The upcoming all-electric Ford F-150 pickup truck, better known as a “ute” here in Australia, will reportedly revive the company’s “Lightning” name, which the company hasn’t used on a production vehicle since the early 2000s.
According to a document from the American automaker provided by a source to Car and Driver, the F-150 Lightning will revive the name which was first introduced all the way back in 1993 on the SVT F-150 Lightning.
So far, Ford haven’t provided much in the way of details regarding its promised all-electric F-150 ute, except that it will have a dual-motor setup providing all-wheel-drive and will boast more horsepower and torque, and the fastest acceleration of any F-150 currently on the market.
All the way back in July of 2019 Ford debuted a teaser of a prototype for the all-electric F-150 which showed the vehicle pulling 10 double-decker freight carriages over 300 metres – highlighting the incredible torque on offer from electric vehicles.
Ford then doubled down in the teaser, filling all those carriages with 42 F-150s, bringing the total towing weight to over 1 million pounds, or over 450 tonnes.
Later in 2019, Ford filed a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a design approach which could significantly lower build costs and reduce vehicle weight.
A year later, as the world continued to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, Ford announced that it was hiring 350 additional employees and investing $US100 million to expand production capacity for the all-electric F-150 and all-new E-Transit.
The longform build-up to an all-electric F-150 has unsurprisingly continued to build excitement, with a survey published earlier this year by auto market company Cox Automotive showing that two in five ute buyers were already thinking about going electric, and with more people saying that they would buy an all-electric Ford F-150 over a Hummer EV, Rivian R1T, and even the Tesla Cybertruck.
Potentially naming its new all-electric F-150 with the ‘Lightning’ badge is currently a lot of speculation, though given that it was shown in the document alongside reference to the Mustang Mach-E electric crossover and the E-Transit electric cargo van – both of which we already know about – it’s probably a good bet that the F-150 Lightning will soon be hitting roads around the world, and hopefully in Australia as well.
Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.