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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
Audi Q7, Audi Q5, Landrover Defender
Not speculation by Goldman Sachs but a little scam that they figured out how to do.
Time to offend someone
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.
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".
Uhm, the Landover is the British equivalent of the US pickup truck, you would certainly not be out of place hauling half a tonne of cinder blocks in one, or even almost a tonne of paving slabs as I did a couple months ago in my Defender...
In the United States, Land Rover = Range Rover and these are "upscale" SUVs here. Rich people, celebrities, etc drive them.... They're a completely different animal than the Land Rovers that my uncles and cousins have in N Ireland with rubber floor mats, vinyl seats, bench seats in the back that run lengthwise, and so on !
My thought as well. It's totally baffling that this beast is the world's top selling car. I'm a European currently visiting the US, and my wife and I are constantly pointing at what to us looks like a monster truck. I actually took a photo of me standing next to a random US pickup truck to demonstrate the ridiculousness of a car whose roof I can barely touch.
The pickup idea is also completely foreign to me as a European city-dweller. Maybe it's because I have a family I can't see why they don't just put in a row of folding seats. I've never needed to carry anything that my Freelander couldn't handle.
I love the names though. They really know how to name the giant vehicles. Ram, Silverado, Expedition, Armada...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_limit
Useful graph. The wording "no limit" can be a bit confusing to people who haven't done a materials course. In this case, having a limit is good.
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.
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.
Eh... it's not a limit or anything. It's a general rating category. I'm honestly not sure how they arrive at those categories. The higher the rating, however, the beefier the suspension, mostly.
My old 3/4 ton Ford doesn't really break a sweat hauling 2 tons. (And those would be your 2,000 pound tons.)
That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.