The Ford F-150 pickup, perennially the largest-selling vehicle in the United States, will weigh about 700 pounds less beginning with 2014 models to drastically improve the truck’s fuel efficiency.
Details of the new F-150 are sketchy, but a recent report in the Wall Street Journal details the truck body will largely be constructed of aluminum not its current steel construction.
As a result, the F-150 will weigh about 15 percent less and will further accelerate the F-150 toward to the average 54.5 mpg gallon by 2025 mandate approved by the Obama Administration.
The weight reduction will increase the F-150’s miles per gallon fuel efficiency to meet 2020 fuel efficiency standards — a 25 percent mpg increase. According to Ford’s website, the most fuel efficient 2012 F-150 model gets 17 mpg in the city and 23 mpg on the highway.
In order to compensate for the change in material, the F-150 will also have a more “muscular design,” according to a Ford designer quoted anonymously in the same newspaper.”
The 12th and current generation of the F-150 debuted in 2009. The truck debut in 1948 and has been sold continuously since.
Article Last Updated: November 8, 2012.
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A sports, travel and business journalist for more than 45 years, James has written the new car review column The Weekly Driver since 2004.
In addition to this site, James writes a Sunday automotive column for The San Jose Mercury and East Bay Times in Walnut Creek, Calif., and a monthly auto review column for Gulfshore Business, a magazine in Southwest Florida.
An author and contributor to many newspapers, magazines and online publications, James has co-hosted The Weekly Driver Podcast since 2017.
