Everyone who loves powersports needs a truck; it's just a fact of life. They're unwieldy things, and you often can't just slap a license plate onto the backs of them and go for a rip, outside of most motorcycles and some UTVs and ATVs in certain states—starts to chant USA, USA.
But for the most part, you're gonna need to toss your dirt bike into the bed of your truck or snag a trailer to tow your UTVs, ATVs, snowmobiles, and/or PWCs. There's no getting around it for the most part, and because this is the United States, you've got a host of trucks to choose from.
Yet, Ford—the all-out king of trucks and truck things—has recently stated that it's bringing out a brand-new, all-electric pickup truck that looks quite small in overall size. Think that new Slate EV. And like the Slate, I have a big, burning question that can only be answered by Ford when the time is right, but hopefully they thought of before hand.
Can I fit a motorcycle into the new pickup's bed? And a follow-up, am I gonna be able to tow anything beyond a loaf of bread?
According to the Blue Oval, the upcoming EV pickup will cost around $30,000 and be another "Model T moment," in that it's designed to change the game. But in its materials, and what it's publicly shown in terms of concept art, I do wonder if the bed will be long enough to toss a dirt bike or two—maybe an all-electric Stark Varg—into its bed, as it looks quite short.
What we have to go on is a line drawing of the upcoming truck, which shows that it'll be a 2+2 seating arrangement, with a full-sized adult in the front, and one sitting in the back. But the proportions seem to imply that the cab will be the largest part of the diminutive EV truck. And if you apply the sizing of the humans to the truck's bed, you aren't left with a lot of space.
Now, one way that Ford could conceivably get around that lack of proper bed length is by dropping the tailgate, as I had to do with my Honda Ridgeline when I throw in an ATV, snowmobile, or any dirt bike larger than a 150cc. But even with the tailgate down using its bed height as a marker, that doesn't look all that long enough for something like a Stark Varg or anything else.
I just don't see how it'd work. But this is Ford, so I'll save my critique until I see a real thing.
I get what they're going for, though, as Slate's bed is pretty small with a hellacious payload. But if you're going to make a truck product, it has to at least be able to do more than your average SUV. And while I see plenty of folks only using their HD trucks for groceries and not proper truck things, there are folks who still use their trucks as trucks, i.e. me. The only thing I haven't thrown into the Ridgeline's bed is an elk, and I'm hoping I can change that this season.
Ahead of the truck's launch in a few years, Ford's President and CEO Jim Farley, who also sits on Harley-Davidson's board, stated, "Nobody wants to see another good college try by a Detroit automaker to make an affordable vehicle that ends up with idled plants, layoffs and uncertainty. We empowered a tiny skunkworks team. We reinvented the moving assembly line. And we are on a path to be the first automaker to make prismatic LFP batteries in the U.S. We will not rely on imports."
But Farely, baby, can I fit a dirt bike into it? Cause that's really what I care about.
