Florida utility Duke Energy is testing the V2G features of the new Ford F-150 Lightning at the company’s Energy Wise Lab in St Petersburg, Florida (the home of Charged). The R&D pilot will evaluate the viability of the Lightning’s high-capacity batteries and two-way charging capability as a way to power Florida homes during outages and… Read more »
Search Results Found For: "F-150 Lightning"
Startup led by Tesla alums aims to build electric RVs
As is the case with a legacy vehicle, towing a trailer with an EV greatly reduces range—as John Voelcker found in his recent test of a Ford F-150 Lightning (see the latest issue of Charged), towing can reduce range by 40% or even more. But what if the trailer had its own electric powertrain? That’s… Read more »
CEO Mary Barra: GM is playing a long EV game, and intends to win
GM hasn’t been getting much respect in the EV press lately. Industry bad boy Tesla continues to dominate the market, racking up global sales of more than 310,000 units in the first quarter of this year. Ford’s still a startup as far as EVs are concerned, but its F-150 Lightning has been getting a lot… Read more »
Ford and GM test bidirectional charging with PG&E
Some may toss the term “game-changing” around a little too casually, but bidirectional charging, and the V2X applications it enables, truly have the potential to change the automotive game, by transforming vehicles from wasting assets (aka money pits) into sources of revenue. Both GM and Ford have recently announced collaborations with California utility Pacific Gas… Read more »
Ford announces pricing for its bidirectional home charger
Ford has launched its new Ford Charge Station Pro, a bidirectional home charging station designed to work with the upcoming F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. Ford designed the system in collaboration with Siemens. The system enables an F-150 Lightning to be used for backup power and other V2G applications. (It isn’t clear whether it would… Read more »
New report from Motor Intelligence details monthly US EV sales
Back in the early days of the rEVolution, we used to get a detailed monthly report on EV sales, courtesy of InsideEVs, which painstakingly combed through sales figures provided by automakers, and used some educated guessing to make estimates for brands that refused to provide any data (ahem…Tesla). However, for whatever reason, many automakers stopped… Read more »
Ford to spin off its EVs into separate “Model e” business unit
Ford has announced plans to spin off its EV efforts as a separate business unit called Model e. Automakers often seem to choose names that we pundits dislike (see Stellantis and the Chevy Bolt), and this one is doubly daffy because of a historical association with a certain California-born carmaker. Tesla originally wanted to call… Read more »
Should Ford spin off its EVs into a separate brand?
There’s a good argument to be made that legacy automakers that are serious about electrification might do well to spin off their EVs as separate brands. Christiaan Hetzner writes in Fortune that Ford CEO Jim Farley—intentionally or not—made a case for doing just that in a recent earnings call. When asked whether Ford should separate… Read more »
Ford begins shipping E-Transit electric van, plans to boost production
The E-Transit, the electric version of Ford’s popular commercial van, is now shipping across the US. Ford says it already has more than 10,000 orders from 300 customers, ranging from small construction companies to municipalities like the city of Orlando, Florida, to large retailers like Walmart. The automaker is working on ways to increase E-Transit… Read more »
Ford Pro Intelligence supports EV fleet customers
Ford Pro, the division of Ford that caters to commercial fleet customers, has introduced Ford Pro Intelligence, a cloud-based platform to support EV fleet operations. Ford Pro Intelligence combines Ford Pro’s suite of services, including telematics, with Salesforce’s cloud-based CRM system. It’s designed to help fleet operators keep track of vehicles, manage drivers and share… Read more »