A couple of years ago, Ford's plan looked like a straight line to all-electric. That line just bent — hard. The result is one of the most interesting roadmaps in the truck business, and it comes loaded with acronyms: EREV, BEV, PHEV, LFP. So before we get to the trucks, let's actually explain what all of it means — because understanding the powertrain is the difference between buying a buzzword and buying the right truck.

The electrification spectrum, in plain English

Every "electrified" truck on the market falls somewhere on a spectrum. Here's the whole lineup, simplest to most electric:

Hybrid (HEV) — A gas engine does most of the work, with a small electric motor and battery helping out. You never plug it in; the battery recharges itself as you drive. Ford's PowerBoost F-150 is this. Better fuel economy, no range anxiety, no charging.

Plug-in hybrid (PHEV) — A bigger battery you can plug in, good for roughly 20–40 miles of electric-only driving, after which the gas engine takes over and it behaves like a regular hybrid. The key detail: in a PHEV, the gas engine can drive the wheels directly.

Battery-electric (BEV) — No gas engine at all. Electric motors drive the wheels, a big battery is the only fuel tank, and you charge by plugging in. The F-150 Lightning was Ford's BEV. Smooth, torquey, zero tailpipe — but range drops fast when you tow, and charging on a road trip takes planning.

Extended-range EV (EREV) — This is the new one, and it's the key to Ford's plan. An EREV drives like a pure EV all the time: the electric motors always turn the wheels. The twist is a small gas engine onboard that never drives the wheels — it works purely as a generator, making electricity to refill the battery when it runs low. So you get EV driving with a gas safety net. When the battery is depleted, you don't hunt for a charger; you add fuel and keep going.

The 700-mile F-150: how the EREV works

Ford ended production of the all-electric F-150 Lightning in late 2025 and is reengineering it as an EREV. Here's why that matters for a truck specifically.

The single biggest weakness of an electric truck is towing range. Hook a trailer to a BEV and your range can roughly halve — fine around town, nerve-wracking on a 300-mile haul. An EREV sidesteps that. The electric drivetrain delivers the instant torque that makes EVs so good at pulling, while the onboard generator keeps the battery topped up so a heavy tow doesn't strand you. Ford is targeting about 700 miles of total range, versus 320 for the 2025 Lightning. The trade is honest and simple: you're still burning some gas, but you're never tied to a charging map.

The EREV F-150 is still in development and expected before 2030, with updates to Ford's electric truck pushed to 2028 — so this is a "watch this space," not a "buy it next week."

What "extended range" really buys you

Range is only half the story. Because an EREV (like any EV) carries a huge battery — plus, in the EREV's case, an onboard generator — the truck becomes a rolling power station. That capability is called vehicle-to-load: the ability to run power tools, a worksite, a campsite, or even back up your house during an outage straight from the truck. Ford has offered a smaller version of this on its gas trucks for years (Pro Power Onboard); electrified trucks scale it up dramatically. For anyone who works out of their truck — or camps out of it — that onboard power can matter more than the badge on the tailgate.

The $30,000 electric truck — and a radically new way to build it

The boldest part of the roadmap is a midsize, four-door electric pickup with a target starting price around $30,000, built at Ford's Louisville Assembly Plant and reaching customers in 2027. An affordable electric truck has been the missing piece of the U.S. market — most EV trucks are huge, heavy, and expensive — so a right-sized, roughly $30K option is a genuinely different play.

It gets there with a clean-sheet design from a California "skunkworks" team and a new Universal EV Platform. A few ideas worth understanding:

Structural LFP battery. The truck uses lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries built as a structural part of the floor. LFP chemistry skips the expensive nickel and cobalt found in many EV batteries, which makes it cheaper and more durable, with strong thermal stability. The trade-off is a bit less range per pound — which is exactly why it suits an affordable, right-sized truck rather than a 700-mile flagship. Building the pack into the vehicle's structure trims parts and weight at the same time.

Simpler to build. Ford says the platform uses far fewer parts and fasteners and assembles faster, with large single-piece castings replacing dozens of small components. Fewer parts means lower cost — which is the entire point. Farley has called it a "Model T moment," noting $30,000 is roughly what a Model T cost when adjusted for inflation.

For our world, a smaller, affordable, trail-friendly electric truck is a natural build candidate the day it lands.

Doubling down on the F-150 and Super Duty

The icons aren't going anywhere — they're getting more powertrain choices. On Ford's most recent earnings call, CEO Jim Farley said the next-generation F-150 and Super Duty will be breakthroughs in cost, technology, powertrain choice, and functional features, targeted to arrive by 2029, with the next F-150 potentially offering EREV options. Sooner than that, the 2027 Super Duty arrives with more off-road variants and the Platinum trim newly available on the Chassis Cab.

And the F-Series is still the truck to beat: even with first-quarter 2026 sales down 16% to 159,901 units, it held first place in the full-size segment with about a 31% share — a position it has held for decades.

The current lineup still does the heavy lifting

While the future trucks grab the headlines, today's lineup is what's in driveways. The 2026 F-150 runs eight trims, expanded the PowerBoost hybrid to more models, added the street-styled STX Lobo with a 5.0L V8, and keeps the off-road Raptor, Tremor, and FX4 packages front and center. The 2027 Bronco is on deck, and Mustang keeps the enthusiast fire lit. The takeaway: Ford is adding ways to power a truck, not subtracting the trucks people already love.

What it all means for your build

Here's the thread tying every one of these trucks together: no matter the powertrain, a truck is only as capable as far as you can see. Factory headlights run out of road fast on an unlit trail or a predawn jobsite. Auxiliary lighting — a roof or bumper light bar, A-pillar ditch lights, flush-mount pods — is what turns a capable truck into one you can run hard after dark.

And here's a bonus the electrified trucks bring: that big onboard power supply makes running accessories easier. Aftermarket lighting draws very little compared to a truck's total electrical capacity, but on an EV or EREV with serious onboard power you've got plenty of headroom for a full lighting setup, an air compressor, a fridge, and more — without sweating the electrical load. Whether you're wiring up a gas Raptor today or a 700-mile EREV tomorrow, lighting is part of the build, not an afterthought.

Light up your F-150

Running an F-150 right now? Don't wait until 2029. Our F-150 LED light kits — ditch lights, light bars, and pods built to bolt on clean with no drilling — are ready for your truck today: Ford F-150 LED Light Kits. And when the EREV F-150 and Ford's new electric trucks start hitting driveways, we'll be ready with fitment — that's what we do.