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The aspect I'm most curious about is towing range. I have a 5000lb travel trailer that I tow about 200km away a few times a year. I'm pretty sure I'd be out of

The aspect I'm most curious about is towing range. I have a 5000lb travel trailer that I tow about 200km away a few times a year. I'm pretty sure I'd be out of luck with a vehicle like this. It has the ability to pull the trailer with ease, but most preliminary estimates are that range would be two digits with that sort of load. In my current vehicle I do stop for gas midway, but it would be an entirely different situation hoping for a charger spot (with connected trailer) and then the time to charge. Still a great truck, though. For a huge range of uses, including more local towing situations (the vast majority of commercial uses), it could be brilliant. And eventually they can market a super-range battery you can tow. I kid...or do I?

criddell 5y ago
If you only need to do it a few times a year, why not rent a truck?
megaman821 5y ago
Cut the advertised range in half. That is about the max you can expect for towing range. So the extended range version may let you tow the distance you want to.
rm445 5y ago
The occasional heavy-duty trip is a reasonable use case for a range extender (as in, an IC engine gen-set) either towed or on the truck bed.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  The idea of having a gas-powered generator in the bed of an electric truck is both genius and hilarious to me.
  - nabla9 5y ago
    Removable hybrid option.
  - rswail 5y ago
    If you could fit it into the "frunk" (godawful name) then um, it would be just like the ICE version.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  Can this truck charge while driving?
greenonions 5y ago
I doubt it would be a very viable choice for recreational towing, but then, that market is probably significantly smaller than the standard truck use-cases.
- defaultname 5y ago
  Ford includes several pictures of towing recreational trailers (travel trailer, boat) in seemingly remote locations among their promotional images for this truck: It certainly isn't the bulk of the market, but it is a very important market. They're appealing to people who tow stuff currently and aspirationally (e.g. people who don't currently tow trailers, but like to imagine that one day they will. "What if" scenarios). Eventually the charging infrastructure will be there, including for towing vehicles, and it would be a case of scheduling a lunch around a charge.
cschneid 5y ago
I just bought a little teardrop camping trailer, and it was amazing how much it impacted my gas mileage. I tow with a Subaru outback, and I went from low 20s (23/24 on highway) to mid teens. Almost ran out of gas on our first trip since it went so much faster than I expected! I can't imagine that the F150 would be good for long haul trailers... just so much energy involved moving weight around.
- toss1 5y ago
  I've found towing mileage change was very dependent on the vehicle. For example, I had a Dodge Durango which got pretty much 16mpg no matter what, whether driving empty or towing a car on a flatbed trailer at highway speeds, still 16mpg. Next vehicle was a used manual transmission BMW X5, got 22-24mpg empty on the highway, but just towing an empty flat trailer would drop that to 17mpg, and a car on it would be 16, and the same towing a small U-Hual box trailer, just instantly drop to 16. So, one was highly stable and the other highly variable with different weight/aero loads.
rootusrootus 5y ago
It will be interesting to see what the real-world experience is like, but I don't expect any good news. People towing tiny travel trailers behind Model X's get brutal reductions in range. The problem is that an EV is so inherently efficient to begin with that towing a big hollow brick behind you makes a tremendous difference in how much fuel it takes to pull it. Contrast that with a pickup that is already getting mid-teens fuel economy, the change in efficiency is much less pronounced. And with the easy filling ability of the ICE pickup, it's going to be the go-to choice for a number of years until batteries get significantly more capacity, denser, and cheaper. A very typical pickup/travel trailer combo will get 10mpg. Maybe a couple more for a diesel. You can find outliers, but I've been towing RVs for a while and the topic comes up for discussion periodically, 10mpg is by far the most common experience. Trying to cram enough capacity into a battery for this kind of terrible efficiency is going to be tough for a while.

criddell 5y ago

If you only need to do it a few times a year, why not rent a truck?

megaman821 5y ago

Cut the advertised range in half. That is about the max you can expect for towing range. So the extended range version may let you tow the distance you want to.

rm445 5y ago

The occasional heavy-duty trip is a reasonable use case for a range extender (as in, an IC engine gen-set) either towed or on the truck bed.

dahfizz 5y ago
The idea of having a gas-powered generator in the bed of an electric truck is both genius and hilarious to me.
- nabla9 5y ago
  Removable hybrid option.
- rswail 5y ago
  If you could fit it into the "frunk" (godawful name) then um, it would be just like the ICE version.
frosted-flakes 5y ago
Can this truck charge while driving?

greenonions 5y ago

I doubt it would be a very viable choice for recreational towing, but then, that market is probably significantly smaller than the standard truck use-cases.

defaultname 5y ago
Ford includes several pictures of towing recreational trailers (travel trailer, boat) in seemingly remote locations among their promotional images for this truck: It certainly isn't the bulk of the market, but it is a very important market. They're appealing to people who tow stuff currently and aspirationally (e.g. people who don't currently tow trailers, but like to imagine that one day they will. "What if" scenarios). Eventually the charging infrastructure will be there, including for towing vehicles, and it would be a case of scheduling a lunch around a charge.

cschneid 5y ago

I just bought a little teardrop camping trailer, and it was amazing how much it impacted my gas mileage. I tow with a Subaru outback, and I went from low 20s (23/24 on highway) to mid teens. Almost ran out of gas on our first trip since it went so much faster than I expected! I can't imagine that the F150 would be good for long haul trailers... just so much energy involved moving weight around.

toss1 5y ago
I've found towing mileage change was very dependent on the vehicle. For example, I had a Dodge Durango which got pretty much 16mpg no matter what, whether driving empty or towing a car on a flatbed trailer at highway speeds, still 16mpg. Next vehicle was a used manual transmission BMW X5, got 22-24mpg empty on the highway, but just towing an empty flat trailer would drop that to 17mpg, and a car on it would be 16, and the same towing a small U-Hual box trailer, just instantly drop to 16. So, one was highly stable and the other highly variable with different weight/aero loads.

rootusrootus 5y ago

It will be interesting to see what the real-world experience is like, but I don't expect any good news. People towing tiny travel trailers behind Model X's get brutal reductions in range. The problem is that an EV is so inherently efficient to begin with that towing a big hollow brick behind you makes a tremendous difference in how much fuel it takes to pull it. Contrast that with a pickup that is already getting mid-teens fuel economy, the change in efficiency is much less pronounced. And with the easy filling ability of the ICE pickup, it's going to be the go-to choice for a number of years until batteries get significantly more capacity, denser, and cheaper. A very typical pickup/travel trailer combo will get 10mpg. Maybe a couple more for a diesel. You can find outliers, but I've been towing RVs for a while and the topic comes up for discussion periodically, 10mpg is by far the most common experience. Trying to cram enough capacity into a battery for this kind of terrible efficiency is going to be tough for a while.