Ford Confirms All-Electric F-Series Pickup Truck Coming

As reported by Electrek: Ford might not be doomed after all. The American automaker has now finally announced that it is going to launch an all-electric version of its most important vehicle program: the F-Series pickup trucks.

Last year, Ford announced plans to “bring 16 battery-electric vehicles to market by 2022” – starting with an all-electric CUV with 300 miles of range.

But the automaker still remained more focused on hybrids than all-electric vehicles.

Its more important vehicle program, the F150 pickup truck, was only supposed to get a hybrid powertrain by 2020, but the landscape has since changed a lot.

Rivian has unveiled what could be a really competitive all-electric pickup truck and Elon Musk has been heavily hyping an upcoming Tesla all-electric pickup.

It made Ford’s hybrid pickup plan a little weak, but now the company is planning to have its own all-electric F-Series truck.

Ford CEO Jim Hackett made the announcement at the Deutsche Bank Global Auto Industry Conference today:

“We are going to electrifying the F-Series with battery electric and hybrid and we are doing the same for Transit. We launched a PHEV version of Transit and that will be on a journey of electrifying Transit globally.”

It sounds like the previously announced hybrid version of the F150 is still planned for production, but it will be followed by an all-electric version of at least one pickup truck in the F-Series.

Rivian's Atlis XT is a rival all Electric Pickup Truck with a 400 mile range.  The company is based in Mesa AZ.

He didn’t confirm a timeline nor which pickup truck in the F-Series – though the F150 is a likely option.

It’s one of many EV announcements from Ford over the last week.

Ford and VW announced that they are considering partnering on electric vehicles.

Lincoln, the American automaker’s premium brand, also announced that it is making an electric car based on Ford’s Mustang-inspired EV.

The Mustang-inspired EV is supposed to be Ford’s first all-electric vehicle built to be electric from the ground up and it is due to launch next year.

Electrek’s Take

I’ve expressed before how disappointed about Ford’s EV effort to date, but this is the most encouraging announcement to date.

With the Rivian truck and the upcoming Tesla Pickup, I thought that it was ridiculous to plan a hybrid version of the F150 in 2020.

I can’t help but think that all the hype around those two vehicles has help convinced Ford to greenlight an all-electric version of the truck – or at least another F-Series truck.

Now it’s still light on the details. We will keep looking into this for more information. If you have any, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

But regardless of the details, it’s an important announcement for the US automotive market since the F-Series is the biggest vehicle program in the US and it looks like it’s starting to go electric.

The Magnetic North Pole Has Moved. Here's What You Need To Know.

Earth's Magnetic North Pole has been moving toward Siberia eer since its discovery.  Forbes.

As reported by Forbes:  I have been seeing some headlines pointing out that Earth’s magnetic field is acting up and that scientists don’t understand why, so I thought I would take the time to clear up the issue.

What is happening?

Earth’s magnetic pole is moving in the direction of Siberia and away from Canada. This is something that scientists have been tracking for a long time. It’s fairly easy to look up the location of the magnetic pole dating back to the early 1900s. The recent changes of the drifting pole are raising some concerns but the direction is not the problem. In fact, the direction of the drifting pole has been roughly the same for as long as scientists have been tracking it. The speed is the issue.

Every five years scientists recalculate the location of the magnetic pole. This is important information for global navigation, which includes GPS satellites and other technology. These changes can make a big difference in our everyday lives.

Scientists at NOAA and the British Geological Survey check how accurate the World Magnetic Model is every year and when they did their check this year they noticed some large differences. Primarily that the pole’s movement had sped up. The location data for the pole was supposed to last until 2020 before it needed to be updated but according to experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it needs to be updated now.

Why is this happening?

The global model was off because of a geomagnetic pulse the occurred beneath South America in 2016. This pulse just came at a bad time. The 2015 World Magnetic Model was brand new and not scheduled to be renewed until 2020. It seems that in the future we may not be able to wait as long between updates. The poles movement has sped up in recent memory from 9 miles a year in the 1990s to about 34 miles a year at present day. A new model needs to be implemented as soon as possible and even then they will have to rework the model again in 2020. Until then navigation might be affected.

What caused the geomagnetic pulse beneath South America is unknown. If you have been seeing headlines that imply the scientists are clueless or don’t understand what is happening this is what they are talking about. Anomalies like this happen from time to time and honestly, it’s nothing to be worried about.

Why is the pole moving?

In the northern hemisphere, deep within the Earth, there are two large areas of magnetic strength being generated by the liquid metal surrounding Earth’s core. One is under Canada and the other is under Siberia. What we are seeing now is the result of those two areas pulling against each other.

It’s also worth noting that the release of the new model is being delayed due to the US government shutdown. If you would like to know more about this issue please write your Senator and ask them to reopen the government.