The Timken Company, a global provider of engineered bearings and industrial motion products, announced that its packaged wheel bearings are being used on Ford Motor Co.’s F-150 Lightning, the first mainstream electric light-duty pickup truck to hit the market. Timken bearings on the F-150 Lightning represent incremental content per vehicle, compared to its gasoline-powered counterpart, the company says.
“Customers call on us to serve as a trusted technical supplier, utilizing our application engineering expertise to help them improve and differentiate product performance,” said Andreas Roellgen, Timken executive vice president, president Engineered Bearings. “We collaborated closely with Ford’s team to solve design challenges and support their high standards for safety and performance.”
Timken says it was there to support Ford’s timeline and provide an informed perspective on innovating product and process technologies to address the emerging electric vehicle (EV) trend. Timken adds it has been working for many years on advanced designs for EVs, evolving its technology to create solutions that are lighter, smaller and more fuel efficient, yet capable of meeting the unique performance demands of EVs, including higher torque and load requirements. Timken says its customized bearing designs are helping manufacturers like Ford switch to EV designs without the need to rethink their entire supply chain.
Timken has a long-standing relationship with Ford, dating back to the production of the Model T in 1908. Timken began providing the wheel bearings for the F-150 Lightning in April 2022. Ford also uses Timken bearings on its Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUVs, as well as other variations of the F-150.
