Recently, during the announcement of new details regarding their 300+ mile range electric CUV, Ford said they are considering building a pure electric version of the F-150.
Ford did not outright confirm that an electric version of the F-150 would be coming, but they didn’t rule one out either. Ford’s F-150 is one of their most popular trucks, so it makes sense that to maximize their potential market, they would use it as a base for an electric vehicle.
Ford’s chief technology officer, Raj Nair, recently said the following to Business Insider:
“In a CUV, you aren’t too worried about payload or towing, but it’s very different for a truck. And when you put that number of cells and that much weight into the vehicle, it does cut into payload and towing.”
The fact that the number of cells needed to make an electric truck work is so high is likely the reason that Ford said they would be offering a hybrid F-150 sometime in the near future. Nair says that with the hybrid, they want the electrification to be a bonus, and that “one thing that is really advantageous on the hybrid is it also becomes its own power generating source”.
In the meantime, Tesla might be beating Ford to the punch on a fully electric truck, with one scheduled for release sometime in the next few years. Ford seems to want to play it a little safer for right now, with Nair saying that while he would “never rule out anything like that”, a hybrid version makes more sense at the moment.
That said, should Tesla’s electric truck prove to be a hit, expect Ford and other automakers to jump into the pool as soon as they can.
