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F-150 LIGHTNING TOWS 10,000 POUNDS UP COLORADO’S I-70 ON COLDEST FEBRUARY DAY IN BOULDER IN 123 YEARS, DAVIS DAM IN TRIPLE DIGIT HEAT

MAR 23, 2022 | DEARBORN, MICH.

Whether hauling snowmobiles to the cabin in the dead of winter or the pontoon to the lake in the dogdays of summer, the 2022 F-150® Lightning™ is tested to have customers covered. To help prove it, Ford engineers took the first all-electric F-Series to two of America’s toughest real-world towing routes during development – Davis Dam in the summer and TFLTruck’s Ike Gauntlet™ in the winter.

Last month, Ford engineers took preproduction F-150 Lightnings to what some call the world’s toughest towing test — TFLtruck’s Ike Gauntlet™ towing test — with windchills registering below zero degrees Fahrenheit. The Ike Gauntlet is an 8-mile stretch of I-70 in Colorado that ascends at a 7% incline to a maximum elevation of 11,158-ft. above sea level around the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel.

Towing in wintery conditions, however, is only one part of the equation. To prove the truck’s muster towing in extreme heat, Ford took the F-150 Lightning to the extreme grades of Davis Dam. With ground temperatures reaching a high of 118-degrees Fahrenheit during testing, F-150 Lightning preproduction units towed the same 10,000-pound trailers for multiple loops across the dam. Davis Dam, located on State Route 68 between Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam, ascends from 550 feet elevation to 3,500 feet in 11.4-grueling miles.

Between the two locations, their steep continuous inclines, expressway speeds, and trailers in tow – in this case the truck’s targeted maximum 10,000-pound trailers – make them extremely grueling for EV and gas trucks alike. The two testing trips are examples of the hundreds of hours of rigorous towing testing the F-150 Lightning has endured during development.

Deliveries of the 2022 F-150 Lightning pickup are scheduled to begin this spring.


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p52Ranch

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Two of the video's show up as "private". The other video is only 28 seconds long. Waiting for the TFL version of the Ike gauntlet test.

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Video's finally displaying. Thanks for sharing.

In the first video at the 1:15 mark we get a glimpse of the instrument panel displaying range and state of charge. It appears the truck is coasting downhill at that moment. The speedometer gains three miles per hour in three or four seconds with neutral power/charge displayed on the IP. Impossible to determine the context of the initial state of charge and how long they had been towing at that point in time. Back to my initial comment we need some independent testing.
 
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LightningShow

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Very cool! I can't wait to see some more real world testing content! I certainly hope Ford is giving Andre @TFLTruck the exclusive content for the Ike Gauntlet test!
 
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Two of the video's show up as "private". The other video is only 28 seconds long. Waiting for the TFL version of the Ike gauntlet test.
Seems that Youtube is having issues currently. If you reload this thread a few times, you'll catch each video as publicly viewable.
 

Dadofjax

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Nobody doubts these trucks can pull in those conditions the biggest question people have which not surprising was excluded here was the range at which these EVs can perform this task.
 

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Nobody doubts these trucks can pull in those conditions the biggest question people have which not surprising was excluded here was the range at which these EVs can perform this task.
I think there was a quick shot of the range in the moment at 120 miles. Not sure if that was at the beginning of a full tow, or they burned through some miles at that point.
 

SteveP150

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Nobody doubts these trucks can pull in those conditions the biggest question people have which not surprising was excluded here was the range at which these EVs can perform this task.
Bingo. The issue isn't torque to do the pulling. It's battery life. I can tell you from personal experience that my PB loses range in the cold. That issue is likely to be worse in the Lightning.
 

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LightningShow

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Nobody doubts these trucks can pull in those conditions the biggest question people have which not surprising was excluded here was the range at which these EVs can perform this task.

Patience, grasshopper.
 

CoyoteJim

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I think there was a quick shot of the range in the moment at 120 miles. Not sure if that was at the beginning of a full tow, or they burned through some miles at that point.
It looked like 128 miles with roughly 65% battery left.
 

Mr. Flibble

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I think there was a quick shot of the range in the moment at 120 miles. Not sure if that was at the beginning of a full tow, or they burned through some miles at that point.
You can see that the battery meter is not full, it is about 60-70% when the range is reading at 120 miles.
 

LightningShow

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It will be interesting to see the Ike test. The issue TFL had in the Rivian was that the regen seemed to be getting overwhelmed on the steep downhill sections which prevented them from getting back a lot of the range they lost in the uphill section. The F-150 could do significantly better if they are able to capture all the regen on the downhill sections.
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