When it comes to efficiency in the truck segment, you can’t do any better than the Maverick Hybrid as it returns 42 mpg in the city and 33 mpg on the highway for a combined 37 mpg. As it turns out, the Blue Oval is already thinking of ways to make its compact pickup even greener by implementing the Pro Power Onboard technology already offered in the F-150 Lightning and the F-150 Hybrid. Doing so would allow owners to share power externally.
However, it’s easier said than that because the Maverick lacks the necessary next-gen electrical architecture used by the fullsize F-150. Muscle Cars and Trucks quotes a Ford engineering saying there are plans to transition the company’s smallest truck to the required architecture, but it’s unclear when. It remains to be seen whether it will happen during the current vehicle’s life cycle or the Dearborn automaker will wait until a potential second-generation model.
“We’ve had conversation of some element of power to the box going to be what it is? It could be maybe not a 2.0 kW system. Maybe it is… (with a four-cylinder engine) the capability is there, especially with the hybrid. That’s what we’re looking into and ideally leaning into that.” Even though it lacks the beefier engines offered in the F-150, the Maverick with its 2.5-liter unit rated at 191 hp and 155 lb-ft (210 Nm) could still be punchy enough to power your house through the Pro Power Onboard.
MC&T also sat down and had a chat with Maverick marketing manager Trevor Scott and he also admitted the Hyundai Santa Cruz rival could double as a mobile generator at some point: “Pro Power Onboard has been wildly successful with F-Series. We’re looking at that. As we go forward with Maverick we’re assessing if that’s something that we wanna do, as well.”
He went on to mention the existing 110V outlets are good enough to power a variety of electronics, but the compact truck would need a higher output to feed energy to something more substantial than that, such as a house. Speaking of which, the F-150 PowerBoost has made the headlines a few times thanks to its Pro Power Onboard. It saved a wedding earlier this year and also powered a house’s space heater and lamp after the whole neighborhood went dark.
For the time being, there’s no word about the Mustang Mach-E getting the Pro Power Onboard, but it’s perfectly understandable why Ford is prioritizing trucks with their more utilitarian nature. We’ll have to wait and see whether the freshly introduced Ranger will also boast this tech, especially since a hybrid variant will arrive sooner or later.
