Slashdot Mirror
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."
Land Rover.
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.
Aluminum is a perfectly sound material as long as it's used correctly. It's been used in aircraft, rockets and other vehicles that take stresses far beyond what you will ever do to your truck. Flying may seem like it doesn't generate much stress but the loads on a 747 or A380 when they are landing are tremendous. The regular compression/decompression cycles that a plane goes through when going from ground level to altitude are also impressive when you look at the numbers. The fact that we consider it so commonplace is a testimony to how durable aluminum is. The average person is shocked when they see the thickness of the tubing used in bicycles, including downhill mountain bikes which take one hell of a beating.
But this is all contingent on how the aluminum is employed. If they have good, experienced engineers then this can only end well (I'd love to have a truck that didn't rust).
The F-150 is the best selling vehicle (car, truck, or suv) in North America,and has been for almost 20 years. This isn't some niche manufacturer that is going to sell 50,000 units and be happy with it. Ford is expecting to sell millions of these before then can do another redesign, so if it isn't successful it's a serious problem, and therefore it's a huge risk.
Furthermore, losing 700 lbs on every one of the millions of these that are going to be sold over the next few years will do more to reduce dependency on foreign oil and co2 emissions than all of the zero emission vehicles put together. So as cool as the technology behind electric and hybrid cars is, if you want to burn less gas, you have to root for advances in truck technology such as this.
The weight savings were not small.
Gross weight for a class 8 tractor trailer combination on US highways is 80,000 pounds. Guys who had all steel tractors and trailers were sometimes unable to load 43,000 pounds. Most were able to load 45,000 pounds. Just about no one was able to load 47,000 pounds, and still be legal. With my aluminum Mack and aluminum Cobra trailer, I routinely loaded 51,000 pounds, and scaled it legally.
Since I got paid a percentage of what the load grossed, you can see that I was effectively being paid for ten loads, with the same time and effort that other drivers were being paid for nine.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br