2021 Ford F-150 SuperCab

The Ford F-150 was already one of the most popular pickup trucks on the market before Ford revealed the newly redesigned model earlier this year. We got to check out the F-150's new looks in an earlier video, but now we get to hop in the driver's seat and check out what this popular pickup truck can really do. Join our experts as they give you all the details on what it's like to drive the newly redesigned 2021 Ford F-150.

[MUSIC PLAYING] TRAVIS LANGNESS: It's finally here, the all-new 2021 Ford F-150. It's completely redesigned. Sure, it looks kind of like the old model, but these are 97% new parts, according to Ford. And what's new about it on the inside? Well, everything. Big digital screens and a folding shifter in the center console, plus there's 180 degree flat reclining seats on the options list. There's so much going on with this truck. We're going to cover a lot today, including this new hybrid powertrain. So we're going to take the new F-150 out on the road, we're going to drive it, we're going to go over all the details, but first, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more videos like this. Also be sure to visit edmunds.com/sellmycar to get an instant cash offer for your car. What's under the hood of this F-150 behind me? Well it's the 3.5 liter EcoBoost engine paired with a hybrid powertrain. So it puts out 420 horsepower and 570 pound-feet of torque. Now aside from the RAM TRX with the crazy Hellcat engine, that's the most power you can get in any full-size pickup truck today. We're going to be going in and out of a lot of different F-150s today. We're going to talk about this, the PowerBoost hybrid, but we're also going to get in XLT, Lariat, Platinum, versions with the V8, versions with the best payload capability. So if you see a lot of different colors and trim levels, that's why. But we're in kind of a rush. We gotta drive a lot of trucks. Let's take a look inside. So the inside of the new Ford F-150 is one of the places they have to knock this out of the park. Ford's competition in this segment feels luxury. And this is one of the top trim levels for the F-150, the Platinum, and it has to do all the things right. For instance, the materials, this textured bit on the top of the dash, it's got real wood on the steering wheel and on these pull out drawers. It's really got to get the materials right, and it does that, first and foremost, really well. I mean these leather seats are fantastic, lots of good stuff in terms of the knobs, feel large enough to handle with gloves if you're on the job site or if it's cold outside like it is today, and there are a lot of new tricks on the inside that come with the 21 F-150. The shifter folds into the dash. And if you ask yourself, why is that there? Well for two reasons. One, Ford says their customers were adamant about keeping a shifter down here. They didn't want a rotary, they didn't want a push button. This is one of the big things that Ford customers wanted to keep. So they did, but then they had it fold away with this opening work surface. Ford surveyed their customers, and a large percentage of them say they use a laptop while they're inside their truck. It makes sense, right? Pull up to the job site, you want to see the plans or the payroll for the day, and you can put it here. Or it's a really nice surface for dipping sauces. If you're into barbecue, you can set out your lunch here and make sure you've got a variety. This also folds up to have pretty large center console. Now there's this removable and movable piece. And then this is big enough for couple of gallons of milk or something in there. I don't know why you'd put it up front. It's definitely not the largest in the segment, but it's plenty big enough for all your small items. And as you move forward back towards the dash, there's a wireless charging pad, USB and USB-C ports, good cup holders, and if you wanted to store your smartphone here on the side, you could do that as well. So the screens. How do they stack up against the RAM, for instance, and its 12-inch screen? It's not portrait layout like you see in a Tesla or the RAM even. Landscape instead. And honestly, I think it's just a preference at this point. You get so much real estate here. And this digital screen, which replaces the gauges on upper trim levels, is really high resolution. And when you switch the drive modes, it does these cool animations showing the truck in mud and sand. So the layout of the center console, the new screens, the trick center console, the folding shifter, all this stuff is pretty cool, and this is definitely one of the nicest trucks in the segment, especially in this top Platinum trim. [MUSIC PLAYING] One of the great things too about the F-150 is it's kept its variety of cab styles and bed lengths. You can get the regular cab, you can get the extended cab, you can get the crew cab. You can also get the regular extended or long bed. This is a really good feature, or set of features, for people that are deciding on how much they're going to haul and tow. For instance, if you want this crew cab for more cabin space, you can get it. But if you're just driving around hauling big stuff in the bed, you can still have the regular cab, which can't be said for competitors like RAM. So at the back end of the F-150, we've got Ford's new version of their tailgate. The tailgate wars are in full swing, and they're shooting their shot with this one. They have retained the useful man step. And they've also added a bunch of cool little construction site features. You've got rulers, a cup holder, place for pens and pencils, a tablet if you're watching an instructional YouTube video. There's these extra tie downs that double as bottle openers for tailgating. And there's also these spots for C-clamps in case you need to clamp down a piece of wood and cut it off at the job site. I mean this is a really useful tailgate. And they have stolen the distinction from Chevy of being the only auto manufacturer that makes a power up and power-down tailgate. Now Ford does it as well. It's an option that this truck has. Power up. Once you're in the bed the Ford, there aren't a lot of physical changes to what's happening. It's a truck bed. Why would they need to change it that much? But there are a lot of small things that you'll notice if you look in the corners of the truck. For instance, Pro Power Assist, or Pro Power Onboard Assist. There's a lot of names. This truck, the PowerBoost, has the 7.2 kilowatt system. Now that's optional. PowerBoost comes standard with 2.4. And then on the 2.7, 3.5, and 5 liter engines, you can get the 2 kilowatt system onboard, which is still great for charging some stuff, keeping some tools going at the job site. But really this is the big dog of all of them. You can have your barbecue smoker going, you can have your TV going for a tailgate, you can have a refrigerator running, an electric grill, and all at the same time. You don't have to haul a generator to and from the job site. Your truck is the generator. And there are three different levels of that. So really, you can choose how much power you need based on what you're going to do with the truck. Surprise, we're in a different truck. I told you that would happen, but you're going to get used to it throughout the day. So this is another PowerBoost. This is the Lariat trim. And before we get into how it drives on road, let's talk about a couple of things this truck doesn't have. The first thing it doesn't have is the full self-driving capability. What's going to happen with the Ford F-150 is they're going to sell these new models without the software for full self-driving. That's hands free, nothing on the wheel, that's better than just adaptive cruise and lane centering, and it'll do the driving for you on over 100,000 miles of mapped-out highway throughout the United States. But what you can do is buy the hardware now, and through a dealer visit or over the air updates later, they will then sell you the software. And you can engage that. It's kind of like Cadillac's Super Cruise or a little bit like Tesla's Autopilot, but Tesla's Autopilot requires that you keep your hands on the wheel, which is kind of smart. And this system currently also requires that you keep your hands on the wheel. So there's lane centering, which you can adjust how hard it'll push you back into your lane. There's also a three-level cruise control system, which is standard cruise control, adaptive cruise control, and intelligent cruise control. And what intelligent cruise control does is control this setting of cruise control once you change areas and speed limits. So for instance, if you're going from a 70 mile an hour zone to a 55 mile an hour zone, it will notice the traffic sign on the road, recognize that it's there, and then adjust your speed accordingly. Now if you don't want that setting, then fine. Knock it down to adaptive. And if you don't like adaptive, go in the system and knock it back down to standard old cruise control. You've got your choice, which is awesome. Let's talk about pricing a little bit too. The F-150 ranges anywhere from 30 in the XL trims all the way up to-- this truck is about $70,000 and you can get north of $80,000 if you put all the options on and get the PowerBoost. And that's a pretty impressive price tag, but what's nice is there's such a wide variety of powertrains and a wide variety of trim levels, you can choose what you want and how you want your truck equipped. I, for example, don't mind this Lariat. The materials are really nice, and there's a lot of the optional small features that you can get. You don't have to get them as a bundle like you do on the Platinum or the Limited. As for engines, there's still the base 3.3 liter. There's the 2.7 liter EcoBoost, the 3.5 liter EcoBoost, the 5 liter naturally aspirated V8. Then there's the 3.5 liter EcoBoost that's paired with the hybrid powertrain, the PowerBoost, and the 3 liter diesel. Now all of these get a 10-speed automatic transmission. That's the only thing you can get in an F-150 now. And on this PowerBoost, the transmission is really smooth. You're not going to get any appreciable miles from the electric battery. There's no 15 miles of range up front or anything like that. But what it does do is in slow speed scenarios when you're waiting for the transmission to kick from first to second, PowerBoost gives you a little bit of power, even in sub 10 mile an hour scenarios when you're just doing a three-point turn. It's just using electricity, and that's kind of a nice thing if you're backing out of the driveway early in the morning on the way to work and you don't want to wake the kids up. In a straight line, the PowerBoost has got it. You give it the beans, and you can get around any slow truck you want. 420 horsepower, 570 pound-feet of torque, and Ford says that the PowerBoost will be about 10% of their sales, which is actually pretty impressive. And one of the reasons it'll reach that high of a percentage is because you can get the PowerBoost powertrain on any F-150. XL, XLT, Lariat, Limited, Platinum, whatever you want, you can get this powertrain. Now the price difference for the PowerBoost powertrain is different depending on which trim you get. So if you're getting it on the XL, that includes the 2.4 kilowatt charging system in the bed, and it's about a $4,500 option to add the PowerBoost powertrain to an XL. But if you go up the trim levels, for instance at the top of the range, you add the PowerBoost, and it's only $1,900 extra. And from there, you can get the 7.2 kilowatt charger onboard, et cetera, et cetera. So like I said, there really is a lot of variety and choice in the way you can equip this truck. The power from the PowerBoost is smooth all the time. Going up long grades, I'm not finding any roaming in the 10 speed. This is a transmission we've liked in previous Ford trucks. And there's no clunkiness to the hybrid, there's no noticeable regen in the brakes. This just feels like a more powerful version of the F-150. The steering is a little bit heavier. You can feel the added weight of the PowerBoost. This is a heavier truck, and therefore it gets lower payload ratings, but you can still tow 12,700 pounds if you get the PowerBoost and the right trim and with the right equipment. And speaking of right trim and equipment, it is capable of pulling 14,000 pounds when properly equipped. I mean seriously, who's towing that much in a light-duty pickup truck? What that is about is about making it comfortable to tow loads that are 7, 8, 9,000 pounds. Really that's where that comes into play. | mean if you're loading your light duty up to 14,000 pounds regularly, you might want to think about a heavy duty truck anyways. So what does the PowerBoost do for fuel economy? Well, a lot actually. If you're getting a four wheel drive PowerBoost, you're going to be rated at about 24 miles per gallon, highway, city, and combined, which is really impressive for a full-sized pickup truck. The diesel does a little bit better on the highway. And if you get the 5 liter V8, you're going to go down as far as 19 MPG combined. Now it might make more sense for you to buy the diesel if you're going to spend a lot of time on the highway, but if you're doing pretty mixed driving, and you want that cool onboard charging system, the PowerBoost is seriously appealing. All right, so let's do an XL run. That sounds like an EcoBoost. It sounds like a 3.5. That is a quick truck. Now it doesn't have the V8 growl, but if you want that, you can still get the 5 liter Coyote engine. And there's probably a Raptor on the way that will either have a high-output version of the EcoBoost or, fingers crossed, some version of that Shelby GT500 engine. How cool would that be, a Raptor with 760 horsepower? Praying to the car gods on that one. Now how does it steer and handle? Well honestly the Ram's coil spring suspension is really hard to beat in the steering, handling, comfort department. But Ford has closed that gap quite a bit with this truck. We're driving it on unfamiliar roads, we haven't taken it on our test track yet. We will. But from what I can tell, this is definitely an improvement in comfort. They've widened the track a little bit, they've actually added sidewall to all the tires to make the ride more compliant. And this was never an uncomfortable truck. Even the previous two generations we give pretty top marks for comfort, but the RAM just edges out the F-150 in comfort because of those coil springs in the rear instead of leaf springs like this truck still has. You definitely feel the truckiness of it. It has some sharpness to the bumps that come into the cabin, but they're absorbed well, and none of them are harsh really. We're going over pretty beaten up mountain roads here that see snow a couple times a year. This isn't great pavement, and there's nothing about this truck that says, oh, I can't last 8, 10, 12 hours on a road trip. Drive across the country in one of these, you're not going to have a problem. Maybe stop for a snack break and try your barbecue dipping sauces. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right, so the Raptor isn't out yet. We know it's coming, but in the meantime, we're going to take this FX4 version of the F-150 off road. [MUSIC PLAYING] Just because it's a PowerBoost-- and this is a PowerBoost, by the way-- doesn't mean you can't go off road. They've designed the battery to be beaten up and take abuse. It can do difficult work. Look at that, like it's nothing. The big 12-inch screen with the forward-facing camera, huge for off roading. There's not a Raptor yet, but this one's pretty cool. All the displays about how far your leaning, left, right, up, down, the fact that you can put it in 4 Low and select rock crawl mode, this is a fun truck off road. [MUSIC PLAYING] So what do we know after driving the new F-150? Well, it's definitely an improvement over the outgoing model. Better ride quality, better interior function, better tailgate function. It's got that cool Pro Power Onboard charging system so you can put all your tailgate stuff to use without bringing a generator to the site. On the inside, you've got cool stuff like that locking under seat storage for hunters and fishermen. You've got the 180 degree fold flat seats if you need to take a nap. And why would you buy this truck instead of a RAM or a Silverado? Well for starters, it's got the most diverse engine lineup of any full-sized truck, from the 3.3 liter V6, up to this PowerBoost, the optional diesel, and there's even that EV F-150 on the way. Plus, fingers crossed, we're getting a Raptor that might have a GT500 engine under the hood. Or maybe just a high output version of the 3.5 liter EcoBoost. No matter what way you slice it, this F-150 is a big improvement on the old model. All of the new stuff is great. You're going to want to take a closer look at it. And to do that, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, and click the notification button. For more information on the F-150, click the links below, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. [MUSIC PLAYING]