can do!