Ford Performance is headed back to the twisting mountain roads and corners of “America’s Mountain” to help advance the company’s electric powertrain research and development – and it’s bringing a super truck to conquer them.
The F-150 Lightning SuperTruck will take part in the 102nd running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb brought to you by Gran Turismo in late June.
Based on Ford’s best-selling electric pickup, the Ford Performance team will be ratcheting up the vehicles’ aerodynamics and power output to take on the daunting 12.5-mile uphill excursion, which happens to be well-suited as a test bed for electric powertrains. Running electric test vehicles there allows Ford to push the boundaries of EV powertrains in the most extreme conditions and bring those learnings back to enhance its production vehicles.
These performance-minded rolling laboratories facilitate the development of components such as motors, inverters, and battery packs, as well as informing software calibration and battery cell chemistry, among other areas.
While more details will be announced later, Ford released the first teaser for the truck on Tuesday.
With driver Romain Dumas at the wheel, the SuperTruck will be competitor No. 150 when it makes its qualifying run in Colorado Springs, Colorado, June 18-20. The Hill Climb follows on June 23.
This is the second consecutive year Ford has taken an electric test vehicle to the competition at Pikes Peak. Ford’s 1,400-horsepower Electric SuperVan 4.2, based on Ford Pro’s E-Transit Custom Van, set a class record en route to a victory there in 2023.
Elsewhere, Ford Performance is learning from another pair of electric demonstration race vehicles. The Mustang Super Cobra Jet 1800 and Mustang Mach-E 1400, for example, are helping the team learn about areas like battery cell chemistry, heat generation and cooling. Ford is also expanding its technical knowledge of hybrid powertrains with the company’s reentry into Formula 1 in 2026 through a strategic partnership with Oracle Red Bull Racing.
