Went camping with the Lightning & Airstream

The wife and I decided to take the Ford Lightning and our 23 foot airstream camping. Just to see if we could and how the experience would compare to camping with our F250.

We choose a state park on the Washington coast as our destination. Distance from home to campground is 105 miles. Made sure that the campground had 50 AMP RV service for charging the Lightning. My goal was to drive from home to the campground without stopping at a fast charging station. My wife’s goal was to not end up along side of the road waiting for a charge.

In preparation for the trip, I went on two 50 mile tows with the Airstream. The Airstream weighs in at 6,300 pounds. Wanted to test range and evaluate the tow setup on the Lightning. Plus felt like calibrating the trailer to the pro backup assist. I used the Lightning on board scales to setup our Load Leveling hitch. I also used a tape measure to prove that the setup was correct. If my load torsion bars were the old adjustable chain type it would have been much simpler to adjust the load.

Interesting note, the Lightning’s hitch receiver is 4 inch higher than the receiver on my F250. Who’d have thought.

With a full charge and the Airstream connected the guess-oh-meter stated 150 miles of range. Towing was uneventful. It is pretty remarkable going up hill maintaining speed and not hearing a V8 scream as it slams into a lower gear. The truck tows nice.

We arrived at the campground with 31% battery remaining. Plugged in just like home and ran around for a day, then returned home following day.

On the way home I decided to live dangerously and not precondition and charge to 90%. No issues.

It was a great trip. No trips to the gas station.

Thanks for posting, your Lightning ER or SR? Did you use 101 the entire way without major hills? Rain? 50amp for the truck, 30amp for the trailer? Good news towing using your setup.

You are welcome. Lightning is a ER Platinum. Went 101,108. One little climb on the route. 50 AMP for the truck 30 AMP for the trailer.

While that campground tolerated it, they are generally not sized to use both outlets at once per NEC. So with one of you it doesn't matter but if there's a bunch of people doing it it could cause them to blow the breakers.

Just be prepared someday to have to daisy chain the truck and get an adapter for the pro power on board.

Sadly the F-150 won't charge at 24 amps on 120 volt for 30 amp sites and will only do 12 amps.

The Airstream will run off grid for around 7 days. So I don't need to plug it in. Doesn't draw much juice unless the AC is running. 30 AMP 110 feed is more than enough for that. I have even managed to run that with a 20 AMP 110 without tripping the breaker.

The only real requirement for power was to charge the Lightning battery. The charger only draws 30 AMPs. The Airstream being plugged in was only because I could.

I think at some point Campgrounds are going to probably want to add a surcharge for electric vehicles charging in camp.

pc500 said:

While that campground tolerated it, they are generally not sized to use both outlets at once per NEC. So with one of you it doesn't matter but if there's a bunch of people doing it it could cause them to blow the breakers.

Just be prepared someday to have to daisy chain the truck and get an adapter for the pro power on board.

Sadly the F-150 won't charge at 24 amps on 120 volt for 30 amp sites and will only do 12 amps.

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It's two separate circuits, one 120 volt and one 240 volt on 2 separate breakers it's fine to use both at the same time. Eventually campgrounds will catch on and add a fee for EV charging.

Billc77 said:

It's two separate circuits, one 120 volt and one 240 volt on 2 separate breakers it's fine to use both at the same time. Eventually campgrounds will catch on and add a fee for EV charging.

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From your perspective it's fine but from a national electrical code perspective they are allowed to size the feeder circuits and panel capacity under the assumption both will never be used at once. This is only true when there's a 30 amp and 50 amp serving a site.