Ford Lightning- Build/Living with Thread

In reply to Tom Suddard :

I'm looking forward to bed-mounted external batteries like those extended fuel tanks sold for diesel trucks. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

100%. Sign me up as soon as that's a reality. 

Are EVs at a point where your friend would buy one for himself?

Sorry guys, we ended up mostly talking about suspension setup on the Spec Miata he was autocrossing - I was running timing today so all conversations were a little fractured. I know he's a big EV guy, is currently working on a Ford sedan for China. Packaging engineer, I think. 

all good questions. the lightning is getting its first passenger tomrorow. boom

In reply to tremm :

Let me just answer that question for me. It's not as straight forward as Motor trend is saying.   

   I tow to Elkhart lake  about 355 miles away. That's about 7 hours. Each way. 
  Based on the trailers towed on the motor trend article  I expect an F150 EV would tow my trailer at least 150 miles. (Lighter and much less aero drag) Maybe 175.  So I would spend an hour extra charging  getting there and part of the way back.   Then an hour and a half extra on the return trip.  
   That distance there are always at least two bathroom breaks and a meal. Figure 10 minutes to refill the gas tank plus 10 for the bathroom and 30 minutes for the meal for a total of 50 minutes.  Same back   Compared to  an hour going  and an hour and 1/2 returning.  
  The net real difference  is probably close to an hour a weekend.  The difference in energy costs is about $2000 or so a year not to mention oil changes not done and brakes  not rebuilt.  
     So I'd save not only the $2000 but also the time I don't have to get my oil changed. Etc. 
   Here's my bias.  I'm a cheapskate.  I wouldn't care if it burned Unicorn farts as long as they cost less. 
  I own a truck that is a few payments from mine.  It's in perfect shape but even now I'd take a hit trading it in and probably have to make  $ 10-15,000 too boot maybe more. I'm already semi retired and the idea of  making payments for another 2-3 years is not appealing.  But I don't think the oil companies are just going to roll over.  I expect a few more price raises in the next decade.  So ten years at a savings of $20,000 (maybe more ?)  pretty hard to ignore that. 

i'm going in my first road trip in the truck next weekend. i'm woefully ignorant on how the charging networks work on the dc fast charger side. Have several apps and working to plan ahead. I'm never good at planning ahead so this is making me change my approach a little.

looks like there is a fast charger at a mcgrath dealership in dubuque. then i will need to hit up one in the madison area for the way back. seems like a lot of chargers are listed as broke. going to be a interesting experience.

Norma66-Brent said:

i'm going in my first road trip in the truck next weekend. i'm woefully ignorant on how the charging networks work on the dc fast charger side. Have several apps and working to plan ahead. I'm never good at planning ahead so this is making me change my approach a little.

looks like there is a fast charger at a mcgrath dealership in dubuque. then i will need to hit up one in the madison area for the way back. seems like a lot of chargers are listed as broke. going to be a interesting experience.

Consider trying abetterrouteplanner.com.  You select your vehicle, starting charge, and destination and it will route you with charging stops.  I recently saw some people at electrify America chargers that appeared to be having trouble getting the process started. I am very interested to read about your experience with this trip.

got the scooter up and running in 22 min. boom. trucks out getting ceramic coated now

I'm reading that the trailer solution will be that the sub-floor of the enclosed trailer will be one huge battery...

If you're using Plugshare to look for chargers, make sure you filter out the low power ones. On-the-road charging for non-Teslas is definitely rockier than it should be at the moment. Hopefully it'll change quickly, but it's definitely something to keep in mind. Lots of problems with authentication on EA chargers and Chargepoint seems to have a very high percentage of inop chargers.

Doesn't the truck plan a route using the Ford "BlueOval" network? It's not really a standalone network like the Tesla one, but it's an amalgamation of a couple of different public networks. More importantly, if the truck knows where it's going it can manage the charging accordingly.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I have been playing around with the app. Its not very intuitive. On this trip it says your good, no need to charge. Problem is I can make it but only have about 10 miles to spare. So im trying to optimize my charging at some point on the trip so i arrive with enough range to mess around for the weekend and then hit a CCS on the way back. The app isn't very good for that. 

I have been reading the check ins on plugshare and it seems like 1/3 of all the ccs chargers on my route are broke. 

It's important to distinguish between plugs and charging stations. A station might have 10 plugs. It's unlikely a whole station is down but it might be running at partial capacity. I don't use PlugShare much other than for looking at the network but I'd keep that in mind. 

Different networks count their chargers differently. Some count the plugs (because it sounds better), some count the stations (because that's what matters when you're looking at routes). 

tremm said:

Some ideas:

-How likely is multi-input charging? (Where you could stick 2 plugs into your truck to charge twice as fast)

Slim chance. 

First, charge ports are expensive.  There's a surprising amount that goes into them to enable DCFC without turning into a pile of molten goo.

Second, it wouldn't make sense at home (where the majority of charging happens) because two chargers will require 2 220 circuits to your garage, because each charger maxes out one breaker/circuit.  This may be a thing someday when most households have 2 EVs in the garage, but that certainly won't be within the lifecycle of this product.

Third, it's hard to imagine getting away with running two chargers simultaneously at a chargepoint/electrify america etc charging location, especially taking up two parking spots.

At that point, why wouldn't you just be at 1 150kw DCFC instead of 2 32kW level 2 chargers?

 

I don't think running multiple L2 chargers is the idea, it's more multiple DCFC chargers. I'm surprised the Hummer doesn't have dual charge ports, honestly. I expect that will be used for OTR semis if we get there, the same way they use multiple pumps concurrently at the big rig fuel stops.

Looks like the Lightning is getting a $6000 - $8000 price bump for the new model year. 

In reply to Erich :

Plus potentially losing tax credit so more like 14k bump

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to Tom Suddard :

I'm looking forward to bed-mounted external batteries like those extended fuel tanks sold for diesel trucks. 

That's an interesting idea I hadn't thought of before.  Did some back-of-the-envelope math though, and I'm not sure how much it helps.

GVWR is 8200, curb weight of the big battery truck is 6500 so that's 1700. Figure 200 for driver/luggage and a thousand for tongue weight (15% of a 7K enclosed trailer) and we've only got 500 pounds left.  (Note that if you google the payload of a Lightning it says 2200, but that's for the small battery truck).  Axle limits might reduce this further, but let's ignore that.

More googling suggests car batteries are about 15 pounds/kwh.  For an in-bed battery there's probably some additional overhead for cables, tiedowns, safety casing, but let's ignore that too, and 500 pounds gets another 33 kwh.  So that's probably 65-ish miles unloaded, or about 25-30 with the trailer described above.  So not zero, but not a huge amount, either.

(edit:  revised due to having done the math wrong the first time I posted this)

Norma66-Brent said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I have been playing around with the app. Its not very intuitive. On this trip it says your good, no need to charge. Problem is I can make it but only have about 10 miles to spare. So im trying to optimize my charging at some point on the trip so i arrive with enough range to mess around for the weekend and then hit a CCS on the way back. The app isn't very good for that. 

I have been reading the check ins on plugshare and it seems like 1/3 of all the ccs chargers on my route are broke. 

My latest longer trip in the Mach-E (700 km or 3-4 charge stops) was the first where I actually used the Ford Navigation. It is not very good IMO. 

I prefer using A Better Routeplanner (ABRP) at least for a plan, but navigate with Google Maps on Android Auto. The good thing with using ABRP is that you can tweak the calculations according to weather, load, speed and also specify a minimum percentage to arrive with. Set it at 40% or 50% or what you think you´ll need and it will suggest the charging needed. Then you can also adjust each charge stop (to add more that "necessary" or plan for a food place nearby). Quite neat.

I also suggest, if possible, to plan for charge stops where there are options reasonably nearby if one fails. A slight detour to a place with 2-3 differ fast chargers can be better that a shorter route with only one charger (that can be out of order occupied or something).

Gustaf

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

I wasn't really being serious, but good calculations :) 

In reply to KurtAKX :

Well since I do welding and a lot of wood working I've already got 3  220 outlets in the shop and if I disconnect  the two electric water heaters an additional 2  plus an additional capability in another sub panel. 
  No.  I can't use all of those at once. But many hobbiest have 2 or more.  In fact it's relatively common practice to put washers and driers  in an attached  garage. 

In reply to Karacticus : come on down to Harvs on the 27th. we are smoking a pig. bring the supra. 1-4pm

In reply to Norma66-Brent :

I'll put it on my calendar and make my best attempt to be there!

Norma66-Brent said:

Antimatter Blue is SO hot. Nicely chosen.

Curious to hear how you continue to like the truck! I finally booked one for review (and will be towing with it) around Halloween this fall. They are predictably in high demand in press loaner fleets as with customers.