How come no tonneau options?

[LightningShow]

Has this been discussed? Why isn't Ford offering any tonneau options? You would think it would even help with range. Sure, there's 1000 aftermarket options but they have factory options for the ICE vehicle. What gives?

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[CoyoteJim]

My guess is they want to have a solar option that charges the battery (similar to what Musk announced for the Cybertruck) but they don't have the hardware worked out yet.

 

[COrocket]

It seems like they are trying to make the Lightning assembly line as simple and fast as they possibly can, by bundling massive packages together and limiting options. They may be trying to imitate Teslas process to scale production quickly. If you’ve ever built one of their cars online you pick the color, two wheel options, and one or two other things.

Fortunately, I’m sure your dealer would be able to order the gas truck 5.5’ tonneau cover as a dealer installed accessory and add it onto the final build. From my understanding it’s the exact same box.

 

[F150ROD]

Just buy the ICE one and install it yourself at a discount after delivery of your Lightning.

 

[Pioneer74]

It seems like they are trying to make the Lightning assembly line as simple and fast as they possibly can, by bundling massive packages together and limiting options. They may be trying to imitate Teslas process to scale production quickly. If you’ve ever built one of their cars online you pick the color, two wheel options, and one or two other things.

Fortunately, I’m sure your dealer would be able to order the gas truck 5.5’ tonneau cover as a dealer installed accessory and add it onto the final build. From my understanding it’s the exact same box.

Your first thought about bundling options together is true, but the tonneau cover isn't installed on the assembly line. It is installed in the MOD center. A separate building on the Rouge site that installs all the tonneau covers, wheel well liners and decals.

The box is the same dimensions. The only difference is the Lightning has a different box side outer than ICE trucks.

 

[stimpy]

Has this been discussed? Why isn't Ford offering any tonneau options? You would think it would even help with range. Sure, there's 1000 aftermarket options but they have factory options for the ICE vehicle. What gives?

The factory tonneau covers are a restricted commodity that would delay delivery. I believe there was a comment from Ford about it at some point. I’m not sure why the bed liner is available and not the tonneau covers, but maybe it’s not as restricted.

 

[RavenYZF-R6]

Who needs a tonneau cover when you got a frunk??? ?

 

[sotek2345]

Who needs a tonneau cover when you got a frunk??? ?

When you have too much junk for your frunk!

 

[LightningShow]

It will be interesting to see some real testing but I assume the tonneau will get you a few miles of range. Does anyone know if the Lightning is going to have proper connection point for the power retractable tonneau?

 

[LightningShow]

Wow, just looking around at the options. Tonneaus are way fancier than the last time i had a truck.

 

[CoyoteJim]

Scoff you may, but this company claims they have a tonneau cover with 800w of solar cells (long bed), good for adding several miles a day - for western and southern states, anyway. The example they give is for an EV Truck with a 76KW battery the 800 Watt solar tonneau cover will generate 29 Km (18 miles) of added range with 6 hours of solar charging. That sounds like it might be optimistic but still good for 8-10 miles for the Lightning's 98kWh battery and shorter bed. Let's see:

98,000kWh/230 miles = 426Wh per mile
600W (shorter bed) x 6 hours = 3600Wh
3600Wh/426Wh per mile = 8.45 miles

8-9 miles per day from the sun. Say what you want about the drawbacks of charging vs. filling up with gas, but there is no way to park your ICE truck in a driveway and absorb a half gallon of gas into your tank a day.

I think it's just a matter of time before several companies are offering even better systems, including Ford. This is part of the reason I'm not real concerned about the 230 mile range of the SR. You will be able to "trickle" charge your battery off of solar plus have an "auxiliary tank" comprised of a mobile battery array you can load in the bed of your truck for trips.

https://goterravis.com/trucks/

https://www.motortrend.com/news/worksport-terravis-solar-tonneau-cover-truck-bed-power-system/

 

[wheelz2000]

I'd buy that....shoot...sign me up.

 

[RickLightning]

It will be interesting to see some real testing but I assume the tonneau will get you a few miles of range. Does anyone know if the Lightning is going to have proper connection point for the power retractable tonneau?

No, they don't add range to recent F-150s.

 

[MickeyAO]

Scoff you may, but this company claims they have a tonneau cover with 800w of solar cells (long bed), good for adding several miles a day - for western and southern states, anyway. The example they give is for an EV Truck with a 76KW battery the 800 Watt solar tonneau cover will generate 29 Km (18 miles) of added range with 6 hours of solar charging. That sounds like it might be optimistic but still good for 8-10 miles for the Lightning's 98kWh battery and shorter bed. Let's see:

98,000kWh/230 miles = 426Wh per mile
600W (shorter bed) x 6 hours = 3600Wh
3600Wh/426Wh per mile = 8.45 miles

8-9 miles per day from the sun. Say what you want about the drawbacks of charging vs. filling up with gas, but there is no way to park your ICE truck in a driveway and absorb a half gallon of gas into your tank a day.

I think it's just a matter of time before several companies are offering even better systems, including Ford. This is part of the reason I'm not real concerned about the 230 mile range of the SR. You will be able to "trickle" charge your battery off of solar plus have an "auxiliary tank" comprised of a mobile battery array you can load in the bed of your truck for trips.

https://goterravis.com/trucks/

https://www.motortrend.com/news/worksport-terravis-solar-tonneau-cover-truck-bed-power-system/

Seems that these charge their own battery, not the traction battery. Once there is a way to feed this back into the traction battery, I will give them very serious consideration.

 

[CoyoteJim]

Seems that these charge their own battery, not the traction battery. Once there is a way to feed this back into the traction battery, I will give them very serious consideration.

In the FAQ, they state that if the truck has bidirectional charging it charges the traction battery. They have an option to select the F150 Lightning when ordering (you can’t actually order yet but you can reserve an order for $50…a process which sounds a little too familiar, unfortunately).

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