Hero Card For 2022 F-150 Lightning

Mach N Cheese said:

I know the Tesla comparisons have been beaten to death on the Mach-E forums but I have to say this thing blows the CyberTruck away. For $40k you get dual motors standard and TONS of options, which if you want the same in the CyberTruck you will pay $50k....and that's not even taking into account the $7.5k federal tax credit. That's a $17.5k difference...and a lot of after market mods! Also, tesla claims a +300 mile range on the dual motor but that's likely overstated as with their other vehicles, I would bet that Ford's extended range option will win in the real world....assuming that the CyberTruck makes it to market.

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Vulnox said:

Tesla also rules the road so far with the SuperCharger network.

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Vulnox said:

Yeah, the Cybertruck has some nice tech, and seems competitive in pricing given than the XLT F-150 Extended Ranger is I believe more than the CT dual motor price. Tesla also rules the road so far with the SuperCharger network.

But, the CyberTruck is just a heavy, unattractive (my opinion), behemoth. I want something that looks like an F-150 I already love, just with a BEV powertrain, and the Lightning nails it. ProPower is also great, and I just have more faith in Ford delivering on the truck side in terms of real-world capability and control than Tesla. Tesla does fantastic with their cars/Model Y, but there is an ocean of distance between road cars and a truck.

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ChasingCoral said:

With the continued rapid build-out of Electrify America stations, CCS chargers will soon outnumber Tesla Superchargers. That's not including the proposed Biden infrastructure plan targeting 500,000 EV charging stations.

Just remember that the lowest density of BEV chargers you will ever see is the one that exists now. The networks are growing daily.

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Vulnox said:

Oh yeah, but like most things technology, there is far more to it than ticking off boxes on a stats page. I don't own a Mach E, but have some YouTube channels I watch where they test and road trip tons of EVs. OutofSpecMotoring is one of my favorite for true road trips, that guy drives EVs across the country and even holds some cannonball records for EVs. He owns mainly Tesla, but he has always struck me as being very fair and has never been hesitant to give his complaints about them.

Anyway, he did a long road trip in the Mach E, and his experience, on video, was the same I have seen from other long term reviewers. The plug and charge takes an extra minute or so to complete over activating by app and plugging in, which kind of sucks. He had a lot of issues where it just timed out and the car charging experience behaved in an odd way (charging at very slow speeds).

When he switched to activating by the app then plugging in, it was much more reliable. But the charging curve is still not ideal. He got it to hit 160KW charging, but it only lasted 5-10 minutes, then it dropped to 105ish, and would hold around there. Which every EV doesn't hold peak constantly, but if he unplugged, plugged back in, and started a new session, it went back to 160, again for 5-10 minutes. So it isn't due to battery level like is generally the cause of rate drop, he said it seems to have no clear logic, the Mach E should be more than capable of charging at that rate for a longer period, that it lets you hit that rate again within seconds of unplugging but only does for another 10 minutes indicates it isn't battery temp.

So there is more than just number of chargers, there is maturity, in both the EA network itself (he ran into many where it just wouldn't even charge due to station issues, which happens with SuperCharger stations obviously, but he said the rate was significantly higher), and in what Ford pushed out for a charging curve on the Mach E.

Thankfully, all these issues should be fixable by software. When he did the cannonball in the Porsche Taycan, the EA network was able to keep up with higher charge rates.

The only issues he ever really ran into with SuperCharger/Tesla road trips were when he ran into a V2 station where it was pretty busy, because the V2s split power since they share a power source (so 150KW charging becomes 75KW), and the V2s had overheating handles (he resolves by putting a wet rag over the handle, haha), but otherwise it was almost always flawless.

The promising part though is that Tesla moved on to the V3 chargers that have none of the limitations of the V2 chargers. But that is my point really, Tesla is ahead in both station count, and more importantly, maturity of the network. Ford and others need to catch up quick in count and maturity to really bring in users.

I have complete faith they will, I wouldn't have reserved a Lightning if I didn't think it was possible. But when it came time to select our new car this year, it was either going to be a PB F-150 or Mach E, and when I saw the road trip charging issues with the Mach E, I knew it just wasn't ready for me, at least not as our primary vehicle. Ford has shown serious commitment to getting caught up though, so I know they will have my EV money sooner than later.

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ChasingCoral said:

Fortunately many of those early P&C issues have been resolved. If you’ve seen Kyle’s subsequent video, P&C did better for him. I’ve used up all of the free 250kWh of charging Ford gave me at First using P&C and it’s working pretty well. I have another 250 they added and will see how much better it’s doing on my next road trip.

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Vulnox said:

That's great to hear! I love hearing your side of it as well, as I freely and openly admit my "experience" with the Mach E is purely as a 3rd party. We had a C-Max Energi, which we loved, but that's as heavily as we have waded into the BEV waters ourselves. I try to keep up on it all though.

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ChasingCoral said:

With the continued rapid build-out of Electrify America stations, CCS chargers will soon outnumber Tesla Superchargers. That's not including the proposed Biden infrastructure plan targeting 500,000 EV charging stations.

Just remember that the lowest density of BEV chargers you will ever see is the one that exists now. The networks are growing daily.

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currybob said:

My fear is the power grid our country currently has. As more and more EVs start to hit the road, the strain on the power grid is going to be huge. Heck, many parts of the country can not handle summer time now.

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