The future of electric vehicles is this 44-year-old pickup truck

Becca Farsace

The 1978 Ford F-100 is the oldest vehicle I have ever owned. It is less than a year old, despite its vintage exterior. It is fully electric.

I think I know what I'm driving, but I can't tell you what it is from the outside. It has fresh gray and copper accents, an F-100 Custom Badge, and slick retro wheels.

The F-100 Eluminator was built by MLe Racecars in Washington and was designed and commissioned by Ford Performance. Like many of Ford Performance's other one-off projects, the F-100 won't be available for purchase. It is an auto show car that displays what could be built using Ford's $4,095 electric crate motor, which makes it easier to convert an old gas-guzzler into an electric car.

It's great news for enthusiasts that want to renew their classic cars without the carbon emissions they would otherwise produce, as well as the small companies that specialize in these kinds of custom jobs. Zelectric motors built an electric car using donorTesla motors, and luxury converters like Everrati get their motors custom-made. With electric crate motors becoming available from big automakers like Ford, it is a hopeful display of support for smaller shops and tinkerers that would like to modify their own vehicles.

This is a big statement for the right to repair movement, and our own Becca Farsace made a video about it. She talked to Chris Salvo, CEO of Electrified Garage and Kyle Wiens of iFixit. Check it out!

Many companies have made it difficult for small shops and skilled owners to fix their own electric cars by locking down the software and not making parts easily available. tinkerers like Rich Rebuilds are still repairing cars themselves Simone Giertz modified her Model 3 into a truck despite the company's record of blocking cars out of supercharging.

Ford's approach seems to be friendlier for the repair crowd, its crate motor is the same as the one in the Mach-E already.

The e-crate motors from Ford are back in production and are readily available to buy. Ford could make the efforts seem even sweeter if it offered more parts that would make building a custom EV easier, like batteries and a full drivetrain.

• Becca Farsace / The Verge
• Becca Farsace / The Verge
• Becca Farsace / The Verge
• Becca Farsace / The Verge
• Becca Farsace / The Verge
• Becca Farsace / The Verge
• Becca Farsace / The Verge
• Becca Farsace / The Verge

Fusing the Mach-E and the F-100 was not easy. It involved tuning the truck for performance and adjusting the suspension to favor paved roads. The F-100 Eluminator is capable of 480 horsepower and 634 lbs of Torque, and the truck bed is freshly coated for hauling. The F-150 Lightning electric trucks are covered with a tow package, but this electric pickup truck isn't about that labor life.

All of the Mach-E's features are included, including a 10.2-inch touch screen with Apple CarPlay, digital dashboard, gear shift dial, wireless phone charger, and modern seating. You'll need to crank the windows to open and close if you're inside a vintage truck with a flappy-door glove compartment.

Becca Farsace / The Verge

It stinks that you can't buy the F-100 Eluminator, just like you can buy the Heritage Series Grandeur EV. We should at least be able to drive this one. We were amazed at how fast it goes. The truck caught the attention of people in the city, who were amazed by its presence. People started asking questions about its age and price, which is when we broke it to them.

I was familiar with the questions that followed: "So there's no gas at all?" and "How long does it take to charge?" People are still learning about the electric car.

We need more of these projects. We need to maximize the usable life of every vehicle. The entire process to make new cars, whether they are electric or not, is an emission heavy process. Even if the EV were only charged on a dirty grid, research has shown that the lifespan of a new EV is still cleaner for the environment than a combustion engine vehicle.

The solution to clean travel is better public transport, but the next best thing is to reuse old cars and use them as EV restomods. The year that will see the shipment of electric vehicles seems to be the one written by our own transportation editor Andrew Hawkins. At least they can ship more of these parts if the automakers don't ship the cars. We can build our own EV and hope they don't stop us.