“This sucker’s quick,” Biden told reporters as he pulled to a stop after a go in the Lightning. But just how quick is quick, Joe? Well, according to Biden’s finely tuned seat-of-his-Presidential-pants stopwatch, the electric F-150 Lighting can go from zero to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds—which would place it ahead of the mighty F-150 Raptor.
We’re willing to bet that isn’t just an educated guess, and rather a tidbit of info Ford’s PR people gave to Joe before he hopped in the driver’s seat—especially given how in C-SPAN’s video of the off-the-cuff remark, someone off-camera corrects Biden (who initially says “4.3 seconds” and “four flat”) before noting how they shouldn’t be saying what they’re saying out loud: “Well, we haven’t released it, President.”
That’s what we like to call a “Fordian Slip,” a well-planted seed from the hype puppet masters at Ford. Either that or Ford really didn’t want anyone to know this info until the big reveal, and bungled the cover-up. Either way, expect the claimed 0-60 time of the new Lightning to be around 4.4 seconds, if Biden’s back-and-forth is anything to go by. Oh, and be sure to watch the clip above for his rip off the line away from reporters, having promised to try and get the truck up to 80 mph. The President fairly stands on the F-150 Lightning’s gas—er, throttle pedal—and shoots off quickly.
Earlier in the President’s visit to Ford’s Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, he was also told that the battery pack in the F-150 weighs around 1,800 pounds. It’s safe to assume that that figure represents only the pack itself and that it doesn’t account for the weight of the frame, wheels, motors, body, or any other addenda that make, you know, a pickup truck. (We note this only because a naked F-150 Lightning chassis—battery, wheels, and all—was featured prominently alongside the President himself in photographs from the event.) Expect the electric F-150 to therefore fall on the heavy end of Ford’s light-duty pickup lineup when all is said and done.
One other teeny, tiny thing we noticed from the pictures released on C-SPAN’s Twitter account is that Ford’s long-serving little numerical keypad door lock, a blast from the past, has made its way to the futuristic F-150 Electric. Or, at least, it made it onto the prototype Biden took for a spin. Hopefully this means the retro feature that many customers cherish will live on in Ford’s whizbang electrified future. Neat!
The Ford F-150 Lightning will make its official debut tomorrow, May 19, so stay tuned for even more info that wasn’t revealed by POTUS.
