Ford Performance is entering the 2024 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb with a new weapon — the F-150 Lightning SuperTruck. The F-150 Lightning SuperTruck demonstrator marks the second consecutive year Ford has entered an electric vehicle in the dangerous uphill race.
Last year, Ford deployed its all-electric SuperVan 4.2 for the 2023 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The vehicle set a record when it completed the treacherous hill climb in 8 minutes 47.682 seconds. As noted by Ford in a press release, the F-150 Lightning SuperTruck is designed to beat the record set by the SuperVan 4.2.
The F-150 Lightning SuperTruck was developed in collaboration with Ford Design and STARD Advanced Research and Development. It’s a powerhouse of a vehicle, boasting over 1,400 horsepower from its three STARD UHP 6-Phase Motors and Ultra-High Performance Li-Polymer NMC cells. A look at the F-150 Lightning SuperTruck also shows that the veteran automaker did not scrimp on the vehicle’s aerodynamics.
Our newest @FordPerformance EV demonstrator: the @Ford F-150 Lightning SuperTruck.
Excited to have @RomainDumas behind the wheel again to take on Pikes Peak (@PPIHC) after the record-breaking hillclimb in 2023 with the SuperVan4.2.
More info and vehicle specs here:… pic.twitter.com/tN8Zwv1spF— Jim Farley (@jimfarley98) June 18, 2024
The F-150 Lightning SuperTruck features a triple-element front wing, headlight ducts, hood ducts and louvers, front dive-planes, side diffusers, rear diffuser, and multi-element rear wing, which help the vehicle generate 6,000 pounds of downforce at 150 mph. Coupled with carbon ceramic brakes, Pirelli P-Zero tires on magnesium forged wheels, and a fully custom in-board suspension system, the F-150 Lightning SuperTruck does seem like it has what it takes to beat its predecessor’s record.
Pikes Peak veteran Romain Dumas will be driving the F-150 Lightning SuperTruck at the 2024 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. “After a successful 2023 climb, I’m thrilled to be behind the wheel again with this team and to help push the limits of what an electric vehicle can achieve on the turns of this legendary course. In testing, the F-150 Lightning SuperTruck has surpassed my expectations, so we are hoping for some good weather to try and do something very special,” Dumas noted.
Mark Rushbrook, Global Director of Ford Performance, shared his excitement about the project. “To make the best vehicles for our customers, our research takes us racing in the harshest and most challenging conditions – the F-150 Lightning SuperTruck is the latest example of that. Our pursuit to the top of the mountain is charged by the commitment to make all our electric vehicles more capable, more advanced, and more exciting,” he said.
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Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
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Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
News
Tesla expands massive safety feature worldwide in latest update
Tesla has expanded the footprint of a massive safety feature worldwide with a recent Software Update labeled as 2026.20.6. The expansion of the “Blind Spot Warning While Parked” feature represents the more widespread availability of the feature, which aims to prevent “dooring.”
Dooring is when a driver or passenger opens a car door into the path of an oncoming road user, usually a cyclist or motorcyclist. It is among the most common types of cycling accidents, the League of American Bicyclists says.
For this reason, Tesla created a feature that warns occupants not to open the door because an object is approaching. The feature will sound a chime, and it will also delay the opening of the door to prevent an incident.
The release notes state (via Not a Tesla App):
“If you attempt to open a door while an approaching object is detected in your blind spot (for example, a bicyclist approaching from behind) a chime sounds, and your door will not open upon initial button press. Wait a short time and press the button a second time to override the warning.”
Tesla initially rolled out this feature back in 2024 with the Model 3 “Highland.” However, it remained with the Model 3 exclusively for over a year; that was until Tesla added it to the Cybertruck this past Spring.
Now, it is making its way to the new Model Y, 2021 and newer Model S, and 2021 or newer Model X.
The prevention of dooring incidents could eliminate many injuries to cyclists, especially in an urban setting. Dooring accounts for 10-20 percent of bike-related crashes in major cities, and over 17,000 dooring-related incidents were treated in the U.S. over the course of a decade. These usually involve fractures, contusions, and head trauma.