US Forestry Service buying Ford Lightning pickups

[LittleLebowski]

@blues, low hanging fruit here.

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoo...tric-vehicles/

The United States Forest Service (USFS) has begun transitioning its fleet of more than 17,000 vehicles from internal combustion to electric power. Right now, the agency is creating best practices and field testing three Ford F-150 Lightnings, which often must operate in remote areas and extreme weather conditions.

The effort will help the USFS comply with Executive Order 14057—Catalyzing America’s Clean Energy Economy Through Federal Sustainability—which directs all new federal agency light duty vehicle acquisitions to be zero-emission beginning in 2027, and acquisitions of all other vehicle types to be zero-emissions by 2035. The light duty vehicle category includes anything a normal consumer might buy: pickup trucks, sedans, and vans. Medium and heavy duty vehicles include things like buses, construction equipment, and fire trucks.

Operating in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny National Forest, Michigan’s Huron-Manistee National Forest, and the White Mountain National Forest, which spans the New Hampshire-Maine border, the three vehicles will help USFS develop a strategy for implementing EVs nationally. The agency intends for the pilot studies to create a base of knowledge around optimizing fleet size, deploying charging infrastructure, and tracking social acceptance of the vehicles.

[fatdog]

well they can certainly shake out the problems with off road 4wd EV's for the rest of us I guess, based on the condition of some of the most neglected forest roads nationally, that can be some semi-serious 4wd use, at least if a few I know like Talladega, Big Horn, and Shoshone are representative examples....

[HeavyDuty]

I think this is smart, actually. It’s an accelerated way of finding out how to make EVs work in more situations.

[LOKNLOD]

I dunno man, seems like a lot of forest fires get started by lightning. Not sure they thought that through.

[ccmdfd]

The effort will help the USFS comply with Executive Order 14057—Catalyzing America’s Clean Energy Economy Through Federal Sustainability

Really?

Who names these damn things? And how much are we paying for their salaries?

Reminds me of the award for outstanding achievement in the field of Excellence from The Simpsons

[Dog Guy]

Might work in some of the small forests. I cant wait to see it tried in the Humboldt Toiyabe National Forest in NV-CA. You might drive 3-4 hours from Reno or Carson City, grab gas in Austin, and spend 2-3 hours on back roads getting to a fire or a project site. This looks like a classic example of a Rhode Island size solution jammed into an out West challenge.

I'm down with using EVs where they can be safe and effective, and end users have to get their hands on the gear and wring it out. But with a 2027 deadline the tech and infrastructure won't be ready to support use in all conditions.

[blues]

@blues, low hanging fruit here.

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoo...tric-vehicles/

Sorry, @LittleLebowski ... apparently Covid has temporarily sidetracked my ordinarily highly tuned system for ridiculing gov't programs.

Catalyzing America’s Clean Energy Economy Through Federal Sustainability

Couldn't they at least have come up with a program whose acronym would match "COVFEFE"? "Catalyzing Obsolete Vehicles, Furthering Environmentally Friendly Economies"

It makes about as much sense...

[LittleLebowski]

Just waiting for Lightning to strike in a forest with an EV fire.

[GJM]

The Lightning's range goes down in the cold, even more so towing, and comes with Aero style wheels and tires -- other than that should be awesome.

[Beast17]

Just waiting for Lightning to strike in a forest with an EV fire.

It'll really be a black eye for this project if one of these things catches on fire. Rural departments are struggling with EV fires. The EV fires burn so hot they need tons of water, literally, to put them out. That's one thing when you are hooked up to a hydrant, quite another when you brought it on a tanker truck. Rural fire departments are having to update their mutual aid agreements and protocols because almost none of them have sufficient mobile water capacity to deal with an EV fire.

One of these things catches on fire down some beat to crap logging road and there's no way it's going to be put out in a timely fashion. If it starts the next big blaze that'll make for some interesting press coverage/spin. On the upside, the truck name opens up all sorts of creative naming opportunities for the first EV forest fire.