The Ford F-150 has been America’s best-selling truck for more than 44 years now, and the news broke in 2019 that it would be donning an electric avatar. So why the need to shift?
The Ford F-150, along with its better-powered brethren has been a bestseller since the late ‘70s, and while the Chevy and Ram trucks have often nipped at its heels, none of the competition has come close to the sales numbers that Ford generates. Honestly, it's not as if the Ford trucks are way better than the pickups from Chevy or Ram, or even the Japanese imports. It's just that for years now, the Ford F-150 has become synonymous with the American psyche of a full-size pickup truck that can double up as a daily driver, and also fulfill all hauling and towing expectations.
For decades, the average American has eschewed the sedan in favor of the trucks and the SUVs, a trend that started in the ‘90s and has carried on ever since. And the Ford F-150 has reaped the benefits.
Why then, is America’s best-selling truck going electric, and what does it mean for the future of the F-150? We can tell you, it's going to be Lightning!
The Competition Is Gearing Up
In 2019, Ford showed the world a glimpse of the F-150 Lightning's incredible prowess by pulling off a million-pound towing stunt, something that other trucks have done in the past as a marketing ploy to steal all attention. So that fact that Ford F-150 was going to come electron-powered was no secret but details of the truck, including its looks, had been kept hidden until recently.
That said; it's not as if Ford is the only pickup going electric. By the time the F-150 electric pickup, called the F-150 Lightning, rolls out to the dealerships in 2023, there will be plenty more options that have already launched or might be launching soon. There’s the GMC Hummer EV SUT, Tesla Cybertruck, and even the Rivian (which Ford has a stake in).
Of course, none of these trucks is an F-150 or has the best-seller tag backing them up. While Trump was not environment-conscious Prez, the current US President, Joe Biden is apparently traveling to Dearborn, Michigan to personally preview the F-150 Lightning and may have already done so… That’s quite an honor for the F-150 Lightning, an infant in the world of electric pickups.
Monstrous Performance, No Carbon Footprint
Environmentalists across the world have been appealing to the automaking giants to stop, pause and think about what their cars are doing to the planet. And for years now, the Detroit Three have been bad-mouthed by anyone who loves the planet we live in and the Ford F-150, being a large guzzler in its own right has been slathered and spattered in mud as well.
By turning its best-seller into an electric variant, Ford is trying to better its tarnished name. According to Ford, the F-150 Lightning will be more powerful than any other F-150 in the current line-up. This means, that even at its minimum best, it would still best the 450 horsepower put out by the F-150 Raptor, and spin more torque than the 570 lb-ft made by the current F-150 hybrid, the PowerBoost.
Will it be able to tow more? Well, the one million towing stunts are just that, a stunt, and Ford has not yet released more information about the towing and payload capacities but it's likely to be one powerful variant, even if it cannot pull a freight train regularly.
The Future, Truly, Is Electric
When Tesla launched, people laughed. The idea of an electric car was not new, but having a slew of electric cars, and a company that made only EVs was something so new, most assumed it would fail.
Then Elon Musk stepped in and the rest, as they say, is history.
Much like the nifty little tricks most EVs offer, the Ford F-150 Lightning will also be able to lend its electric power for people to power up their equipment.
The range of the vehicle as well its other ratings will be released later today, but there’s a lot that Ford will offer on the all-new F-150 Lightning, to make it as much a best-seller as the traditional gas/diesel-powered F-150. Estimated experts ratings on the mile range guess that it will have to offer at least 300 miles on a full charge, and some even think it could go up to 400 to match up to the competition. A lot of effort has been put to turn the F-150 Lightning into success and the interest in the consumer base is catching on.
As Ford says, it has taken electricity and turned it into Lightning! Watch the all-new Ford F-150 Lightning in the recently-released Instagram Ad below.
We are just about as excited as Ford itself…
Sources: CarandDriver, BusinessInsiderIndia, Instagram