Ford CEO Says “Just Helpful,” Not Trolling Tesla

Ford cracks me up. I’ve been accused of many things over the 15-ish years I’ve been writing, but being a Tesla fanboy isn’t one of them. I don’t think that’s particularly fair, to be honest — but I did chuckle when I read about the new F-150 Lightning’s Tesla charging adapter.

To understand what’s happening here, you have to know that one of the Lightning pickup’s “killer apps” is its ability to power not just tools, accessories, and homes, but other EVs, as well. That vehicle-to-vehicle (“V2V”) charging tech allows the Lightning to “jump” electric cars that have run out of juice, and the included V2V Tesla adapter has raised some eyebrows among Tesla fans who feel like Ford is “trolling” them.

Ford CEO Jim Farley insists that the Blue Oval isn’t trolling, just being helpful.

The Ford Pro Power onboard charger puts out 240V at up to 9.6 kW, enough to allow the Ford Mobile Charger to offer stranded cars a 7 kW charge rate (good for about 20 miles of range/hr.). That’s hardly a fast charger, of course — but it wouldn’t take too long to boost up a stranded Tesla EV with enough “electric fuel” to get to a proper DC fast charger.

You can get a sense of what the charger and charging process look like below from photos taken by a Lightning owner calling himself “pipefitter52” on Lightning Forums.

The Adapter & Instructions

Hilariously, the guys at Car and Driver showed that you could set up a Ford Lightning to charge itself, but efficiency losses in the charging process mean you’ll just run down your battery faster, not get infinite range (sorry).

What do you guys think — is this Ford getting one over on the would-be Cybertruck maker, or just a genuine desire to keep pushing the F-150 Lightning to be the most capable EV on the market? Scroll on down to the comments and let us know!

Source | Images: Pipefitter52, via Lightning Forums.