Ford F-150 Lightning undergoes rigorous tests in extreme weather conditions

MANILA: The 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning has been tested to haul snowmobiles to a cabin in the dead of winter and pontoons to the lake in the dog days of summer. During development, Ford engineers drove the first all-electric F-Series through two of America's most challenging real-world towing routes — Davis Dam in the summer and TFLTruck's Ike Gauntlet in the winter.

Ford engineers put pre-production F-150 Lightnings through TFLtruck's Ike Gauntlet towing test, with windchills below zero degrees Fahrenheit. The Ike Gauntlet is an eight-mile stretch of I-70 in Colorado, USA that climbs to a highest elevation of 11,158 feet above sea level with a 7% incline  around the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel.

However, towing in snowy weather is only one half of the situation. Ford brought the F-150 Lightning to Davis Dam's steep slopes to demonstrate the truck's ability to pull in high heat. During testing, F-150 Lightning pre-production units carried the same 10,000-pound trailers for repeated loops across the dam, despite ground temperatures reaching 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Davis Dam, located between Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam on State Route 68, rises from 550 feet to 3,500 feet in 11.4 miles.

The steep continuous inclines, highway speeds, and trailers in tow — in this case, the truck's desired maximum 10,000-pound trailers — make the two places extremely difficult for both electric and gas trucks. The two testing excursions are only two examples of the F-150 Lightning's hundreds of hours of intensive towing testing during development.

The 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning is set to go on sale this spring.

Photos from Ford

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