Ford, Google Launch F-150 Lightning AR Experience
Photo: Ford
Clearly, folks across the country are quite smitten with the upcoming 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning. Since its debut in May, more than 160,000 people have reserved an all-electric F-150. And Ford is looking to increase that total even more with F-150 Lightning: Strike Anywhere, an augmented reality experience created in collaboration with Google.
Up for Grabs: The all-new 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning is open for reservations now
Strike Anywhere shows off all-new F-150 Lightning using augmented reality
F-150 Lightning: Strike Anywhere launched Tuesday morning for Android and Apple devices as well as on social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram. The AR experience, powered by Google Cloud, offers folks an in-depth method for getting up close and personal with the electric pickup before its spring 2022 launch. Strike Anywhere shows off the features that should make the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning a huge hit with drivers when it arrives next spring.
Aimed at reservation holders as well as those drivers who might be on the fence, F-150 Lightning: Strike Anywhere shows off some of the truck’s finest qualities by rendering it in 3D in your living room or wherever you’re parked. This allows you to peruse 13 animations that highlight features like the Power Mega Frunk, SYNC 4A, and Pro Power OnBoard.
Photo: Ford
You can also use the AR feature to learn more about the truck’s performance capabilities, including range and towing. And it helps allay range anxiety by detailing home and public charging capabilities.
And since it in some ways functions like a fancy-shmancy configurator, Strike Anywhere lets you spec your 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning with your packages and color of choice so that you can see exactly what the electric truck of your dreams will look like right there in your driveway. Or in your kitchen. Do you.
Google study: Shoppers spend three months researching new vehicles
Launching the Strike Anywhere AR experience for the Ford F-150 Lightning lines up with research from Google and Ipsos that shows 83 percent of new-vehicle shoppers spend around three months researching before pulling the trigger on a purchase. With the app hitting well before the pickup’s spring 2022 launch, that gives drivers plenty of chance to plunk down their reservations for the mega-popular electric truck.
“We’re proud to work with Ford to bring this innovative experience to life,” said Thomais Zaremba, Industry Director, Automotive, Google. “Ford continues to meet customers where they are — and that’s increasingly online. This campaign brings the F-150 Lightning to life in a new way, and serves as a natural extension of our broader collaboration to help transform Ford’s business and deliver new customer experiences.”
Study shows F-150 Lightning to be a big hit with Ford first-timers
Photo: Ford
This past summer, Ford reached out to some of the 100,000 or so people who had already reserved the F-150 Lightning with a survey. The responses reveal that the electric truck isn’t just poised to be a lot of folks’ first EV — it’ll also be several drivers’ first Ford.
Per the study, 56 percent of F-150 Lightning reservation holders have never owned a Ford in their life. As the reservations have gone up, so has that figure. In October, with reservations up over 150,000, Ford said that the percentage of reservations coming from outside of the Blue Oval brand is more than 75 percent.
Ford’s summer survey also revealed that 75 percent of F-150 Lightning reservation holders have never owned an EV. That means that a majority of folks planning to purchase a 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning are making a leap of faith with a new technology and a new brand.
Both points align with a Cox Automotive Consumer Snapshot study covering electric trucks that ranked Ford over Tesla, GMC, and Rivian in terms of consumer interest. Respondents to that study ranked Ford over its competition on points like price, performance, and design — all a good three months before the F-150 Lightning was even revealed.
The survey from this past summer also showed, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the F-150 Lightning has the highest reservation tally in California. Right behind Cali sits Texas and Florida, proving that big truck markets will follow the F-150 even as it charts new territory.
Ford F-150 Lightning AR experience available now
If you’re thinking about riding with Ford into new territory, the 2022 F-150 Lightning seems as good a place to start as any. And with some 160,000 trucks already reserved and counting, you can bet you won’t be surfing that wave alone. You can check out Ford and Google’s F-150 Lightning AR experience at Ford.com; on the App Store or Google Play; or on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Reddit.
Kyle S. Johnson lives in Cincinnati, a city known by many as “the Cincinnati of Southwest Ohio.” He enjoys professional wrestling, Halloween, and also other things. He has been writing for a while, and he plans to continue to write well into the future. See more articles by Kyle.