The redesigned 2021 Ford F-150 has been overshadowed by the more recent news of the 2022 F-150 Lightning electric pickup and Maverick compact pickup, but the big-volume F-150 has added a number of electronic features to make customers’ lives easier.
Onboard generator: A 2-kilowatt generator comes as an option in the bed of the gasoline engine F-150. The hybrid version offers a 2.4-kilowatt generator that will run for 85 hours on a full tank of gas at maximum load.
Ford Power-Ups: The F-150 is one of the first Ford vehicles to be capable of over-the-air software updates, which the automaker is branding as Ford Power-Ups. Modems embedded in the vehicles can receive software updates wirelessly, often overnight, similar to a smartphone or computer update.
Onboard scales: A display on the pickup’s center screen shows whether a driver has overloaded the bed. The feature’s “scale mode” will update as weight is added. The truck’s taillights show up to four bars to signal weight levels and blink to indicate the truck is overloaded.