Ford Shipping New F-150, Ranger in Unprecedented Truck Offensive

Never in its history has Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn mounted a truck offensive like the one about to hit U.S. dealerships and highways.

Ford has now introduced new versions of Super Duty, F-150, and Ranger since last spring, and combined those nameplates make up 90 percent of Ford pickup volume. The company now is shipping the all-new Ranger and Ranger Raptor, new F-150, F-150 PowerBoost Hybrid, F-150 Raptor, and F-150 Lightning, and assembled 144,000 of the new trucks in the first quarter.

“The Ford truck lineup has never offered customers so much choice, and never had so many new models coming all at once,” says Andrew Frick, president of Ford Blue. “No other automaker has a gas, hybrid, diesel, and electric full-size pickup, and with trucks from the compact Maverick through Super Duty and off-road versions of every model, Ford has a pickup for nearly every customer use case.”

According to Ford, it assembles more vehicles in the U.S. than any other automaker and employs the most UAW-represented hourly autoworkers. More than half of those workers  contribute to F-150 or Ranger production. Ford assembles a new truck in the U.S. every 33 seconds.

Hybrids are especially hot right now, according to Ford, including trucks. Ford owns 72 percent of the U.S. hybrid pickup market, with Maverick Hybrid leading the way. Now, Ford is doubling the production rate F-150 PowerBoost hybrid to 20 percent of all F-150 pickups.

Around the globe, Ranger is the best-selling pickup truck in Europe and the top-selling vehicle in Australia for 2023. By the end of this year, Ford plans to start diversifying Ranger powertrains in Europe by adding a plug-in hybrid targeted at businesses that aren’t quite ready for full electric vehicles but need to meet the requirements of low- or no-emission city centers.

Ford says it enhanced quality processes and applied learnings from the Super Duty launch last year when developing these new truck models.

Using connected vehicle data on pre-production F-150 units, engineers uncovered an issue where modules did not shut off at night or were consuming more power than they should. Engineers updated the problematic software before any trucks left the plant.

Christine McGowan and the Ranger Raptor launch team spotted a cosmetic issue on the hood of the truck that made it appear as though there was a dent. The team moved quickly to add handling aids to provide support for the hood throughout the manufacturing process and made design changes to stiffen the character lines.

Under the hood, Kelly Johnson, hybrid calibration engineer, and his team helped improve powertrain smoothness on the F-150 PowerBoost Hybrid trucks by blending the power coming from the electric motor and gas engine through software updates.

That allowed engineers to completely remove the belt starter, reducing weight and complexity and helping us offer the PowerBoost Hybrid at the same manufacturer’s suggested starting price as the EcoBoost model.

On the EV side, Ford is adjusting to the market by reducing the MSRP of some versions of the F-150 Lightning by $2,000 to $5,000.

The F-150 Lightning XLT Standard Range model was changed from $64,995 to $62,995. Lariat Extended Range was adjusted from $79,495 to 76, 995 and the Flash Extended Range price was moved from $73,495 to $67,995

Customers can order their 2024 F-150 Lightning here .

For more information about the F-150 Lightning, visit here .

The post Ford Shipping New F-150, Ranger in Unprecedented Truck Offensive appeared first on DBusiness Magazine .