What is this enigmatic electric vehicle-style pickup discovered in a Ford patent application?
Ford
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Ford made a significant announcement on Monday, revealing its plans to introduce a new battery-electric pickup priced at $30,000, projected to hit the market by 2027. This announcement served more as a strategic insight rather than the official reveal of a new pickup; details on that will come later. In the meantime, we can’t help but speculate on what Ford might be planning at this price point. Perhaps this patent application offers a hint.
The application pertains to a deployable roof tent, and while it's quite innovative, we're more intrigued by the small truck it’s hypothetically attached to. Just take a look at it. The integrated latch system featured here would fit perfectly on one of Ford’s compact trucks or SUVs, yet this design doesn’t resemble the Maverick. Instead, it leans more towards a… uh… cybernetic truck style?
The sketches include only two views of the truck, but the flattened front and sloped bed cover are characteristics that you won’t find in Ford’s current truck lineup. Typically, we’d dismiss this as insignificant for a patent application. While that's mostly true, this roof tent design requires pre-installed latch receivers on the vehicle for proper functionality, as illustrated in the last slide below.
Whatever purpose Ford intended for this design, it appears to be a plug-and-play setup that we have yet to see the corresponding vehicle for. This alone suggests it was developed with a future model in mind—a small vehicle featuring a pickup bed tailored for outdoor enthusiasts. Doesn’t that sound a lot like an electric version of a Maverick?
Hmm.
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What is this enigmatic electric vehicle-style pickup discovered in a Ford patent application?
This patent application for an innovative roof tent features a drawing of a fictional Ford pickup truck that appears to be electric...