The Ford F150 Electric will have two battery options to choose from
Ford has unveiled its first ever all- electric pickup truck in the US. The F series of trucks have been popular in the global markets for decades and the F150 could probably be the most reputed of them. Ford has chosen but the F 150 for building their first ever EV truck. The all-electric model is named F150 Lightning and will hit the roads in the US by spring next year.
Design Highlights
The basic shape of the electric F150 stays close to its gasoline counterpart. Almost everything about the design seems instantly recognizable. However, the LED light bar at the front and the reworked LED headlamps and tail lights render some freshness to the Lightning’s aesthetics. The face now gets a faux grille finished in gloss black, quite typical of an EV. The truck stands on a new set of wheels.
The key highlight of the electric F150 is, however, the highly EV-ish storage space under the hood (the frunk!). Where the engine used to sit in the regular F150, now gets a massive luggage room of 400 liters.
Cabin And Features
On the inside, the Ford F150 Lightning gets features like a 12 inch fully digital instrument cluster, OTA updates, Ford BlueCruise L2 Driver-assist system and an advanced 15.5 inch SYNC4A infotainment unit on the higher trims, which interestingly has a vertical layout like the ones in Teslas! (The lower variants would come equipped with a smaller 12 inch infotainment unit)
The Mechanicals !
Like its gasoline counterpart, the F 150 Lightning too is built ‘Ford tough’. The vehicle has a military-grade Aluminium alloy body and upgraded chassis. The electric F 150 would come with two battery options (both being liquid-cooled, Lithium-ion units)- the standard would give you a range of around 370 km per charge while the bigger (extended-range) battery pack would offer figures of around 482 km!
The Ford Lightning pickup has a dual motor setup (one on each axle, mounted transversally), which can let out 426 hp with the standard battery and as much as 563 hp on the extended range version, in both cases the torque remains unchanged at 1050 Nm ( This essentially means that the lightning would be the most torquey F150 available, upon launch) This truck can do the 0-100 kmph dash in just 4.0 seconds (or the 0-60 mph in 4.4 seconds) and all four of its wheels are powered!
The Lightning comes with independent rear suspension and a low-set center of gravity, translating to more stable and more comfortable rides and better road manners.
Ford’s first electric pickup truck falls no short in terms of capabilities either. It can carry payloads of upto 910 kilograms and tow upto 4536 kgs ! Absolutely no complaints there !
Charging
The base spec F150 Lightning will come just with the 11.3kW single charger. However, the higher variants get a dual charger which could get the battery charged from 15-80% in under 45 minutes, via fast charging! The home charger gets the car charged in 19 hours and you can even use your Ford Lightning as a power source if you run out of power at home, in which case the company claims it could power a standard American house for up to three days! This is made possible with the help of the 80-amp Ford Charge station Pro and home management system
Price And Deliveries
The F150 Lightning is known to go on sale in four different variants, and priced between $$39,974 MSRP and $90,000 (Read 29.25 lakh INR to 65.87 lakh INR if you are ignorant) The deliveries are expected to commence by mid-2022.
The F150 Lightning could face competition from the likes of Tesla Cybertruck, Hummer EV and the Rivian electric pickup, in the days to come. However, Ford hopes to outsell the rivals with their aggressive pricing.
What If Joe Biden Drives One?
Well, he actually did! The US president Joe Biden is as much noted for his car enthusiasm, as he is for his immense push for electric mobility and EV adoption in the country. Thus, one would seldom wonder if we say Biden was one of the earliest lucky folks who actually got to take the F150 Lightning for a spin, on the manufacturer’s test track in Dearborn, Michigan. After pushing the EV to some serious speeds and having a fair amount of fun with it, Biden finally praised it with the remark ‘This sucker’s quick!’
Biden had made his test-driver appearance in a camouflaged prototype, even though a sans-camo version of the truck was earlier spotted alongside him, during his speech at Ford’s plant in the US. Here’s a video by The Associated Press of the US president having fun with the F150 lightning on the test track.
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