The F-150 Lightning was a really refined and luxurious thing, quite apart from being hilariously, borderline-inappropriately rapid.
It had a breadth of capability that stuck in my mind, and which was a more powerful advert for it as a convincing, if elephantine, luxury vehicle (even as an absurd, three-tonne, $100,000 one) than its ability to power a small off-grid music festival from its vehicle-to-load power supply.
Is it entirely fair to compare that with a Maxus that has vastly more humble, commercial aspirations? Perhaps not.
The T90EV, however, performed and conducted itself just how you would expect of a pick-up that had been adapted for electric power.
It had to be ‘re-engineered’ for the one-tonne load bay rating that it needed to qualify under UK commercial vehicle taxation rules, which I suspect involved firming up the leaf springs at the rear axle and not a lot else.
Driven in an unloaded condition, the ride was as bad as in anything I can remember testing in years.
Pick-ups are by their nature slightly crude, hardy vehicles, but clearly if you add a heavy battery to one without designing from first principles, all you’re likely to end up with is a regrettable, excitable, mostly unusable mess, at least as far as someone used to cars might judge it.
So, if I were a car maker at the moment, I’d probably think twice about a rush development job on an electric pick-up.
And if I were a pick-up owner? Well, I’d either be hustling hard to get myself a new diesel before the end of April or planning for an electric SUV instead.
