Ford pins a lot of hope on electric F-150
2022 Lightning’s price will start under $40,000 thanks to reusing designs
Linda Zhang, chief engineer of Ford Motor Co.’s new electric F-150 pickup, steers a three-ton rig onto a test track at the automaker’s suburban Detroit proving grounds and mashes the accelerator. In about four seconds, she says, “We’re at 60” miles per hour. Then, a heartbeat later as the G-forces bear down, “We’re at 100.”
No wonder Ford calls its newest model the Lightning. Two electric motors give the pickup 563 horsepower capable of propelling its 6,500 pounds at sports-car speed. That’s what U.S. President Joe Biden discovered Tuesday as he took it for a spin during a visit to Ford’s Dearborn, Mich., test track and declared: “This sucker’s quick!”
Yet it can still tow up to 10,000 pounds and jounce through the mud and ruts of an off-road course just like its conventional gas-powered counterpart.
Those speedy and sturdy attributes are the formula Ford is hoping will stand out in a soonto-be crowded field of electric pickups. By the time the truck goes on sale in the middle of next year, it may already trail the arrival of Tesla Inc.’s Cybertruck, General Motors Co.’s GMC Hummer pickup and Rivian Automotive Inc.’s R1T.
Electrifying the F-150, Ford’s golden goose, is critical to the company, which introduced the vehicle during a splashy ceremony at its headquarters on Wednesday, a day after Biden toured the plant that will build it. The gasoline-powered F-series truck line generates $42 billion (U.S.) in revenue a year — more than McDonald’s, Nike and Starbucks — and hauls in most of Ford’s profit.
“This is an iconic moment for our industry,” CEO Jim Farley said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday. “We have over 20,000 orders in 12 hours since we revealed right here in Dearborn.”
Earlier, at that flashy introduction, Farley told reporters that the electric F-150 could serve as a proxy for how mainstream buyers will accept battery power. “I am looking at this vehicle as a test for adoption for electric vehicles,” Farley said.
“We should all watch very carefully how this does in the market.”
Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s president of the Americas and international markets, said in an interview that it’s “incredibly important that this vehicle be a success for us.”
The F-series has been the bestselling vehicle line in America for four decades, but Ford isn’t taking that brand loyalty for granted. It remains to be seen if electric pickups from an automotive incumbent will be as attractive to traditional truckers as early EVs have been to tech bros.
“Will they buy from Ford — that’s been a truck-making expert for decades — or will they buy from an upstart because they’re attracted to a new brand?” asks Michelle Krebs, executive analyst for Auto Trader, a unit of researcher Cox Automotive. “We just don’t know.”
Ford shares rose as much as 4.8 per cent on Thursday, the most on an intraday basis since April 5.
Ford is looking to improve the odds of making the Lightning a hit. It has set the starting price at just under $40,000 — about the same as a gas-powered F-150 — and created a cavernous “frunk,” or trunk in the front of the vehicle. At the touch of a button on the key fob, the hood and grille lift to reveal more than 14 cubic feet of space that can handle 400 pounds of cargo. It features a deep well with a drain for iced beverages.
“I was surprised that it’s going to start at $40,000, which is actually $2,500 cheaper than a base XL crew cab with fourwheel drive,” said Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst with researcher Guidehouse Insights, who was briefed on the truck. “And what they’re calling the mega-power frunk seems to have been very well-executed.”
Ford also will bill the Lightning as having competitive driving range of 230 miles (370 kilometres) on the base model and 300 miles (480 km) for buyers who pay extra for an extended-range battery.