ELECTRIC VEHICLESFord F-150 video signals new electric pushPublished: Thursday, July 25, 2019[image: All-electric Ford F-150 towing trains and cars. Photo credit: Ford Motor Co.]
A prototype of an all-electric Ford F-150 is shown here towing more than 1.25 million pounds of rail cars and trucks during a test. Ford Motor Co. Ford Motor Co. posted a splashy teaser video for a new electric F-150 truck, planting its flag in a largely uncharted market for electric vehicles. In the five-minute video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXFHgoon7lg>, a black electric F-150 prototype tows a chain of rail cars weighing a million pounds. Then Ford loads 42 trucks onto that train, upping the weight to 1.25 million pounds, and does it again. The number winks at the fact that the F-150 has been America's best-selling truck for each of the past 42 years. While the towing ability may impress truckers, it also communicates that Ford is serious about electrifying the F-150 — though a final product may still be years away, if one arrives at all. The video, posted Tuesday, is Ford's most explicit promise so far to manufacture a pure-electric truck. Ford plans to roll out a hybrid gas-electric F-150 next year, and in April it invested $500 million in Rivian, a startup electric truck-maker. At the end of the video, the words flash, "The all-electric Ford F-150 is coming." The message is targeted directly at truck buyers and echoes what Tesla Inc. did with its speedy Roadster a decade ago — demonstrate that an electric steed can in some ways outperform its gasoline counterpart. "This is an area where an electric vehicle can show a performance benefit that is key to its constituent customers," said Tim Grejtak, an energy-storage analyst for Lux Research Inc. "It worked for Tesla. Now Ford is trying to make a similarly bold statement." Electric cars excel in towing because they have ample low-end torque, a measure of the vehicle's ability to accelerate at low RPM levels. The electric motor provides immediate traction to the wheels, without the intermediaries of combustion and cylinders. The towing capacity of the most powerful F-150 currently on the market, the 3.5-liter EcoBoost twin-turbo-charged V6, is 13,200 pounds. The electric prototype pulled more than 94 times that amount. The video had plenty of advertising elements to win over truckers: Five men in jeans, work boots and baseball caps pumped their fists on the sidelines as Linda Zhang, who is the chief F-150 engineer, piloted the truck silently forward. An electric motor makes almost no noise. "Listen to the motor," one of the men said. "What motor?" another replied. The heavy train cars were only pulled for 1,000 feet, which may show the limitations of the prototype's battery, Grejtak noted. Batteries prices have been dropping, but their weight, power and cost are delicate trade-offs for automakers. While Ford gave strong signs of its intentions, the Dearborn, Mich.-based company took care to add caveats. "The F-150 all-electric is towing far beyond any production truck's published capacity in a one-time short event demonstration. Never tow beyond a vehicle's towing capacities," stated a disclaimer on the screen. It also gave no deadline. Ford will deliver the electric truck "in the coming years," Zhang said. _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
