Ford Lightning- Build/Living with Thread

In reply to Rons :

Then it appears I need to be patient. Regular cab short box fits and is so much easier to live with than its longer brothers. 
     I can park in regular size spots without sticking out. I can make a u turn where the bigger version needs to do a 3 point turn.  My children are gone. No employees, And I don't need extra seats.  
   While not a compact it's standard size offers most people real benefits. 

Problem is that single cabs are just not big sellers. Jeep hasn't even bothered with a single cab Gladiator in production but they did put one on the stand at the SEMA show. 

Ford, of course, knows exactly what the mix of sales is and will tailor their offerings to suit. Given that the battery pack is such a significant part of the vehicle cost, they'll likely stick with higher priced variants for a while so it makes a smaller percentage of the total. 

In reply to frenchyd :

I really park in regular spots in my 4x4 Expedition EL and u-turn depends on the road for me. The u-turns I can't do in my Expedition I also can't do in the Honda Accord.

yupididit said:

In reply to frenchyd :

I really park in regular spots in my b4x4 Expedition EL and u-turn depends on the road for me. The u-turns I can't do in my Expedition I also can't do in the Honda Accord.

Well I can make a U turn in most streets with my short box regular cab.  Maybe front wheel drive won't allow tight Turning? 
     Anyway, supposedly the F150 will only tow 100 miles before a recharge is needed.    If that is indeed the case* that means I'll have to recharge  2&1/2 times to go to Elkart lake.  That's OK by me.   Because just in gas savings that's about $80 after I pay for the charge. If the first 2 years are free it's even more.  
   Then day to day I'll save about $2000 a year and 2.5 oil changes.  Plus massively longer brake life.  
    I wonder about insurance
        Since I will tow an open trailer thus reducing drag I might get a bit more range. 

i can confirm that insurance is brutal. 650 for 6 months through sf.

32 year old male probably doesn't help my actuary table

In reply to frenchyd :

You can't generalize towing distance for the Lightning any more than you can for a gas truck. It's going to depend on the speed and the trailer, because that's what determines how much energy is needed. An open trailer will definitely help in my experience.

In reply to Norma66-Brent :

I wonder how much  of that  insurance e rate is fear of the unknown quantity  of an EV pickup.  I'm sure the power scares them a ton.  Add your young age and maybe they think it's a Corvette. 
   I'll bet once they get some experiance under their belt it would be a little more reasonable. 
  Oh, and where you live might enter too. Some zip codes have pretty high theft and accident rates. 
But  yah!  $1300 a year?   Wow!  

i normally run liability only on our vehicles. Owning a shop that does collision im not afraid to fix my own stuff. something to be said about self insuring risk. part prices on this truck scare me though, so i opted to add full coverage.

 Going through what i want to do for home charging now. I think i'm going to add a 14-50 here at home. conquer some of the range anxiety i have been feeling.

Motortrend just did a towing test with their Lightning and the results are worse than we expected: range was cut by over half. They're surmising that aero has a lot to do with it. 

https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/ford-f150-lightning-electric-truck-towing-test/amp/

While that may be true it's not always going to be valid. Both trailers blocked a lot of air. People towing less of a "house" will get further range.  Gas, diesel, or EV mileage/range is determined by all of the following. 
Weather too determines  range. Head winds? Tail winds, no wind, up hill, down hill,  in a pack of trucks or by yourself?  
  And what sort of driver was the person? For example I always seem to get better range than others.  
  

thatsnowinnebago said:

Motortrend just did a towing test with their Lightning and the results are worse than we expected: range was cut by over half. They're surmising that aero has a lot to do with it. 

https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/ford-f150-lightning-electric-truck-towing-test/amp/

It's like everyone is just discovering that towing is work. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Big surprise! We've grown accustomed to the energy usage with gas/diesel towing. 

We're used to the penalty being money, not time.

GM has applied for a patent on a powered trailer that could aid with range.  https://gmauthority.com/blog/2022/05/gm-files-to-patent-ev-assisted-towing-concept/

so made my first mistake with the truck. i have been charging it at the shop at what i thought was a normal 14-50amp 220v plug. turns out that plug is actually a 3 phase plug. Hasn't appeared to have done any damage but i had a electrician come out today and put in a stand alone plug.

i also had a 40 foot drop cord made so i can charge outside if i want. 

truck also got its first over the air update. still trying to research what changed.

frenchyd said:

In reply to Norma66-Brent :

I wonder how much  of that  insurance e rate is fear of the unknown quantity  of an EV pickup.  I'm sure the power scares them a ton.  Add your young age and maybe they think it's a Corvette. 
   I'll bet once they get some experiance under their belt it would be a little more reasonable. 
  Oh, and where you live might enter too. Some zip codes have pretty high theft and accident rates. 
But  yah!  $1300 a year?   Wow!  

Obviously the Lightning is big power. But remember when insurance companies beat the E36 M3 out of you for anything that made over 180HP? Like "everyone's going to die, this makes 220HP!" Now almost everything makes that and weighs way more. I understand the idea of back then "only hellions were attracted to that sort of horsepower" and people do abuse the fact that, for the everyday person, cars have too much power. For people who can't entertain themselves any other way tearing ass through traffic in their trashed-but-still-fast car is the hot thing yet since they don't understand cars they don't realize that the other traffic and the sheer amount of traffic volume today is will shut down their fun lickety-split in ways they can't foresee. It seems like they're aren't any insurance penalties for that even though that Altima is just as fast as a Fox 5.0.

GCrites80s said:

It seems like they're aren't any insurance penalties for that even though that Altima is just as fast as a Fox 5.0.

Lol-Did your subconscious sneak more similarity than you intended in there? I think an Altima has just as much "likely to drive like an ass" penalty as the Fox 5.0 ever did.

In reply to Norma66-Brent :

A friend with a Mach-E has found that every time the software updates, all of their settings get wiped out. What happened with the F150?

MrJoshua said:

GCrites80s said:

It seems like they're aren't any insurance penalties for that even though that Altima is just as fast as a Fox 5.0.

Lol-Did your subconscious sneak more similarity than you intended in there? I think an Altima has just as much "likely to drive like an ass" penalty as the Fox 5.0 ever did.

Could be by now since the insurance companies have learned what goes on with those things once they hit the discount lots. I suppose the difference is they assumed ahead of time that the Mustang would get in trouble whereas they had to have years of data before pinpointing the Altima.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

no issues but i haven't really done much setting up settings other than my phone

still waiting for the first real fast car to line up next to me at a stoplight. i want some real world data here!

Norma66-Brent said:

still waiting for the first real fast car to line up next to me at a stoplight. i want some real world data here!

I could come visit in the Supra and you'd probably embarrass it!  
I've snuck on to the runway here in Vinton in the past, but right now the dusters have it pretty busy. Actually, the last time I "snuck" on to the runway, the airport manager was with me in the car. 

In reply to Karacticus :

that is a great connection to have!

I'm hanging with a Lightning engineer this morning.  Any questions? :)

In reply to Keith Tanner :

When will they make one with enough energy in it to tow my big square enclosed trailer 250 miles at 80mph?