Ford’s Hybrid pickup truck is coming and it finally has a production home in Dearborn, MI.
With gas price average prices on the rise, car lineups getting slimmer and more fuel-efficient, and car buyers somehow flocking towards larger and more thirsty cars, you’d better believe Ford is going to revamp its best-selling vehicle to better improve fleet fuel efficiency. Enter the 2020 Ford F-150 Hybrid. As per Automotive News earlier today (Sept. 27,2018) that hybrid truck has a production home in Dearborn, MI, Ford’s main truck plant where a new Ford F-150 is born every 53 seconds.
Before this, Ford’s truck plant in Missouri was slated as one of the finalists to start making this hybrid truck. Both Dearborn and Kansas City where presumably on edge on who’d get the honor as adding extra production bodes well for Union Members and truck plant employees. At least for now, it looks like Ford employees in Dearborn can celebrate before production kicks into high-gear (or should I say Hybrid assist.)
It’s been tried before by various automakers, notably GM, but a hybrid truck never was in the cards for serious truck buyers. Now, it looks like the time is right where hybrid technology and battery capacity allows for a boost in power and fuel efficiency that will see this 2020 Ford F-150 Hybrid crest that magical 30 MPG mark, combined or highway.
You can argue that all the improvements to the Ford F-150 have brought the Hybrid truck to this point. The biggest concerns with hybrid tech is brand image, customers willingness to accept new technolgy, and added weight.
Automotive News quotes that “The vehicle, announced in 2015, will feature a gasoline-electric motor that can double as a mobile generator. ” Ford is going to push this technology as helpful, if not crucial to working on a job site. Expect to see shots of this Hybrid F-150 pulling up to a work site without power and everyone getting to work because, now, they have the F-150 mobile generator there.
Next, there’s customer’s acceptance of new tech. Ford is very good at branding something new, like forced induction, into something more palatable. Call it EcoBoost and get the GT40 to use their engines. I expoect Ford to, as hinted above, align this Hybrid tech with there customer base in a new and creative way.
Finally, there’s the added weight. Ford’s been trimming the F-150 down by 700 pounds over the years thanks to new, lighter, and stronger materials. Added weight due to a battery pack is negligible.
Some rumors show a plug-in variant where an overnight charge assists your Ecoboost truck engine for the first hundred miles or so where you achieve ungodly MPGs, around 35+ mpg, as these guys experienced.
Now that Ford has selected a production site, it’s only a matter of time before these Hybrid trucks head towards production.
I’ll be curious to hear the EPA’s final MPG rating on this groundbreaking vehicle.
