Welcome to the Tech Mem Ride Home for Thursday, May 20th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today.

The newly announced Electric F-150 is maybe the biggest EV effort since the launch of

Tesla. Google is launching its first ever retail store. Internet Explorer is

finally going to that great recycle bin in the sky, but could Google be breathing new life

into RSS feeds in web browsers? Here's what you missed today in the world of tech.

Last night Ford officially unveiled its electric F-150 pickup truck called the Lightning and perhaps the biggest stab at mainstream acceptance for electric vehicles by a major legacy car company yet.

Why do I say this? Quoting the New York Times.

Ford's F-series trucks, including the F-150, make up the top-selling vehicle line in the United States,

and typically generate about $42 billion a year in revenue, according to a study commissioned by Ford Ford or more than twice what McDonald's

brought in last year.

The F-150 will put electric vehicles in a totally different realm, said Michael Ramsey,

a Gartner analyst.

It's huge for Ford, but it's also huge for the whole industry.

If you're going to electrify the whole vehicle fleet in the United States,

the F-150 going electric is a big step in that direction, end F-150 Lightning is aimed at small businesses

and corporate customers such as building contractors and mining and construction companies

that buy lots of rugged pickups. These buyers typically care not just

about the sticker price of a truck but also how much it costs to operate and maintain.

Electric vehicles tend to cost more to buy but less to own than conventional cars and trucks

because they have fewer parts and electricity is cheaper than gasoline or diesel on a per mile basis.

With an electric motor mounted on each of its axles, the vehicle will offer more torque, in effect, faster acceleration than any previous F-150 and will be capable of towing up to 10,000 pounds.

Its battery pack can put out 9.6 kilowatts of energy,

...