Ford Ranger Lightning – Why you're going to have to wait a little while longer

The Ford Ranger Lightning isn't anything that Ford's people will talk about.

Not explicitly in any case. But read between the lines of the engineering specifications of the new 2022 Ranger and it's clear that moves are afoot to ready the vehicle for electrification. How much electrification? That's the key question.

Certain facts are immutable. The last Ranger enjoyed an 11 year lifespan. Less than seven years from now, the Ranger – as it stands – will butt up against the 2030 combustion engine bans in many regions.

And remember that although we think of this Ranger as Australia's own, it's a vehicle that will now go to 180 different markets around the world. So, something needs to change, and, in terms of engineering timescales for a behemoth like Ford, relatively soon.

UPDATE, July 2022: New Ford Ranger review – it's here at last

The new 2023 Ford Ranger is now on sale in Australia, and the local media launch has been run. The Wheels and 4x4 Australia teams have both driven the new Ranger, and you can find their stories at the links below.

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Ford’s T6 chief platform engineer Ian Foston has gone on record to confirm that the product lifecycle for Ranger means that some form of electrification is a given.

“The platform lifecycle is anything up to 10 to 12 years...clearly electrification is going to be something which we have to consider going forward,” Foston said.

“So we made sure the platform was capable of it. And we engineered electrification into it, to make sure that all the different propulsion technologies would be able to fit within the platform going forward.

“We've got a bandwidth of electrification hardware that enables us to go anywhere from a 24-volt mild hybrid all the way through to a fully-electric version,” he noted.

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That much is clear when you delve beneath the new Ranger and see how Ford has engineered it. The hydroformed engine bay allows plenty of space for any sort of ancillaries or motors to be fitted. Or a bigger engine if you're of that bent.

The company has stanced the front and rear tracks out by 50 millimetres each side with outboard dampers. When asked what was the key reason for the outboard dampers, dynamics weren't the overriding concern. A Ford engineer suggested that it helps free up width for the tub at the rear and allows them to further expand the centrelines of the vehicle.

In addition to that, the standard Ranger ships with an 80-litre fuel tank. We saw a customised Ranger that had a 140-litre tank which fits with zero modifications, so Ford has massively oversized the area where the production fuel tank fits.

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Rendering by Theottle.

Volkswagen, which will use the Ranger's bones for its next generation Amarok, has already confirmed that the Ford's body-on-frame chassis can accept an electric drivetrain and battery pack.

There are teething issues though. Lars Krause, the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicle with responsibility for marketing said the carmaker is “looking at a pure-electric version.”

Briefing media at a presentation for the new Amarok in Wolfsburg, he went on to note: “Right now, we’re not satisfied with the electric range of the plug-in hybrid. I’d never say never, but we’re looking more towards a fully-electric version.”

Krause was confident that the chassis could house a BEV drivetrain and battery pack. “Yes, we think it is possible”, he noted. “Obviously, we’d need to modify certain elements. But, yes, we are seriously considering an electric variant,” said Krause. Notice the use of the word “we'd”. That suggests that a BEV version of the Amarok is something that Volkswagen would need to engineer rather than being a Ford-led initiative.

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Rendering by Theottle.

Clearly, the first priority for Ford – and the wisest use of development budget for Ranger – has been to clear the path to the long-awaited plug-in hybrid variant, said to be due in 2024.

Aside from the F-150, Ford has also stated that it's looking at developing another fully electrified pick-up. The grey area is what form that would take: either a full customised EV skateboard beneath it like the F-150 Lightning, or whether the intention is to utilise the amount of space freed up in this 2022 Ranger body by developing a T-shaped battery pack running down the centreline and into the existing fuel tank void.

Some illumination came from Ford's 2021 Capital Markets Day. Hau Thai-Tang, Ford's Chief Product Platform and Operations Officer, confirmed that the dedicated battery-electric vehicle platform with a RWD/AWD drivetrain platform would spawn a mid-size electric pick-up truck.

Ford markets the Ranger as its mid-size pick-up and the timescale for the launch of this range of “emotive vehicles” was a vague “between now and 2030”. Ford CEO Jim Farley backed up those comments in April, saying: “We're already pushing dirt down in Blue Oval City in Tennessee for another electric pick-up that's different than [the F-150 Lightning].”

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While Ford has engineered this generation Ranger with enough space for a plug-in hybrid battery pack and the development potential for a full BEV application, it is also developing a dedicated BEV chassis for a Ranger-sized vehicle that will appear within the next seven years.

Chatting with Ford's engineers on the launch of the 2022 Ranger, there seemed to be the odd nod and wink with suggestions that we'd be surprised what this platform is capable of, with Pritika Maharaj, T6 Global Program Manager, saying this platform was “fully protected”.

This generation Ranger's platform lifecycle is 10-12 years. But given the global reach of this model, it could soldier on profitably throughout that period in many markets without being adapted for full electrification. A trademark for the Ranger Lightning nameplate was recently registered in Europe alongside the Maverick Lightning badge, this being a smaller USS-market pickup spun off the Focus chassis.

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Piece all these facts together and the power demand of any putative Ranger Lightning means that it would likely to be spun off the dedicated EV skateboard and therefore won't be appearing any time before the 2024 launch of the Ranger PHEV.

So if you're sitting on a stack of cash waiting for a seriously rapid electric Ranger, it looks like you'll have to wait a little while yet before you can press it into the hand of your local Ford dealer. The good news? It sounds as if Ford isn't going at it half-hearted.