It takes a second for your brain to adjust to something this big is accelerating this quickly. It reminds me of the first time I rode in a performance Tesla Model S more than a half-decade ago. I was here to get a ride - Ford hasn’t let anyone outside the company drive the F-150 Lightning except for President Biden. Some other electric cars allow owners to plug in one or two devices at a time, but no one has gone so far as to juice up an entire home.Ī preproduction F-150 Lightning chassis at the new electric vehicle assembly facility at Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant. The “and more” bit is what makes the Lightning so interesting: One of the best features is the ability to plug your Lightning into a special residential charging station that can fill the Lightning with energy, but, when power is lost, it can also power your entire home for days. Truck buyers are a protective and loyal group, and the company wanted to build a truck that was electric but also did everything F-150 buyers expect and more. Ford already antagonized Mustang fans when it released the Mustang Mach-E, which is electric and, perhaps worse, has four doors. It’s my first chance to get up close with the truck, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, my first reaction is that it looks an awful lot like a Ford F-150 pickup truck. The need to engineer vehicles far from prying eyes is why these private development facilities are essential for carmakers.Īfter passing through several security checkpoints and climbing into a van that exists solely to shuttle visitors around the facility, I finally make it to the inner sanctum and find a preproduction F-150 Lightning. Dedicated automotive photographers will ply common testing areas looking for camouflaged vehicles to snap pics. to have concrete runways, scheduled passenger service, an airport hotel, and more), Ford’s on-campus testing center is highly secure.Īutomobile manufacturing is a cutthroat business, and spying on development vehicles undergoing testing is common. Formerly known as the Dearborn Proving Ground and even more formerly known as the Ford Airport (the airport was the first in the U.S. Getting inside Ford’s Dearborn Development Center is not easy. "North America is investing billions of dollars in making sure that program is robust and they can get the cars to dealers and into customer hands, so right now our priority is ICE.The Lightning has a redesigned grille and head- and taillights, but it’s unmistakably an F-150. It’s important for us to have a significant and strong remanufacturing process. We’ve always got an open mind, but we’re focusing on what we need to do – get the product here, get it done in a robust way, get the engineering done, get the remanufacturing set up. " is an amazing product and we’re seeing the investment in Tennessee and Kentucky to support that. "Is there a demand here? Yes, I’m absolutely sure we could sell that product, but we’ve got to make sure it’s commercially viable, and what we’ve also got to do is be in tune with our overseas colleagues, and right now that really is the focus. and there has been a huge demand for in the US," said Birkic. "There’s a lot of excitement globally about what the Lightning brings. Ford Australia and New Zealand CEO Andrew Birkic said the manufacturer needs to focus first on launching the regular F-150, but admitted the door was open for the Lightning down the track.
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