It seems like it’s been a rumor for a while, but now the cat is officially out of the bag. Ford announced on Monday that there will indeed be a version of the automaker’s immensely popular F150 truck line that will feature a Power Stroke engine. Boasting the same production pipeline and Ford powertrain team as the 6.7-liter Power Stroke, this new 3.0-liter engine will featured an estimated 30mpg highway rating, 11,400 pounds of towing capacity, 2,020 pounds of payload, and finally, 250 horsepower and 440 lb-ft of torque.
“For every truck owner who wants strong fuel economy while they tow and haul, we offer a new 3.0-liter Power Stroke V6 engine that dreams are made of,” says Dave Filipe, Ford’s vice president of global powertrain engineering. “The more you tow and the longer you haul, the more you’ll appreciate its class-leading towing and payload capacity and how efficient it is at the pump.”
There are a lot more details in the press release (which you can find here), but the most important thing is that Ford will open orders for the 2018 F150 in the next week or so and the trucks themselves will start shipping in the spring of 2018. Options will include 4x2 (why?) and 4x4, as well as the Lariat, King Ranch, and Platinum Edition SuperCrew trucks, and bed lengths of either 5.5 or 6.5 feet.
So that’s the long and short of it. We think those base numbers sound pretty damn good. Who expects to get 30 mpg out of a truck, in any configuration? I guess the only question left is this: are you going to line up for one?