An astute reader spotted the thickness of the cable, which means the truck is almost certainly plugged into a Combined Charging System cable. That is further evidence that this is a full EV or a PHEV with a very large battery pack.
Last month we told you that we'd heard a rumor that Ford would build an electric F-150 in addition to the forthcoming hybrid model. Ford confirmed this report to Autoblog, saying the truck is in development. It seems our spy photographer has spotted the test mule plugged in somewhere in the wild, trying to hide in plain sight with a bit of camouflage.
Look more closely and a few things stick out. For one, it's plugged in. It's hard to tell, but that sure looks like there might be a J1772 plug a Combined Charging System plug hooked up to a socket in the driver's side of the front bumper. That's an easy place to hide a plug for this phase of testing, but it's likely that this plug location will change for production. There's also a deep running board, which doesn't do much to hide the fact that the truck's bed and body seem to be riding higher off the frame than normal. This indicates that the battery pack will hide under the body as in many EVs.
Ah, but there's a tailpipe!, you might think. It's not hard to bolt in a dummy unit. We've seen that trick before. Given what's going on underneath the cab of this mule, we think it's probably not a PHEV, so the tailpipe is a bit of misdirection.
Remember, upstart Rivian has also previewed an electric truck with range up to 400 miles, towing capacity up to 11,000 pounds and a price range between about $70,000 and $90,000. And having seen the prototype in person, we're quite impressed. What a real OEM truck would mean for Rivian is unclear. But as more information trickles out about the F-150 EV, all will be revealed in due time.
