Ford is barreling ahead with a battery-electric version of its most important vehicle line, the F-Series.
The Blue Oval teased the capability of the truck's all-electric powertrain in a video released last year. Ford decided to go big and have a prototype electric F-150 tow one million pounds.
The video brings a handful of F-Series owners to a trainyard along with 42 F-150s. Ford at first says the 42 trucks are meant to represent 42 years of being the best-selling pickup truck in America. Lined up end to end, they also cover a little more than 1,000 feet.
Enter the F-150's Chief Engineer, Linda Zhang, who reveals that a special F-150, an electric prototype, will attempt to tow 10 double-decker train cars that combine to weigh about a million pounds. When she starts creeping away to pull the train cars, the electric F-Series seems to effortlessly bring them along for the ride.
Ford F-Series electric truck prototype
Zhang tows the train cars the length of those lined up trucks: 1,000 feet.
Yet, there's a catch. Those 42 F-150s also become part of the demonstration. Ford then loads the trucks into the train cars to put the towing weight at about 1.25 million pounds. Again, the electric F-Series appears to handle the towing load rather effortlessly. Electric motors provide instant torque and that's never a bad thing for tugging heavy equipment.
We don't notice any major differences from today's F-150 and this electric prototype, though the wheels appear somewhat different. Special graphics mark the fact this F-150 isn't your typical workhorse as well.
Ford F-Series electric truck prototype
Ford confirmed this past January that it plans to electrify the F-Series with both an all-electric version and a hybrid. That seemed to kick off the electric truck race for legacy automakers. Rival General Motors also said it has a battery-electric pickup truck in development. All the while, Tesla said it plans to bring a pickup to market soon and Rivian has quickly turned into a formidable startup company. The latter plans both a pickup and an SUV on its own electric-vehicle architecture. Ford also made an investment into Rivian and will use its platform for a Ford-branded electric vehicle in the future.
The electric vehicle space isn't likely to cool down as automakers race to electrify and "futureproof" important models, as Jim Farley, Ford president of global markets, put it.