Halifax Man Uses Ford F-150 Lightning to Power His e-Scooter Business

Is there anything the Ford F-150 Lightning can’t do? Well, probably a lot of things, but here’s an interesting story about the Blue Oval’s battery-powered truck.

A longtime F-150 owner, Max Rastelli started selling electric scooters in Halifax four years ago and immediately placed a deposit when Ford introduced the Lightning in 2021. He took delivery of his electric pickup in October of last year and put it to good use right away.

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You see, when Rastelli founded HFX e-Scooters, he had to haul the scooters to a central hub in Halifax to charge them. That meant a lot of driving and a lot of downtime.

In 2021, he introduced swappable, rechargeable batteries to his e-Scooters, which helped eliminate some of the downtime, but the batteries still needed to be charged every day at the central hub, which did not have enough power to charge all of the batteries at once.

With the F-150 Lightning’s available 9.6kW of Pro Power Onboard exportable power, Rastelli realized that he could charge multiple batteries at the same time, right in his truck, while on the go. No need for a central charging hub. What’s more, he was able to consistently keep batteries charging for more efficient swaps.

“It became immediately clear to me that the F-150 Lightning could boost my business productivity as a mobile battery charging station through the use of Pro Power Onboard,” he says. “I’ve been able to double the number of e-Scooters on my fleet, with near-zero downtime related to charging, making my business twice as efficient.”

As you can see on the pictures, the productivity and efficiency gains attributable to the F-150 Lightning were such that Rastelli decided to buy a second truck in June of this year.

“It doesn’t hurt that this truck is a lot of fun to drive, with its low centre of gravity and smooth ride,” he adds.