If you’re not excited about Ford’s upcoming Universal EV platform — which Ford developed secretly at its west coast Skunkworks with the goal of offering a competitive sub-$30,000 compact pickup truck among other frugal EV options — you should be. I just got an exclusive up-close look at the little electric pickup dressed in camo at a Long Beach park — it is way smaller than you think. And that’s awesome!
Rejoice, world! For far too long, we have had to deal with the scourge of ever-growing pickup trucks. Every time a new generation of a truck comes out, we learn that it’s longer, wider, and taller.
The old Ford Ranger, for example, looks like it had a few too many cheeseburgers between the early 2000s and now:
I’m pumped. Not only is Ford finally bringing back a tiny pickup truck — one seemingly even smaller than the Maverick, which itself is larger than the old Ranger — but the brand is going to offer it in EV form at a relatively reasonable price point. I’m amped, and ever since touring The Blue Oval’s skunkworks facility, I have been excited to learn more about what the thing will look like.
Well, The Autopian now has the best idea of any publication on the internet thanks to these spy shots that Autopian video manager Griffin and I took. Let’s first start with this horrible photo I took of the an old Ford Ranger tailing Ford’s prototype (OK, technically it’s the Mazda version of the Ranger, but you get the idea). It’s not that easy to tell the scale, but look at the Mazda and look at the F-150 ahead, and it’ll be clear that the new Ford EV is tiny:
Now let’s get to the nice shots; let’s first check out the side profile without getting too distracted with camouflage that looks like wrapping paper for a baby gift (seriously, I see soccer balls, teddy bears, sailboats, hearts, painters trays, bicycles, hearts… my 14-month baby would love this); Ford has some fabric covers obscuring the shape of the vehicle’s nose and its cab, but the rear does look nice and squared off. I’m standing on a 6″ curb there, to give you a sense of scale:
The windshield looks quite raked, the ground clearance looks modest, and the wheels look fairly small for a modern EV. The second row looks fairly large (at the expense of bed length — if I had to guess, that’s a 4-ft bed), and the wheels appear to have aero-caps. This is definitely a street-focused truck meant to optimize range. I just hope it doesn’t look too soft at the nose; it’s a truck after all.
Look at the size of the two adults in the front of the truck in the image above; that should give you an idea of just how small this thing is.
It’s really hard to distinguish the shapes on the truck’s body due to that camo; turns out, my son’s wrapping paper is absolute gas as car-camo. There appears to be some kind of something jutting out from the bedsides.
Speaking of the bed, that’s how it looks inside. It’s modestly-sized, but can probably easily fit a Ford 289 V8 longblock.
While the taillights are just little rectangular cutouts in the “wrapping paper,” I can see a bit of the headlight lenses through the camo, though in truth, I can’t really learn anything of value through that netting. I can tell you that appears to be a small grille opening built into the bumper, and is that a radar sensor in the center of the grille? There appears to be a piece of tape over the center of it, so maybe not. Above that center…thing… is what appears to be a front camera. Man Ford did a great job on this camo; I’m grasping at straws here.
The big thing is scale. America appears to be about to get its first-ever small, affordable, practical electric pickup truck, and I’m far, far, far too excited.
I just like small pickups, is all. I drive a Jeep Comanche around LA, and I regularly think to myself: This is perfect. An electric small pickup truck, especially a four-door? It could be the ultimate daily driver.
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Check out the video I shot above to see a bit more of Ford’s Universal EV Platform EV pickup truck.
Hmmmmm you just came upon this EV pickup and a Ford F150 I’m front of it and a Ranger behind it for semi comparison? Like Leroy Jethro Gibbs says there are no coincidences. Not sure if you are in on it, I can’t believe that, or you were fooled by it, yes that I can believe. Some photos by something that can measure it would be easy. But if it has 4 doors and a decent bed it isn’t small. Small pickups aren’t for companies who have a 4 man crew. This should be a single row maybe some cargo room for singles or a company that is one or two man living on the edge. If you have an EV And 4 people and the frames necessary it doesn’t matter the size of the bed you already reached maximum capacity
Any chance this has a removable bulkhead or midgate?