Ford F-150 electric pick-up to chase Pikes Peak race record

Ford will take a special electric Ford F-150 Lightning pick-up prototype to the 2024 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC) – the world's highest motor race – after it finished second in 2023 with a high-powered electric van.

A short, cryptic press release and video teaser from the US carmaker announced its return to the world-famous event with electric power for the second consecutive year.

The statement said little beyond confirming it will bring a new ‘Ford F-150 Lightning electric vehicle demonstrator’ to the Colorado, US, event as entrant #150 in June 2024.

The F-150 pick-up went on sale in Australia in 2023, but the electric version is not offered in local showrooms.

Ford has not shared how significant the differences between the prototype and showroom F-150 Lightning will be, but the fully-sealed mountain road used for the event won’t require the off-road suspension underneath the F-150 Lightning Switchgear it unveiled in January 2024.

It appears the car maker’s intention is to simply go faster than it did in 2023 – and potentially set a new overall record – with Ford CEO Jim Farley posting the news on his social media channels.

The announcement follows the Ford ‘SuperVan 4.2’, a Transit van powered by four electric motors producing 2000hp (1491kW), which set a closed-wheel lap record at Mount Panorama, Bathurst earlier this year, during the opening weekend of Australia's V8 Supercars championship.

The SuperVan came second at Pikes Peak in 2023, where it used a three-motor arrangement with 1400hp (1041kW) to tackle the 156-turn, 19.99km climb which ends at 14,115 feet (4302m).

Four-times Pikes Peak winner Romain Dumas – who drove the SuperVan at Bathurst in 2024, and Pikes Peak in 2023 – set an Open Class Pikes Peak record of 8:47.682 in the Ford SuperVan last year.

Yet it wasn’t as fast as the current outright record of 7:57.158 up the Colorado mountain – set by Dumas himself in an electric Volkswagen race car in 2018.

Ford remained coy on plans for a record attempt ahead of the 2023 event and followed a similar approach before setting its Bathurst lap record in February 2024.

The move to an F-150 for the 102nd running of the Pikes Peak event in June 2024 adds