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Ford adds details on the base work-truck version of the just-announced F-150 Lightning electric pickup. Picture sawing wood from your truck with the Pro Power Onboard built-in AC power source, which offers up to 9.6 kilowatts of power that can be accessed through outlets in the bed, the cabin, and the locking front trunk, or frunk.The F-150 Lightning Pro will start at $39,974 plus a destination charge yet to be named, while the truck with the extended-range battery pack starts at $49,974 plus destination.Since unveiling its first all-electric pickup last week, Ford has been repeating the message that the F-150 Lightning does work. No where is that more obvious than in the F-150 Lightning Pro, a commercial customer trim version Ford is announcing today.

Unsurprisingly, most of the Lightning Pro’s technical features are shared with the consumer Lightning. That means the same battery options of either the standard pack that should get 230 miles or an extended-range battery for 300 miles, the same 14.1 cubic feet frunk, and, perhaps most important for fleet operators trying to get jobs done (other than the vinyl seats) is the ability to run tools right from the truck.
Pro Power Onboard is a built-in AC power source for the F-150 Lightning and Lightning Pro. In talking up the standard Lightning, Ford is happy to explain that the truck’s Pro Power Onboard can improve tailgates or power your home during an outage. For the Lightning Pro, Ford said a single charge of the extended-range battery has “enough power to rip up to 30 miles of half-inch plywood.” Same hardware, different message.In the Lightning Pro, the standard Pro Power feature offers 2.4 kilowatts of power through four trunk-based outlets, two in the cabin and two in the bed. The available 9.6-kilowatt Pro Power Onboard option adds two more 120-volt and a 240-volt AC outlet in the bed. Personal Lightning owners can set limits so that their campsite usage won’t drain the battery too much to get home or to a nearby charging station. With the Lightning Pro, fleet managers can do the same for their trucks out on jobs, so that they can always make it back to the garage or somewhere where they can recharge.The Lightning Pro comes as dual-motor with four-wheel drive. It will produce an expected 426 horsepower with the standard-range battery. With the extended-range pack, this number jumps to 563 horsepower.The Lightning Pro will come in one body style: a full-size, four-door, five-passenger SuperCrew configuration with a 5.5-foot bed and a standard Class IV hitch. Inside, the Lightning Pro uses an Intelligent Range system that takes terrain, weather, cargo, and trailer load into account when it calculates how many miles are left in the battery. Thanks to cloud connectivity and Sync 4, the truck will recommend a visit to a charging station if the state of charge drops.

How much energy you can put into the pack depends on the charger used. With the standard-range F-150 Lightning Pro and the included 32-amp mobile charger, refilling the battery from 15 to 100 percent at 240 volts takes 14 hours. The time drops to 10 hours with the optional 48-amp Ford Connected Charge Station or the 80-amp Ford Charge Station. On a 150-kW DC fast charger, going from 15 to 85 percent full takes 44 minutes (all times are longer with the extended range battery).

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The F-150 Lightning Pro with the standard-range battery will start at an estimated $41,669, assuming the as yet unannounced destination charge is the same $1695 as that for the gas-powered F-150. Choosing the extended-range pack adds $10,000 to the price. Electric-vehicle incentives may also be available.It’s not like Ford’s commercial customers have been without any electric options. Around a decade ago, Ford and Azure Dynamics worked together on the Transit Connect Electric, a plug-in version of the gas-powered Transit Connect delivery van. In late 2020, Ford announced an all-electric version of the larger Transit cargo van, which also offered Pro Power Onboard and other features found in the Lightning Pro. But here’s a solid additional choice.
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The auction website Bring a Trailer has this 1989 Mercedes 190E on offer in an auction that runs through through Wednesday afternoon, May 26.Only 502 190E Evolution cars were built, making this particular example more interesting.The car’s tartan-and-wood interior is almost as big a selling point as the Cosworth-built engine and five-speed manual transmission, but note that it’ll need to be shipped from the Netherlands.If you’re anything like us, it’s fair to assume you spend at least a little bit of your spare time scouring the web for cool cars up for sale. In our perusing today we’ve come across a 1989 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5-16 Evolution on Bring a Trailer, a homologation special built to directly compete with the E30 BMW M3 Sport Evolution for touring-car supremacy. In total, only 502 of the 190E Evo were produced, making them an extremely hot commodity. So far—with the auction ending on May 26—bidding is still at $31,000.

Bring a Trailer

Powered by a longitudinally mounted Cosworth-built 2.5-liter inline-four, the Evolution sends a respectable 202 horsepower to the rear wheels via a five-speed dogleg manual transmission and limited-slip differential; it also revs to a healthy 7200 rpm. The Evolution also featured a self-leveling suspension with a selector switch that would lower the car for track use. Apart from its race-built engine and trick suspension, the Evolution sported a larger wing, flared fenders, and revised front and rear fascias to add to both its looks and downforce.

Bring a Trailer

In a gorgeous hue of blue-black metallic, the 190E Evolution essentially looks like the Batmobile had a love affair with a DTM touring car, and who wouldn’t want that? Even the 16-inch alloy wheels suit the car’s looks perfectly. Move inside and appreciate the bolstered black leather seats, tartan cloth inserts on the seats and door panels, and wood surrounding the shifter. Maybe it’s just us, but looking at this interior makes us wish manufacturers would be a bit more adventurous with interior design these days. With around 43,000 miles on the clock and a slew of parts replaced recently, including an overhaul of the self-leveling suspension, we’re sure the current bid of $31,000 won’t hold for long.
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A garage-built, street-legal aluminum car will be one of 10 finalists in the ongoing Hot Wheels Legends tour this year.Lulu was handmade by retired engineer Paul Kalenian of Santa Fe, New Mexico. With a crate engine from GM, the low racer has already covered 5000 miles. The tour winner will be announced in November and then turned into a Hot Wheels toy for anyone to buy. The shape of the 2021 Hot Wheels Legends Tour finalists’ circle is coming into focus. This week, Mattel announced the latest winner from one of the tour stops: a fully street-legal aluminum racer called the Lulu. The low, shiny ride secured its spot as one of 10 finalists that will compete in November, with the winner being inducted into Hot Wheels’ Garage of Legends and then turned into a 1:64 Hot Wheels die-cast toy.

A hand-built vehicle loosely based on Mickey Thompson’s 1963 Harvey Aluminum Special Indy race car that set 35 national and eight international speed records in its time. Lulu was put together by 70-year-old Paul Kalenian of Santa Fe, New Mexico, a retired engineer. Kalenian built Lulu in his garage over seven months, spending at least 1,500 hours and $35,000 on the project. The turbocharged four-cylinder LTG crate engine from General Motors was originally rated at 275 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque, but Kalenian and his team increased it to 325 horsepower in the 1530-pound Lulu, which uses a six-speed manual gearbox. The engine is structurally mounted behind the driver.

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Lulu is impossible to miss on a sunny day thanks to its shiny aluminum exterior, and the lightweight vehicle uses an aluminum frame and coil suspension as well. While Kalenian has already put 5000 miles on his home-built ride, he knows Lulu’s street-legal aspect isn’t exactly an indicator that the car is particularly special. He told Autoblog last fall that it was easier to register Lulu where he lives in New Mexico because it’s “the Wild West, where a donkey with a motor can be plated.” According to FF Journal, Kalenian is working on another custom design called the “Lu2,” which will use a BMW K1600B MC engine and is expected to weigh around 850 pounds.Kalenian has also entered Lulu into other competitions, including a virtual car show benefiting the Children’s Miracle Network of New Mexico last fall that named a 1969 El Camino Super Sport the winner.Other competitors in the Hot Wheels Legends tour stop that crowned Lulu the winner include modified versions of a 1962 Ford Falcon, a 1966 Novetta, and a 2007 Jaguar XK.
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The Biden administration would like to spend $15 billion to increase the national electric-vehicle charging network to half a million stations by 2030.While Congress argues that point, the national network continues to grow, thanks to private companies and regional government initiatives.But the charging stations get built mainly in more populous areas, causing gaps that will be a problem going forward.President Joe Biden has announced a plan to spend $174 billion to make it easier for Americans to choose electric vehicles. Biden wants $15 billion of that money to go toward building a national network of 500,000 charging stations by 2030. The day after Biden’s announcement, Representatives Andy Levin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—both Democrats—announced that they had revised their existing bill on electric vehicle infrastructure so that it would align with Biden’s new plan. Republicans oppose Biden’s plan. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) called it a “mandatory rush” toward EVs (it’s not—Biden has declined to back a California proposal that would ban the sale of gas cars by 2035).

Whether or not Biden’s plan can weather the slings and arrows of a bitterly divided Congress, an EV charging network is popping up across the country, driven by efforts from private companies and various government initiatives. But where will all those chargers go?That depends on what’s used to determine the optimal charge station layout, according to Mehrnaz Ghamami, an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering at Michigan State University. Ghamami led a team of researchers who developed a plan to optimize Michigan’s EV charging network for inter-city trips and trips within high-traffic urban environments. The study’s goal was to plan a network for 2030, which meant the team had to consider both the existing capabilities and adoption rate of EVs and charging networks and the potential for future higher adoption rates, higher-capacity batteries, and the wider availability of fast chargers. The state also directed the team to plan chargers with “uniform distribution throughout the state, for equity purposes,” not just in areas where road traffic or EV adoption are already high.

Electrify America

The resulting charging maps imagine a network of chargers splayed at roughly even intervals across the state, with clusters around the state’s population centers, where dozens or even hundreds of chargers will be necessary to support the higher number of EV owners and the lower likelihood that those owners will be able to charge their EVs at home. Ghamami says her team faced some criticism for planning stations in remote areas, but “the infrastructure needs to be there, and users need to be educated about these vehicles” before they’ll feel comfortable purchasing one. “The state wanted to build the chargers, and the demand will follow,” she says.But not every government or charging network is prioritizing equitable placement of charge stations. If you look at a map of existing chargers in the United States, there are often (depending on the station provider) big gaps in the middle of the country, especially in the upper Midwest and through the Rockies. That could be a signal that some of the biggest network providers, including ChargePoint and Electrify America, have so far focused on putting chargers where lots of people (and EVs) already go. That’s the technique the city of London is using to build out its network in advance of a 2033 deadline that will mandate a zero-emissions taxi fleet. That plan used mapping data from current taxi trip patterns combined with data on the capacity of the electrical grid to start building a fast-charging network based around established travel patterns. That may mean that parts of the city that don’t currently see high taxi traffic will be left out of the charge station boom and could theoretically make for an out-of-date network as neighborhoods and their traffic patterns change over time.London’s strategy of working with electricity providers is one we’ll have to think about on this side of the pond, too. Ghamami says her team’s next act is a study on how to distribute the energy demand of charging stations, for example by using large batteries to store energy so that the electrical grid isn’t overwhelmed on high-traffic days. Grid failures aren’t only a risk in rural or remote areas—Ghamami says that in Michigan, portions of the grid in danger of being overloaded by a growing EV charging network are split between low-population areas and higher-density zones with outdated electrical infrastructure.And, of course, no amount of planning will create a robust charging network if no one wants to build the stations. The installation of new charging stations often involves partnerships among two or more parties, often some combination of state and local governments, electrical utilities, a charging company, and a private company interested in the business it can get from drivers waiting for their cars to charge. But Ghamami says Michigan’s government sometimes can’t find willing partners to shoulder even a third of the cost of installing a planned station, and an analysis from consulting firm AlixPartners found last year that a fast-charging station asking the market rate for electricity could take 20 to 25 years to make back its initial investment.Those are the administrative challenges that await the Biden administration’s EV infrastructure plan, should it ever be signed into law. And that first hurdle will likely be enough to occupy the interested parties in Congress for quite some time.The bill that Reps. Levin and Ocasio-Cortez hope will turn into funding for a network of fast-chargers isn’t new. They first proposed a version of it in February 2020, but it never emerged from its subcommittee. With a new President who has been vocal about his interest in EVs, Levin and Ocasio-Cortez are trying again with a more aggressive bill. But there’s no sign that Republicans are more willing to compromise on legislation than they were last year. What is the standard to guide states and charging networks on the best layout for burgeoning networks in the meantime? “Nationwide?” Ghamami said. “I don’t think there is one.”

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A new survey conducted last month by Automotive News about the global chip shortage finds that almost everyone in the auto industry thinks it’s a big problem.Today, according to the survey, 53 percent of respondents said they source their chips from outside the U.S., and 55 percent are looking for alternative chip sources outside the country.Changes are happening, of course, from temporary production pauses and a shift to models that are either in high demand or require fewer chips. The auto industry is fully aware just how bad the current chip shortage is. Anecdotally, this has been clear for a while. Ford CEO Jim Farley, for example, recently said that the chip shortage is “perhaps the greatest supply shock” he’s ever seen. Automotive News used that quote in a new survey of automakers and suppliers called Examining the Global Chip Shortage, which gives us plenty of survey data to back up the feeling that this is a big, big deal.

Perhaps the most surprising number in the survey is that only—yes, only—93 percent of respondents said that they think the chip shortage will have a severe impact on the auto industry. The survey was conducted a month ago, before recent estimates put the shortage’s impact on the auto industry at $110 billion in lost revenue this year. But even in January, the estimates were around $50 billion, which apparently wasn’t severe enough for 7 percent of respondents.There’s also the feeling that the chip shortage will stretch out for most of the rest of the year. Almost three-quarters of respondents, 72 percent, said they expect the chip shortage crisis to impact the industry for at least six months.Just a reminder that the shortage of the chips, used in cars, computers, and other products, was caused by worldwide demand for electronic goods that intensified because of the coronavirus pandemic, along with inadequate planning in the supply chain and weather problems. As the New York Times pointed out, a new vehicle can have up to 100 of these semiconductor chips on board; they’re used (and needed) in components from touchscreens to transmissions.

While there have been efforts to start making more semiconductors in the U.S., newly proposed plants will take time to build and start producing chips. The survey provides us with some insight into where automakers and suppliers are getting their chips now: 53 percent get them from outside the U.S. today and 55 percent are looking to source chips from outside the U.S. in the future. Forty-eight percent said they’d rather buy chips from domestic suppliers.Survey respondents were somewhat uncertain about which segments of the industry will be most impacted by the shortage. Half (49 percent) said it will be the automakers, while 30 percent believe dealers and retailers will be hardest hit, and 23 percent said it will be the suppliers.If there are bright spots to be found in the numbers, they lie in the way the industry is adapting to the situation. Almost half, 42 percent, of automaker and supplier respondents said they have already changed, or will implement changes, to the ways they mitigate supply chain risk, and 26 percent said they have found alternate sources for the chips they need. That means 74 percent of the industry, as of mid-April, hadn’t yet found a solution to the shortage itself, but there are other ways of mitigating the mess. As we’ve previously reported, many automakers—38 percent, in the survey—have at least temporarily stopped some manufacturing. Another third, 32 percent, have shifted production to vehicles or components that are less impacted by the shortage, and almost half, 46 percent, have prioritized making high-demand products.The survey was conducted in mid-April of 475 Automotive News subscribers and readers, which the publication said represent a “diverse sample of automotive professionals who represent various companies and levels and areas of expertise across the industry.”
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