Ford teases all-electric F-150 pickup truck by pulling a million-pound train

- July 23, 2019

10 double-decker rail cars towed over 1,000 feet.

In 2017, Ford announced that it would sell an all-electric version of its best-selling F-150 pickup truck. It plans to start selling a hybrid version in 2020, and as a way to start priming the pump (or plug, as it were) for a vehicle that will no doubt be a very big deal, the company released a video Tuesday demonstrating the electric truck’s remarkable towing capacity.

The electric prototype is seen pulling 10 double-decker rail cars over 1,000 feet. It does it once when the rail cars are empty and a second time with them loaded with 42 regular, gas-burning F-150s. The latter stunt puts the entire load at 1.25 million pounds, according to Linda Zhang, chief engineer on the electric truck project. An all-male retinue of fluorescent vest wearing truck owners are brought in to gawk and shout “no way” at the battery-powered F-150’s feats of strength — because apparently there were no women F-150 owners to be found.

It’s a nifty stunt meant to allay the concerns of the truck-driving public that electric can be “Built Ford Tough” too. Ford has a lot riding on the electric F-150, which will drop around the same time as the company’s forthcoming battery-powered Mustang-inspired crossover. The company has said it will spend $11.5 billion to produce over a dozen electrified models (which includes EVs and hyrbids) by 2022.

In the fine print, Ford describes the towing stunt as a “one-time short event demonstration” and claims it is “far beyond any production truck’s published capacity.” Right now, Tesla holds the record for pulling the heaviest load, when a Model X towed a 287,000-pound Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner nearly 1,000 feet on a taxiway at the Melbourne Airport in Australia last year.

Ford recently announced it was teaming up with Volkswagen on electric and autonomous vehicles. VW is investing $2.6 billion on Ford’s AV effort, and Ford will gain access to the German giant’s electric vehicle MEB platform, which the Blue Oval says it will use to design and at least one high-volume fully electric vehicle in Europe starting in 2023.

The automaker aims to deliver more than 600,000 European vehicles using the MEB architecture over six years, with a second all-new Ford model for European customers under discussion.

Also previously, Ford said it would invest $500 million investment in EV startup Rivian, and it will build an electric vehicle using Rivian’s tech. The new vehicle won’t affect the electric F-150 and Mustang-inspired crossover, though.