SoonerLS

I still think that's the way to completely electrify the F-Series and the commercial vehicles. The Lightning is, no doubt, a smash hit, but it's a niche product because of the lack of infrastructure to support it in the F-Series's biggest markets, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. If you're in one of the metro areas, a BEV might be able to git 'er done, but if you need to haul a load or tow a trailer all over hell's half acre, pure electrics won't tote the mail. A 6.8 PowerBoost might be just the ticket, though...

I think it’ll be a lot longer than 12 years before the pickup fleets are all electric because I’ve driven through west Texas. Out there, everywhere is at least 90 miles from anywhere else.

Looks like Andre's information was incorrect and the Ford guy apparently misheard him or was just mistaken, because the published numbers show the same 4.22" bore for both the 6.8 and 7.3.

I think it had more to do with the 302's partner in the F-150, the 300CID I6. Its metricized displacement also comes out to 4.9L, and was listed as such in the marketing materials, so bumping the 302 to 5.0 avoided confusion between the two.

In the TFL Truck video I posted in the Super Duty thread, Andre says, and the Ford guy confirms, that the 6.8 has a smaller bore and stroke than the 7.3.

Yep. It looks like the Coyote used a front-mounted, directly-driven oil pump from MY 2011-2020, then switched to a bottom-mount, belt-driven pump for MY 2021, at least in the F-150. (I presume that the same change happened for the Mustang, but I didn't look it up.) FWIW, the parts catalog shows a photo of the direct-drive pump for the earlier Coyotes, but only a drawing of the 2021+ pump, and that drawing looks remarkably similar to the picture you posted of Godzilla's chain-driven pump.

Here's Andre talking to Vehicle Integration Supervisor David Demmith about the new Super Duty.

Ford asks court to throw out $1.7 billion verdict

I was responding to your question about the Coyote. It looks like the Coyote does now have a belt-driven oil pump. ETA: I don't know if the Coyote uses a belt or a chain, but the part is called a timing belt in the online parts catalog.

I think body-colored inserts would look better, but the less chrome the better, IMHO. Maybe they could get Webasto to make them... What, too soon?

If the parts explosion on Ford's parts site can be believed, it looks like the gear for the oil pump is driven by a belt rather than being directly driven by the crank. I'm not entirely sure I trust their parts site, though. The freaking oil pump is the fifth result when you search for "oil pump," behind four transmission oil pumps...

Ford's livestream of the Super Duty intro:

Agreed. Ford doesn't need the 6.8 to be the "be all, end all" of V8s, they just need it to fill the 6.2's slot at a lower unit cost. Heck, by consolidating the SuperDuty on one gasser architecture, it doesn't even have to be that much cheaper than the Boss to be a big win for Ford (although it seems pretty obvious that the 6.8 should cost significantly less to build than the 6.2).

The ironic thing is that I'd never heard of anyone saying the Bronco looked like a Flex until this thread--I'd only heard the Sport/Flex thing. The Sport/Flex thing makes some sense to me, as there are family resemblances (not "OMG, that's a Flex on stilts!" but more like "I can see a resemblance from this angle"), but the Bronco/Flex thing makes no sense at all. I'm with you on the contrasting roof and boxy shape; they really don't even have styling cues in common, IMHO.

Funny--I saw two Bronco Sports on the turnpike this morning, and neither had contrasting roofs. One was white and the other was that plasticky gray. Are you sure you're not thinking of the Bronco, which is not the one I was discussing?

Yes, and?

Nope. The pics I’ve seen where the resemblance was most striking didn’t have contrasting roof colors, and the angle didn’t really reveal the elongated boxy profile. It’s most noticeable to me in a low shot from the front quarter.

There is a zero percent chance that new pickups will be all electric by 2030. That alone shoots a huge hole in the “all-electric fleet by 2030” idea.

That's Bronco Sport, and from some angles, it does bear more than a passing resemblance to the Flex. I've never seen an angle from which the Bronco looks like a Flex.

About the Unreal engine being in the new Mustang... If the embed doesn't start at the right time code, jump to 15:18 (unless you want to watch 15 minutes of unrelated tech news).

I'd guess they're probably IR emitters for some forward-looking sensors. The camera can see them, but the naked eye probably can't.

I'm assuming they'll keep the iron block for the SuperDuty, but they'd likely need an aluminum block for the F-150. Admittedly, that makes less sense than only making an iron block SuperDuty version. If they use it as a PowerBoost drivetrain, they might be able to at least partly offset that extra 150lbs for the iron block by moving the battery packs towards the rear. The F-150's powertrain already sits mostly behind the front axle (at least the Coyote in my '13 does), so it wouldn't take much to balance it out. Now, in a Mustang, it might be a totally different story...

I still think the hybrid/PowerBoost setup is where Ford could make bank. They've played up the ability to power a job site with the F-150 PowerBoost; with a PowerBoost SuperDuty you could tow the equipment to the site as well as power it...