The Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's ride from the Star Wars films, is a YT-1300 light freighter, equipped with a Girodyne SRB42 sublight engine, capable of flying at 1,200 kilometers per hour in the atmosphere and 3,000 G in space. It's twice as fast as most Galactic Empire warships, did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, and thanks to an Isu-Sim SSP05 hyperdrive, can achieve light-speed travel. That of course is a purely fictitious vehicle, but may serve as inspiration for the next-generation Ford electric pickup. The company's CEO has said that the follow-up to the F-150 Lightning, will be like the Millennium Falcon. While it's unclear what that specifically means, it sure sounds cool.
The Millennium Falcon Of Ford Trucks
Car and Driver reported that Ford is building a new factory in Memphis, Tennessee to manufacture their next-gen electric trucks. The $5.6 billion, 3,600-acre complex, known as "BlueOval City," will make the manufacturing process simpler, more efficient, and more cost-effective. It will include a battery plant, and the company says they will be able to produce 500,000 electric trucks a year at the facility.
Ford also has something in mind to start cranking out from BlueOval City. The automaker plans to follow up the F-150 Lightning with an entirely new all-electric truck. Codenamed "Project T3" which stands for "Trust The Truck" this mystery vehicle will reportedly go into production in 2025. While "T3" is the third installment of the Terminator films, Ford has a different sci-fi movie in mind for inspiration. In a statement to announce the Tennessee factory, Ford CEO Jim Farley gave a very cryptic teaser of the upcoming EV truck, saying, "PJ O’Rourke once described American pickups as ‘a back porch with an engine attached.’ Well, this new truck is going to be like the Millennium Falcon – with a back porch attached."
Ford's Next-Gen Electric Truck
While Farley didn't explicitly elaborate how the F-150 successor would be like a spaceship from Star Wars, he did give some additional details on Project T3. Ford plans to greatly improve upon its current EV truck's range and towing capability. More speed will also factor into the second-generation all-electric pickup. "Project T3 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to revolutionize America’s truck. We are melding 100 years of Ford truck know-how with a world-class electric vehicle, software, and aerodynamics talent. It will be a platform for endless innovation and capability," said Farley.
The T3 will apparently be a self-driving truck that updates wirelessly on a constant basis. Ford describes this as sort of an Artificial Intelligence vehicle that will learn and improve as it is driven. That sounds cool and all, but remember that T3 is Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, a movie in which AI becomes self-aware, and the machines rise up to destroy civilization. Perhaps Ford could come up with a different, less ominous name for the project.
The F-150 Lightning Needs To Jump To Hyperspace
Though it only went into production in 2022, the Ford F-150 Lightning is already kind of obsolete compared to its competitor EV trucks. It is essentially a normal Ford pickup that was retrofitted to be an all-electric, versus a vehicle built from the ground up. The top-end Lightning's 580 horsepower, 775 pound-feet of torque, and 300-mile range are already behind the curve. A next-gen Ford EVT truck is badly needed.
The Chevrolet Silverado EV RST and the GMC Sierra EV Denali Edition both pack 754 horsepower 785 pound-feet of torque, and go 400 miles on a single charge. The GMC Hummer EV SUV makes 1,000 horsepower, 11,500 pound-feet of torque, and has a 329-mile range. The Rivian R1T puts out 835 horsepower and 908 pound-feet of torque, goes 400 miles on a charge, and can do 0-60 mph in three seconds flat. It's not just power and distance that Ford needs to upgrade, the familiar styling of the F-150 is screaming for a make-over as well. Both the Fisker Alaska and the Edison Future EF1-TP Super have sleek space-age looks, befitting of high-tech all-electric trucks. The long-awaited Tesla Cybertruck actually looks like it was inspired by the Millennium Falcon or some other far-out sci-fi starfighter. Hopefully, the Ford T3 has an exterior that matches the impressive electronics within.
Ford Already Made A Falcon
Ford's BlueOval City factory and the Project T3 EV truck are certainly ambitious considering the Big-Three automaker recently announced, as reported by Fox Business, that it expects to lose $3 billion in 2023 on its EV division. These losses are being chalked up to investments in technology and infrastructure the company hopes will take their 600,000 per year EV sales to two million annually by 2026. It can certainly happen if they nail this follow-up to the F-150 Lightning. There is a new annoying trend of automakers re-branding their classic muscle cars as electric crossovers like the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the Dodge Hornet, with Corvette and Camaro SUVs in the works. Hopefully, Ford CEO Jim Farley didn't refer to the Project T3 EV truck as the "Millennium Falcon" because It is going to end up calling it the Ford Falcon. It already made that vehicle, and it will never be any cooler than Mad Max's V-8 Interceptor.