This year’s Ford F-150 Lightning SuperTruck is totally bonkers. It’s built specifically to race up the 2024 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. It is a demonstrator vehicle and a new technology testbed for future pickup trucks and vehicles from Ford. Ford plans to build on top of this platform and take it to more race tracks and events around the world. Let’s dig in!
This is a custom-built racing vehicle with ties to a production Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck. The SuperTruck has two electric motors in the rear and one electric motor in the front. These are the latest 6-Phase UHP motors by STARD. STARD also made the ultra-high performance Li-Polymer NMC cells battery for this race truck. Ford Performance team says that this three-motor power system is tuned to produce 1,600 horsepower combined at the bottom of the Pikes Peak hill climb course (over 9,000 feet above sea level) and the same amount of power at the top of the mountain (over 14,000 feet above sea level). In theory, this power system could put down even more power, but this is how it’s currently set up for the climb. 1,600 horsepower is equivalent to 1,193 kW total system output.
They say that elevation is very difficult on internal combustion engines due to lack of oxygen. This is true. The top of Pike Peak mountain has 40% less air density as there is at sea level. Electric motors don’t care about elevation, but they do care about the battery’s state of charge and the battery’s discharge rate. The lower the state of charge of the battery, the less power the motors can produce. The SuperTruck is equipped with a 50 kWh race-spec battery pack that is crash rated for use in a racing vehicle. It uses a new 900-volt system. At full charge, the battery sees up to 940 volts. This is the energy needed by this race truck to go up 12.42 miles of steep mountain paved road.
The SuperTruck also has regen capability. This is not part of the race, but on the way down the mountain this racing truck can produce up 600 kW of charging / regeneration. 600 kW is equivalent to about 804 horsepower.
This F-150 SuperTruck is software limited to a top of speed of 137 mph for this hill climb. The team says this is what’s needed for optimal overall performance, and it is also plenty quick for this course. The theoretical top speed of this SuperTruck is somewhere north of 210 mph. This truck’s unique aerodynamic package can generate up to 6,000 lbs of down force at 150 mph. This may be too much downforce to reach the theoretical top speed, but this downforce is needed for this hill climb.
I have an opportunity to interview Ford’s team about this newest SuperTruck, learn everything about it, and actually get behind the wheel. Check out the video below.
The TFLstudios team has been covering the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb since 2009. Here is another crazy Diesel truck that used to run up this mountain. It’s a 2,400 horsepower Freightliner semi-truck!
