2014 Ford F-150 Aluminum Body Panels

For decades, America's best-selling pickup trucks turned a collective blind eye to what were foreseeable technological advances in most areas of their construction as Detroit's Big Three preferred simple solutions that significantly hiked up their profit margins.

However, these past few years, automakers like GM, Ford and Chrysler are slowly trying to modernize their trucks mostly in the name of fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions, especially now that the U.S. Corporate Average Fuel-Economy standards are getting stricter.

We've already seen some advances on the engine front including the availability of Ford's EcoBoost V6 on the F-150 and GM’s hybrid lineup, but there's more to come in different areas than you'd normally expect.

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