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Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "USA Today reports that Ford's next F-150 pickup truck will be made mostly of aluminum, instead of steel, in a bid to save weight. It will likely either be hailed as a breakthrough product to buyers who've made F-150 the bedrock of its business or one that draws comparisons to a 'rolling beer can.' The automaker has asked Alcoa, which makes aluminum blast shields for battlefield-bound vehicles, to lend some of its military-grade metal for the automaker's display, according to people familiar with Ford's plans. Ford's sales job will be considerable: The company is eager to demonstrate the toughness of aluminum, which is lighter than steel, to pickup buyers at next month's Detroit auto show. 'This is already the most significant debut at the auto show,' says Joe Langley. 'Everybody's going to be dissecting that thing for a long time, especially since Ford will be taking such a big gamble.' As a transformative product with a potentially troublesome introduction, the new F-150 has drawn comparisons with Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner — an aircraft developed under the company's commercial airplane chief at the time, Alan Mulally, who in 2006 became Ford's chief executive officer. Because of the complicated switch to aluminum from steel in the F-150's body, IHS Automotive estimates Ford will need to take about six weeks of downtime at each of its two U.S. truck plants to retool and swap out robots and machinery. Ford is apparently trying to squeeze more than 700 pounds out of its next generation of pickup trucks. Using aluminum to cut weight would help meet rising fuel economy standards in the United States, which is requiring a fleetwide average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025."
http://www.aluminiumleader.com/en/around/transport/cars
http://www.drivers.com/article/245/
http://www.audiworld.com/news/02/aluminum/content1.shtml
and I don't think they made this much of a fuss about it.
Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
Leela: No he didn't.
Land Rover.
One could consider buying a smaller car, and only renting when you need to haul something. For most pick-up truck owners, that gives a cheaper, more comfortable ride.
I'll note that my truck has a synthetic 'plastic' bed, it works great, and is probably as tough as a rhinoliner coated steel bed. I'm sure it saves weight/cost.
The failure mechanics of aluminum is different than steel, but it is possible for it to be stronger for the weight. As a bonus, you shouldn't have nearly the rust problems. As usual, I'd be leery of buying the first year's model.
I'm still holding out for my strong hybrid truck though.
I don't read AC A human right
Most people care more about the status symbol of the new shiney, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it used in a series of Dodge/Chevy ads. "Silverado, tough as steel" or some such.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
While other manufactures have made aluminum for vehicles for a while even this is an old story. Ford announced over a year ago that the next gen F150 was going to be aluminum. The previous announcement stated that it would add about $1500 to the cost of materials. Also this isn't ford's first time working with aluminum bodied vehicles as they have previously experimented with aluminum bodied Tauruses as well as producing aluminum bodied Jaguars.
Time to offend someone
Galvanic corrosion. I'm interested in how they are handling that with so many steel aluminum interfaces.
Wasn't there talk of an aluminum shortage earlier this year?
Or was it just speculation that Goldman Sachs tried to create a shortage to increase prices?
Harald
http://www.caranddriver.com/news/2013-land-rover-range-rover-photos-and-info-news
Is apparently more than 900lbs lighter. IHMO Ford aren't really trying that hard to reduce the weight.
True pickups are body on frame rather than unibody. "Toughness" isn't going to be a problem. And certainly critical components (A- B- C-pillars) won't be aluminium -- the trend is towards ultra-high-strength steels. And Ford is experienced with aluminium anyway; they already use a lot of aluminium for things like hoods and liftgates and such. Not to mention they probably still have all of the Jaguar IP for welding, riveting, and clinching aluminum.
A six week downtime is a bitch, but spot welding aluminium is kind of a bitch, too, and so there are probably going to be a lot of changes in the body manufacturing facilities.
Achieving 18 mpg in my Expedition (not a daily driver, by the way) is going to seem pretty low after the new F150 comes out, I suppose. Pity we can't get an aluminium Expedition.
(Swarthy guy in faded work clothes with a country accent): A lot of the use I have for my truck happens off the highway, and if it crumples when it hits a rock that just isn't going to work. That's why I went with [Ford competitor] this time. Their new [model] has [new features] and is still built with steel the old-fashioned way.
This will work fine. The issues will arise in the driveline. Specifically the rear axle. Clearly gears, diff and drive shaft will still be steel aloy. But if they try for an aluminum pumpkin and axle tubes it's going to fail. The frame isn't a big deal because they can beef that up as much as they want and the load is fairly predictable (strait down) But lots of people have tried aluminum rear axles and they just don't work in the kind of conditions a work truck operates under.
I can tell that both the designers and people who think this is a great idea don't actually use a pickup for a living. I use a pickup on a ranch, and I use it HARD so that is where I am coming from. The new pickups in the last 10 years just don't last anymore because they are making them lighter and more economical to drive, and they just can't take the abuse that workers put them through on a daily bases.
So what exactly is the mileage after this?
Where I come from (New England), this is huge news. Rust is a huge problem, what with the salt mafia pickle-ing our roads every week. I have gone through two Toyota pickups that have rusted to death. Bring on the Aluminum!
Of course they do. On the other hand I haven't heard of the F150 on battlefields while Land Rovers have had a lot of military use. Of course they are "for work".
The less weight means less momentum. Can't count how many times I've been tailgated by some a-hole "country boy" who thinks he owns the road just because he can shine his headlights directly into your rear-view mirror. Guys who drive these trucks are menaces.
Yeah, I'm generalizing.
The truck should be made available in an "unpainted" version. Remember the main reason for paint on steel-bodied cars is rust-prevention, but aluminum is strongly resistant to rust in most places (probably not close to an ocean, however), and should not need either the paint job or the associated weight of dried paint.
They didn't just have one guy say "hey, let's switch everything over to aluminum and see what happens". They had engineers work on it, they reviewed the costs, forecasted the risks and expected benefits, etc. They know what they are doing. There is little if anything left to chance on this. Most likely they did a number of aluminum prototypes and ran them around on the proving grounds with aluminum versions of existing body panels so as to not draw additional attention.
Big companies like Ford don't just do things like this on a whim, they can't afford to. The American car companies still have the black eye of their quality problems from the 80s and 90s; they are one misstep away from corporate ruin. While the F150 is still the top selling vehicle on the planet, they can't afford to take it for granted or to leave its fate to chance.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
That's just staggering, that this is the most popular vehicle in the USA. It's about the same size/weight as a European 8-seater minibus! And this isn't at all the biggest Ford sell, is it? I've seen things on the motorway there that are almost bus sized.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
It's impossible. Great for dealerships though as you will be required to have all the 'work' done by them, and by 'work' we mean large scale replacement of body panels replete with specialized welding equipment that none of the slacktards know how to use.
I can tell that both the designers and people who think this is a great idea don't actually use a pickup for a living. I use a pickup on a ranch, and I use it HARD so that is where I am coming from. The new pickups in the last 10 years just don't last anymore because they are making them lighter and more economical to drive, and they just can't take the abuse that workers put them through on a daily bases.
Independent studies place the F150 basically equal (depending on which metric) in durability with the Silverado 1500 and Ram 1500. If you are wearing out your trucks it might be time you look in to the 250 (or higher) series. The 150 series trucks from each of the manufacturers are designed to match their usual working demands - most people who buy them live in the city and drive them mostly on the road. The most common cargo (in this country especially) in the bed of a pickup is air.
The 150 trucks are designed mostly for the urban handyman who occasionally pulls around and launches his own fishing boat on the weekend. They're good trucks but don't try to overstate their purpose.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
...well known aluminum car dilemma: The car is so solid that the customer simply do not need another one for the next 30 years.
I can just see you parking your truck overnight in, say, NYC only to find it stripped of the body panels in the morning....
This is going to play in the midwest about as well as if the government suddenly decided to outlaw beef. F-150's/Silverado's/Sierra's/Ram's are basically standard issue for men aged 18-55 in the midwest, and the commercials are right, F-150's dominate. Chevy/GMC/Dodge are going to have a field day with this.
The fact that Ford is jumping into this with the F-150 too, and not testing it out on a lesser model first, is just staggering.
Slashdot, stop switching to the interface to Beta for an hour every once in a while.
This is worse than Digg 2.0. When you get done jumping the shark, say hello to the Fonz for me.
that's the craziest plan ever? free the innocent stem cells. consider ourselves in relation to momkind our spiritual centerpeace & strive to be non-combustible as soon as possible.... drive the the solar magnet powered star cars.... 54,000 mpcc is doable today?
If it's done right (probably not) this is what trucks need to be. Rust is one of the biggest killers of working trucks so a well-built aluminum truck would be a godsend. .0 version.
But as Firethorn said, skip the
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
Do you think an aluminum vehicle last longer then steel due to rust tolerance?
This will most likely be Durall or Elektron alloy, as it's known in EU. Pure aluminium tends to bend rather easily, not mentioning its ability to leave grey metallic smears on any surface.
The F150 has been the best selling vehicle in America for decades, so it takes a lot of guts, or a lot of motivation to do something radical with it. I'm guessing that Ford isn't doing this out of public-spiritedness, but because they anticipate higher fuel prices some time in the next few years.
Of course comparing gasoline prices to global production is a bit like comparing weather to climate; there are factors in play which swamp the long term trends -- over the short term. Still I've seen some predictions that gasoline will hit $6/gallon in the next five years from it's current level of $3.65/gallon. If that prediction is even remotely true, then even if the new truck is plagued with problems it'll be a winner. And eventually crude prices are going to send gas prices that way.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Indestructibe in any enviroment. Just look at Africa's safaris, how many Jeeps will you be able to count. (0). Everything else is a poser vehicle.
I really hope that Ford over designs that truck since unlike steel, aluminum has no fatigue limit. And for those of you who don't know what a fatigue limit is, with some metals, they bend under stress and when the stress is removed, return to their original shape. And if the amount of bending is under their fatigue limit, then that bending process can happen an infinite number of times and no harm is done. However, if the stress is over the fatigue limit, then eventually, the metal will crack and fail. Steel has a fatigue limit, aluminum does not.
So both materials have their advantages and disadvantages.
Steel. It corrodes fairly easily, but has a good fatigue limit. So if you keep it from rusting, it will pretty much last forever.
Aluminum, doesn't corrode, but doesn't have a fatigue limit. So eventually, it's going to fail. No matter what you do, it will eventually fail. But the length of time until it fails can be extended by minimizing flex by using more material than what is strictly needed to handle the load. Or if you don't use excess material, inspect it frequently for fatigue cracks, and if any are found, repair them. On aircraft, they do have a strict inspection schedule and frankly, a lot of the inspection process involves crack finding via dye penetrant and X-ray. Somehow, I don't think such an inspection process would be done with a Ford F150. And I worry that Ford just might not bother to overbuild that truck since doing so will make it more expensive and heavier. I instead suspect that they would design it to last maybe 5 years or so under "typical use" until the frame starts to crack. A "reasonable" service life and guaranteed obsolescence.
So...how many cans do I need to recycle to get a free truck?
Ford is a work truck
not this one. most 'work trucks' are fleet vehicles and as a fleet vehicle the 650 and proloader see far more use as ambulances and bucket trucks than the 150. due to previously commented fatigue issues in aluminumized substrates and the body designs untested history in a fleet role, you'd hate to have one of these because its wreaks havock on your bare-chassis configuration (the majority of new-fleet sales.)
ford used jaguar and land rover as a testing ground
if your intended to analyze theoretical optimizations to the speed at which one could pedal a formerly successful brand into the ground. ford jerry rigged parts from the taurus and crown victoria into their jaguar market to stave off cost overruns and paid dearly by trying to enhance markup in ways customers wouldnt notice. what they learned from the land rover was that rich people were only slightly more forgiving of shit-tier gas mileage than poor people in the pursuit of their rugged outdoorsman lifestyle image. the 2003 land rover discovery got 13 combined MPG. the 2011? just 14. and thats with all their aluminum advantage.
no. i predict this new f150 is quite unline the dreamliner in that its vaporware. the future truck is designed to gin up the first quarter of 2014 and get target audiences motivated by crossover mileage and SUV manliness to start thinking about a truck that was championed not for its innovation, but its resale ability to independent conractors hauling sheet rock in the back, a cell phone in one hand and a coffee in the other across town trying to track down raul so they can get the other tub of PVC cement for tomorrows plumbing work.
Good people go to bed earlier.
It's true that Ford sells probably 10x as many F150s as Land Rover sells Range Rovers. However, Land Rover is probably selling about 50k Range Rovers a year (vague number as I couldn't find specifics). They saved 700lbs off their previous model by going to all aluminium. Sound familiar? The 2014 Range Rover Sport is also aluminium and they are moving all Jaguars and Land Rovers in that direction.
Land Rover currently runs the world's largest aluminium body shop, so they're hardly a "niche manufacturer". It's great that Ford is going this way with the high-volume F150, and they are breaking new ground in that they are going to produce MORE aluminium vehicles than other manufacturers. However, because many of the engineering challenges have already been solved by manufacturers like Jaguar Land Rover, it's a shame that none of the referenced articles even mention the word "Rover".
www.clarke.ca
Why didn't they test this out with the Ranger? Years ago, I wanted a small truck for light use. But the gas mileage is terrible; no better than the F150. But to buy a real truck with real specs like the F150 cost twice as much. So in the end I didn't buy a truck at all. Real shame...a light truck with decent mileage would've opened up alot of possibilities.
I won't touch anything made after 1996. Powdered metal connecting rods for civilian engines while cop car variants get forged steel? That is a Second Amendment issue. I did not register with Selective Service to defend that!
If they are shedding 700 pounds it would make sense that the engines are getting smaller...that's a lot less weight to push around and they need to get those mpg figures up. So what are they going to drop in? 4-cylinder turbo. Will the V's be gone?
...Vehicles made with non-traditional body parts are more easily modified into time machines.
They could have offered a new vehicle and kept the F-150.
That would have give the market time to adapt if it turned out to be a good idea.
But also time for the competition to adapt as well.
This is guaranteed to lower sales in the short term.
Lots of folks will feel like it's a good time to sit back as see how their experiment/gamble works out.
Maybe if you want a steel truck, hopefully the F-250 is still there.
In the long term, if the truck is robust and cheap, they may win the gamble.
Good luck to them, I'd hate to loose the most competent car company we have.
"Aluminum is a perfectly sound material as long as it's used correctly."
Exactly, so the question is which aluminum alloy are they using. Wikipedia's list is a good place to start on your choices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_alloy
The upcoming F-150 will push Ford's pickups closer to a 30 mpg highway rating
Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20131223/OEM04/312239954/ford-rolls-dice-with-aluminum-f-150#ixzz2ogVVCODu
Yes, I read that part, but... "closer to a 30 mpg highway rating" is meaningless, and contains no data. If they improve by another half a mile per tank of gas, they would technically be "closer" and the statement would be true.
I want to know "how much closer", preferably with a comparison to an otherwise identical steel vehicle, so we can see what a truck intended to haul heavy loads gets in terms of mileage from using soft aluminum instead of solid steel for its construction.
From your link:
A new generation of offroader Land Rover Range Rover will also have an important difference from its predecessor, namely an aluminium body. Although Ford, the parent company, has not officially approved completion of this technology for Range Rover, sources from within the company believe the approval will be granted in the coming months.
If it isn't machined from a single block of aluminum in a process that can only be described as "magical" then it might as well be cheap plastic junk from China.
The 1948 Land Rover had an aluminium body and so has all of it's direct "descendants" up to the current Land Rover Defender.
I don't know why people here see fit to "correct" stuff they don't know about.
54.5 miles per gallon means:
4.5Liters per 100km
Which also means at 12 kWh/kg fuel (ROZ 95, Super) -> we can use a raw of 39.76 kWh of power per 100km.
I think Porsche might want to argue against your quote about "being handled in a gentle manner" with the Al engine block on their GT3. It's been their most successful racing car engine for years and is bulletproof as far as those things go. In no way will the truck engine exceed the strains of a racing engine designed to run at high compression at 5-8.4K for hours on end. As far as strain - the truck has an automatic transmission which is easier on the engine, and puts out less HP and torque perdisplacement, lower compression, etc.
Of course there will be a few problems as there always are with something new, but to blame in on AL will be foolish. Hell, they even have had Al DIESEL engine blocks for a while.
..........FULL STOP.
Love it. I own a 1991 Land Rover Defender 110 and it's aluminum body means there's no rust on it whatsoever.
Cool. Does that mean it will have exploding battery packs too?
This will be perfect to carry around that stockpile of Gallium!
Aluminium doesn't like to flex much and it's quite stiff, the move from a chromoly bike frame to an aluminium one left my butt hurt for weeks.
I have little faith in the American automotive manufacturers to do this correctly.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
A semi-ridiculous idea.
It takes 200 million BTU equivalent of eletcricity to refine a ton of aluminum.
That's about the equivalent of 1,800 gallons of gasoline.
If using aluminum for the truck body ups the efficiency by 5 MPG, that would save 200 gallons for every 100,000 miles driven.
So you're still about 1,300 gallons in the hole.
A bad idea.
http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-pickup-truck-2013-11
They get four years before it's mostly useless.
I bolted a G.I. can full of gas out behind the right rear wheel of my F-150.
I'd have made a lot better time down Grizzly Peak Drive if it weren't for those slugs on the Ducatis who couldn't get out of my way.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/02/25/henry-ford-hemp-plastic-car-stronger/
Does Ford think their pickup truck clientele is going to have their masculinity threatened with plastic bodies made of weed?
instead of welds, as well as plastic panels. while Chrysler engineers invented epoxy in the 30s, nobody has used it in production vehicles to hold the big parts together.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
At least they won't rust out up I n north land.
Nothing new here. The classic Land Rover had an aluminum body. The metal tends to be more brittle when deformed, but it's also rust resistant. And the lighter the body is, the more the truck can carry.
The people I see driving F150s around town aren't hauling anything. For the most part they're driven by people who fantasize about hauling things.
In traffic they are slow to start, slow to brake, gas guzzling, and they block the view of everyone behind them.
The production time, and material cost are both going through the roof on this vehicle. They must be using the 20 year old techniques to join the material so don't expect any higher quality. The Ford way of high capacity mass production will not keep up with demand. Ask Tesla, they only produce a small quantity of cars a day. The history of the F150 shows that Ford must meet the demand or it will loose the market.
All that says expect to pay more and wait longer for a lighter vehicle that will have more cost of ownership to the consumer even with the lower fuel usage. No auto shop can join aluminum And keep the structural integrity.
Nice try. Who owns the Lions?
No one hauls a half ton of cinder bocks in a land rover.
Nor do most people who own F150s. Most merely like to imagine themselves hauling stuff even though most demonstrably do not.
The F150 is for work.
Even Ford knows that isn't true. Most pickups are never taken off road, rarely if ever tow anything, and most aren't used to haul anything that couldn't be transported in an SUV of similar size. Most F150s are sold as primary transportation to people who really don't need them for that purpose.
Significant steel components will have to be bolted to the aluminum body, and since bean-counters still rule the US automotive world, whatever galvanic corrosion barrier they slap on will just barely get through the warranty period (and it wouldn't surprise if the warranty period/mileage is lowered or has a buried caveat about said specific corrosion), these will be used vehicles to avoid like the plague (or like Panteras or Vegas).
Exactly: diesel. Fuck hybdrids. A good diesel has relatively low emissions, will produce better MPG than a Prius (e.g. http://www.carpages.co.uk/guide/skoda/skoda-octavia-estate-s-1.6-tdi-cr.asp [carpages.co.uk]), and doesn't have cart around a heavy battery.
No, it has to carry around a very heavy engine instead. Diesels are great and I'm a big fan of diesels but hybrids (can) have demonstrably lower emissions, are capable of better fuel economy per horsepower, can be designed to use zero oil based fuels for commuting 10-40 miles, have even better torque characteristics than the already impressive diesels, and have other advantages besides. While I would happily buy a diesel, the long term prospects for hybrids are much brighter.
What I would like to see is large trucks using diesel-electric hybrids similar to those used in locomotives. I think that would be a huge win for fuel economy and pollution reduction.
I normally don't reply to myself, but I saw this right after I posted:
(250cc? not sure any more)
That should read 250ci (cubic inch).
asshat.
FYI - having just come out of the rail industry, when you put a pickup truck on the rails you want the weight in it as it makes it respond better to the rails. So reducing the weight while nicer on the fuel consumption, also diminishes the utility of the vehicle for various groups - like the Rail Industry with the Hy-Rail Trucks.
Ford needs/wants to do this because if pickups are not exempt the high sales and high prices that Ford enjoys from pickups could be put into jeoparty.
One can only imagine what the pricing will be on a aluminum F150 considering the priceing Ford has on the steel ones.
It will also be interesting to see how Ford addresses corrosion, steel rusts but not usually as fast as aluminum corrodes.
Its kind of disappointing they are not considering a composite though it may be that rust/corrosion is seen as a kind of forced obsolesence.
Aluminum land rover bodies are a mainstay in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia because they don't corrode like steel bodies. Of course they are used with toyota/denso drive lines. Nobody uses land rover engines.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Lol, so you're the guy who I pass on my Landyachtz on the way down then...
Suppose you just got your driving license. You're 16 years old. You could drive an RV that is 11793 kg. It could be at least 3.96 meters tall, 4.5 in some states. The total length allowed, including a trailer that tows a trailer, can be as large as 30.17 meters. The width can be 2.74 meters. That trailer could be well over 1814 kg; I couldn't find a trailer weight limit but at 1815 kg you'll need to wire up brakes for the trailer.
The new beta is a disaster.
I am thinking it wont rust. I could have it forever.
There are a gazillion people driving pickups that never leave city streets. They're pretty much a status symbol, especially among young men...huge super duty trucks with upsized tires that rarely leave the road. I've even seen ones with ultra-low-profile tires on massive rims.
If it's being used for real work I have no problems...but I think it's a waste of resources to drive a massive vehicle around for daily commuting in the city.
Wouldn't it be easier to remove one passenger seat?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Why move to aluminum to save weight? My 2001 super cab F150 was 700 lbs less than my 2010 super cab F150 in curb weight. Where did that come from?
Aircraft also have fleets of people that maintain these craft to levels that are unheard of for cars. They literally check everything, and lots of aluminium parts have known life times and are replaced regularly during the lifetime of the craft. As far as high end bikes go they also have known life spans. My aluminium dirt jump/freeride bike had a 5 year life span on the frame. They would sell you the new model at crash replacement price after five years. I'm a welder and a bike mechanic. Aluminium in no way has the long term durability of steel. In the bike industry we have a saying. "Steel is real"
(the term from Snow Crash)
Use google or wikipedia to find out about the Land Rover that has been aluminium since 1948. It's a very different thing to the luxury Range Rover which probably has a steel body.
Really? Aluminum, in 2013, how old school can one get?
I'm holding out for the FORD Dreamliner truck, that will be impressive.
FORD used to be an innovator making plastic parts for automobiles in the early 1940s, then the bean counters took power and killed it all.
Yeah, but Ford will be able to advertise the truck as the only truck made out of military grade aluminum!
to produce an aluminum f-150 be less than the fuel savings?
gosgog:
In the very early 50's in the British Airborne Artillery (old 75mm guns), we finally started to replace the old WW2, Jeeps. However, at that time in Egypt, where we then based, the 'Rover' couldn't handle much of the terrain on a Shoot where the old jeep would go damn near anywhere. Just before I left to get demobilised back in the U.K., they gave us some "Rolls Royce" type jeeps. Only problem...if you had mechanical trouble, we weren't allowed to fix 'em, had to get a "Rolls" mechanic...(Atlee's Labor Gov't)...dumber than a stump!