Call Me Lightning

Ford, the truck company that used to be a car company, is getting a lot of buzz from its new electricity-powered truck, the Ford F-150 Lightning.  Michael Smerconish even featured it on his CNN program.  It has the same dimensions as the gasoline-powered F-150, a one-ton maximum payload in a five-and-a-half-foot bed, a five-ton towing capacity, and standard four-wheel-drive.  Ford is suggesting that this truck could sell masculine right-wing types on electric vehicles.

Big deal.

I have had a problem with large EVs, mainly because they're, well, large.  When you get right down to it, larger EVs don't do much to save the environment.  Sure, they don't use gasoline or diesel, but the vehicles themselves still require more raw materials to produce, and the batteries have to be larger, which means more rare earths to make bigger batteries that in turn, create a strain on our natural resources.  And you figure that larger batteries in larger vehicles need more electricity to charge them, and much of that electricity still comes from fossil-fuel-fired power stations.  It would take a lot of that fossil-fuel-powered electricity to get the F-150 up to its potential - a standard battery produces up to 426 horsepower, 775 lb-ft of torque, and a range of about 230 miles on  single charge, while an extended battery produces 563 horsepower, 775 lb-ft of torque, and a range of about 300 miles on a single charge. Where's the "green" in this green vehicle?  

Trust me, the only way you can make a pickup green is if you paint it in the color.  

The problem with the F-150 - the bestselling vehicle in America - is that a lot of people who don't need pickup trucks buy them because a pickup is a status symbol.  I don't mind when people who need a pickup truck, like a plumber, a carpenter, or an outdoorsman, buy one, but the F-150's popularity is largely due to the fact that even computer programmers and insurance-claim processors buy them when they obviously don't need them.  Given that I'd still have trouble navigating around it in my VW Golf just as with an ordinary F-150, why should I care if the twin-battery setup and the rear-mounted motor allow for a trunk in the front?    

And the less said about the electric GMC Hummer, the better.

For those who do care, the F-150 Lightning goes on sale in May 2022.