Today in North Carolina, Ford showed off its newest electric performance display, the F-150 Lightning Switchgear. The electric truck was made in partnership with RTR Vehicles. It has a standard 580-horsepower engine but special off-road parts and a different body. The ride height is much higher because the tires are 37 inches, and the Fox off-road dampers are stronger. A lot of car fans are worried about the switch to electric cars that is coming soon. Is driving an electric vehicle (EV) as exciting as driving a gas-powered sports car, even though they have limitations like big curb weights and no sound stimulation? Ford is sure it can, and over the last few years, it has used a number of test vehicles to try to show it. Along with the F-100 Eluminator restomod and an electric Mustang dragster with 1401 horsepower, the Mustang Mach-E 1400 showed up as a mean-looking form of the company’s mid-size electric crossover. It had seven electric motors. After that came a new version of Ford’s famous Supervan. This one had over 1400 electric horsepower, which helped it win the Pikes Peak Hill Climb the previous year. The latest project from Ford, the F-150 Lightning Switchgear, was shown off today at an event in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Switchgear is built on an F-150 Lightning with an extended-range battery. It was made in partnership with drifter Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s company, RTR Vehicles. The stock car’s dual-motor all-wheel-drive system still has 580 horsepower and 775 pound-feet of torque. The 131.0-kWh battery, which powers the regular Lightning for 320 miles, hasn’t changed either. “We Want to Own Off-Road” The Switchgear comes in two types: one for off-road use and one for on-road use. Ford is currently working on the off-road version, so only a little is known about the Switchgear that is meant to be used on pavement. He told the reporters in Charlotte, “We want to own off-road.” Jim Farley is the CEO of Ford. “If Porsche has been the dominant brand in road racing, we want Ford to be the dominant brand in off-road racing.” The first thing that will catch your eye about the Switchgear is how it looks. It looks nothing like a normal F-150 Lightning. Instead, the beautiful racing paint job is put on a specially designed chassis that includes stronger carbon-composite fenders that hide a wider track. The front and back tracks are now 80 inches long, up from 68 inches on the stock Lightning. This makes the vehicle more stable when driving on rough ground, and in the off-road version, the wider track is hidden by a front bumper made of steel. The street-spec switchgear’s front part is made of carbon composite. The main thing that Ford and RTR changed was the chassis. A custom double-wishbone front suspension and a multilink rear suspension can be used to change the Switchgear’s suspension and tire motion. At each end of the suspension, there are droop limit bands and stabilizer bars. The car also has Fox 3.0-inch-diameter internal bypass dampers. Ford says the front wheels can move 11 inches, and the back wheels can move 13 inches. Because it has bigger 37-inch Nitto Ridge Grappler tires on 18-inch forged aluminum alloy beadlock wheels, the off-road Switchgear has 13.5 inches of ride height in the front and 11.0 inches of space in the back. The new front and back bumpers make the approach and departure angles much better. If you look at the road-spec truck, it has flow-formed aluminum alloy wheels with Nitto NT420V 305/55R20 tires on them. It says that the back seat is 5 inches high and the front seat is 7 inches high. Two more features that make the Switchgear better off-road are a front skid plate and steel-made rock rails. There is a rack in the bed with two extra wheels and tires. The truck has a carbon fiber tonneau cover and side skirts that make it ready for use on the track. In the cabin, there are five Recaro sports seats with six-point belts and a big hand brake for tire-squealing drifts. For Ford, the Switchgear will show customers how fun driving can be and also be used as a test bed to learn more about the possibilities of electric cars. “We want to stop doing generic vehicles,” Farley said. “We want to get race cars used on the road.” There are many of them. If the F-150 Lightning Switchgear and other electric demonstrations are any indication, Ford is probably working on some crazy high-performance electric cars that will be used in real life. The F-150 Lightning Switchgear will be shown to the public for the first time at the King of the Hammers off-road race in Johnson Valley, California, on January 25.
