Ram has the TRX as the most powerful half-ton pickup out there, but the Ford Motor Company took a different approach with the F-150. For the 2021 model year, the light-duty truck has been treated to a hybrid option – the PowerBoost V6 – which is pretty economical on paper.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the hybridized twin-turbo powertrain returns up to 25 miles per gallon in the city, 26 on the highway, and features a combined rating of 25 miles to the gallon (9.4 liters per 100 kilometers) for the rear-wheel-drive version. 4x4 dips to 24 MPG (9.8 l/100 km), and for the sake of having a reference point, the 3.0-liter Power Stroke V6 turbo diesel is rated at 23 MPG (10.2 l/100 km) with four-wheel drive.
As the headline implies, you can extract way more than the Environmental Protection Agency promises if you’re willing to sacrifice a little bit of speed. Tim Esterdahl of Pickup Truck + SUV Talk did exactly that in his PowerBoost V6, which averaged 29.7 miles to the gallon after 49.1 miles of driving. That’s 7.9 liters per 100 kilometers in European money, and of the total distance, around 9.5 miles were driven in zero-emissions mode.
Like all hypermiling tests, squeezing the most out of an internal combustion engine is a recipe for boredom for who’s sitting behind the wheel and his or her passengers. Doing 55 miles per hour in a 65-mph zone and overly careful throttle application take away from the driving experience, and at the end of the day, regular people like you and me don’t hypermile.
These being said, Tim decided to test his truck under normal highway driving conditions as well. Over the course of 234.5 miles, which included 9.4 electric miles, the PowerBoost averaged 19.6 miles to the gallon.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s estimates are never accurate in this kind of driving scenario, but nevertheless, this isn’t too shabby at all for 3.73 gears and a rather heavy truck at 6,000 pounds or 2,722 kilograms.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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