It should come at no surprise that Ford had some rather utilitarian tricks up its sleeve for the all-electric 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning and its hybrid cousin. In fact, the F-150 PowerBoost Hybrid made news earlier this year when it helped to keep the lights on for Texans who were without power during a winter storm.
We already knew that Ford was planning to add some sort of vehicle-to-vehicle charging capability to the battery-powered F-150 Lightning. Speaking with The Drive in November, F-150 Lightning Chief Engineer Linda Zhang confirmed that they were working on such a feature for the automaker’s first all-electric pickup, but they didn’t officially reveal it or elaborate on its capability until last week.
Last month, Zhang had said that only the F-150 Lightning would be able to share its on-board battery’s power with another vehicle. But Ford’s new information expands this giving-others-a-charge functionality to the F-150 Hybrid, which will utilize its onboard generator to do so. Other vehicles in the Ford lineup will be able to directly benefit from this bidirectional charging. For example, Ford will support the Mustang Mach-E crossover, E-Transit van, and other F-150 Lightnings out of the gate. The automaker says that the power-hungry F-150 Lightning will gain up to 13 miles of charge per hour from another F-150 Lightning, and its E-Transit cargo van can receive enough juice to gain up to 10. This may not seem like a whole lot, but it could make all the difference in the world to vehicles stuck just a few miles from a public charging station, or those marooned in a remote location.
