Ford has announced that the Dearborn Michigan is the place where the upcoming F-150 hybrid will be built.
Ford originally announced that the F-150 pickup — also known as the best-selling truck in America--will be getting a hybrid version by 2020. This will help Ford meet ever-stricter emissions standards (in California at least) while also achieving energy savings that will translate into fewer gallons of gas pumped into your tank.
As Autoblog points out, previously there was some thought that Kansas might be the location for the new F-150 hybrid, but Ford has picked Dearborn, a site that produces a brand new F-150 every 53 seconds.
Ford’s Dearborn plant is part of the River Rouge manufacturing complex which currently employs 7,500 people. It’s been in operation for over a century, and when it was built it was considered the largest industrial complex in the world. It’s still pretty big today, but then China industrialized and showed everyone how it was done.
The training center at Rouge will receive upgrades worth $35 million and an expansion from 80,000 to 120,000 sq ft. These upgrades were already agreed to back in 2015 as part of contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers union and will be necessary to teach employees how to build the new hybrid powertrains.
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Speaking of powertrains, the hybrid F-150 will share its hybrid tech with the upcoming hybrid Mustang, which will make an appearance around the same time in 2020. It’s expected that the hybrid option will only be available on higher-level trims that sport the 5.0-L V8, which sort of makes you wonder just how much fuel savings you can get from such a big engine.
Regenerative brakes are likely in the works to capture as much energy as possible, but we haven’t got much info to go on at this point.
Best of all, the hybrid powertrain will allow the F-150 to be used as a power generator for jobs in remote locations.
Chairman Bill Ford Jr. told Automotive News that an all-electric F-150 might also be in the cards. "It's going to be a truck that takes you farther, without sacrificing power, and a truck that lets you do more when you get there, with electricity for everything, from your tools to your camping gear. [...] Whether they're gas, diesel or hybrid — or, when the time comes, fully electric — they will power the world in a sustainable way and remain built Ford tough."