Ford’s F-series has been the best-selling truck line-up in America for more than four decades. Soon the company will add a new model: an all-electric F-150.
Just about every automaker has at least one electric car on the market already. Trucks are another story, however. While the odd hybrid pick-up has popped up from time to time, gas and diesel powerplants are still the norm.
For many car buyers the reduced maintenance and reduced operating costs make electrics an easy sell. Truck buyers, on the other hand, might have concerns about hauling and towing capacity.
Ford wants its fans to know that won’t be a problem. Their electric F-150 prototype packs plenty of muscle.
To prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt, Ford hitched up a series of 10 double-decker rail cars. To keep things meta, they filled those cars with other F-150s — 42 of them, obviously because that’s answer to the ultimate question.
In total, the load weighed just over 1 million pounds. Ford’s electric F-150 had no trouble shifting them.
Granted, it only had to move them 1,000 feet over flat ground, but it was still a pretty impressive demonstration of the prototype’s capabilities. Brief videos like these could go a long way in shifting perceptions about electric trucks.
The folks over at Rivian also have truck buyers pretty excited. While the company doesn’t share pre-order numbers, they have said that their goal is to produce 20,000 of its R1T truck and R1S SUV in 2021. They also think doubling that figure for 2022 is a strong possibility.
Tesla is working on a truck as well. It’s currently the most talked about pickup in the U.S. based on geolocated Twitter data. That’s despite the fact that very little information has been shared about it so far.
Those rankings could be slightly skewed, what with Tesla’s legion of very vocal fans hanging out there to see what the equally vocal Elon Musk is going to tease next. Whatever the case, it’s clear that buzz is building around electric trucks and the fight for supremacy will be a heated one.
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