My Lightning owner's thoughts and 1600 mile trip

[LightningShow]

A lot of it will be dependent on how far apart the chargers actually are but, in general, on a long trip the more time you spend in the 150kw window the faster the trip will be. Going to 70% won’t make a big difference but it also isn’t really necessary depending on how far the next charger is. Either way you won’t likely have enough to get to the next EA charger and will need to find a slower alternate. It just depends how comfortable you are with less buffer. If you go with less buffer you need to make sure you are checking the charger status of the next charger via PlugShare.

This is only really relevant if you’re going a very long distance in one shot. Like 1000 miles. If you’re destination charging overnight a few times during the trip and only driving 500 miles a day then the time difference by capping charging at 50% isn’t really worth the risk.

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[TaxmanHog]

Thanks for sharing!!

 

[Regular150]

Anytime we're going over 1500 total miles, we rent or fly. The hit on the miles is too much depreciation as we don't keep our cars more than 3-4 years. We'll routinely put 3-3500 miles in 9 day vacation swapping driver's. And we bring our boats tiny potty for the pee breaks!

 

[Arthur]

It is not a fair comparison between Lightning and Tesla: two very different vehicles for different purposes except they both happen to be electrical vehicles.

 

[stimpy]

It is not a fair comparison between Lightning and Tesla: two very different vehicles for different purposes except they both happen to be electrical vehicles.

I disagree, both server the same purpose, which is to move people and stuff from one place to another. They just come in different form factors. The Lightning provides more cargo and towing capabilities, but they still have the same fundamental characteristics. It doesn’t matter if you are driving a sedan or a truck when it comes to the number or speed of charging and Tesla has optimized that experience.

 

[Theo1000]

I disagree, both server the same purpose, which is to move people and stuff from one place to another. They just come in different form factors.... ....Tesla has optimized that experience.

This doesn't make sense at all. This is like saying cruise ships and tug boats do the same thing. I know in the TSLA world these sorts of blanket statements go unchallenged, but you are posting on a Ford forum and sorry none of this is true. No TSLA, including the weird looking CT, holds a candle on the F-150 Lightning. When the CT comes I can guarantee it too will be shoddily built and stay shoddily built.

What TSLA has done is convert wallstreet cash into shoddily built cars and poorly planned charge networks. You can make it work but Enron and World com made it work too, until suddenly they couldn't make it work. It can seem like it is sweet when you live in the TSLA bubble but no one in the regular F-150 or Ford environment is ever going to buy this, it is simply not true.

For instance my Wife and Daughters drive in the EA CCS network, I make sure the charge environment they go to is safe. This is simply not true in the TSLA environment. I would say 90% of them I would not send my family to esp. at night. What is optimized about this layout? One is baffled.

Think about this it is crazy silly that the car has to tell you where to go and charge on a road trip rather than folks stopping where it is convenient. Eventually there will be chargers every 5-10 miles on most freeways. This already happening in some states and near my city here in the MW. I already know where the chargers are on my regular trip areas and I stop when convenient. No 'optimized' experience required. Admittedly less than 10% of the country has this level of coverage. But look at plugshare and the number of DCFC stations under construction, they are just about every where and it is going to get a lot lot denser. Even in deepest Eastern Indiana I was usually within 30 miles of a DCFC station esp, within 100 miles of large cities.

 

[stimpy]

Huh? Why not compare a cargo bicycle or a 787 to a lightning then? Both move people and stuff from one place to another.

I’m specifically speaking about the electric vehicle experience, which includes charging, as I would compare the experience filling any gas or diesel vehicle with respect to range and distance between filling stations.

 

[white lightnin]

I will be trading my Raptor for my Lightning so I won't have to see them side by side (except at the dealer), but I really like the Lightning looks. It is a street truck, not an off road brawler like the Raptor.

Just need to add a little vinyl to spice it up!

I'm going from a raptor to lightning too. Poor Girl was starting to have some major issues, so I traded it at the perfect time and got a small truck to get me through the few months until the lightning comes. My plan for long trips is to rent an ICE.

 

[sotek2345]

I'm going from a raptor to lightning too. Poor Girl was starting to have some major issues, so I traded it at the perfect time and got a small truck to get me through the few months until the lightning comes. My plan for long trips is to rent an ICE.

Our Lightning will be our long trip vehicle. The Mach-e has done terrific in that so far and the Lightning should be even better. We did NY to Maine and back for less than $40 I charging costs. Same trip in my Raptor would have cost between $250 and $300 in gas.

Ice vehicles are strictly for local travel when we can't use the Mach-e until we can retire them.

 

[bryan995]

Spot on review. But why was this a surprise to
you? To anyone that has prior EV experience - none of these should be new.

Why decide to drive the truck brand new, on a 1600 miles road trip. The <1.6mi/kwh efficiency, horribly slow 0-80% charging speeds and piss poor EV charging infrastructure (compared) to Tesla .. was all know. That sounds like a horrible experience to me

Coming from two tesla myself. The above is what pushed me into a XLT SR. $20k for 30 more miles is beyond insane. The Lightning is nothing more than an around town vehicle. Maybe a small tow to the beach or some local campsite. But that’s it. Charging outside of your home should be rare, and generally avoided. It’s slow, expensive and inefficient.

Anyone that expects otherwise is going to be severely disappointed.

Tesla charging infra really is years ahead. They are already in all of the prime locations, right on the highway, and next to stores or restaurants. Speeds are faster and there are 10x more charging units to meet the demand.

But even with that said, road tripping an EV (even a Tesla) is still a total pain compared to a gas vehicle. It adds 20-50% extra time easily.

 

[TheRealDlo]

Love the real life write-up man.

Everything you said has value & people just need to weight there own experiences & preferences against those types of items.

For someone like ME:

-In the past 3 years I have taken 2 roads trips OVER 220 miles (330miles & 375Miles)
-99% of my miles come from a city, work commute of 8 miles a day.
-My annual driving is about 6000 miles

For someone like me, RANGE is a NON issue.

 

[LightningShow]

I don't know how many people take 1000 mile roadtrips but I don't think it's all that common around where I live. The longer trips are surely more common outside the Northeast since things are much more spread out but around here people aren't generally going on epic roadtrips. I drive down to see my parents in Maryland about once a year, that's 430 miles. I can only think of two times in my 30yrs of driving that I drove farther than 500 miles in a trip (neither with my own vehicle), one was driving a U-haul from NH to FL to help in-laws with a move, the other was driving from northern Scotland to London. Both of those trips extended over multiple days, 3-4 for the NH-FL trip and 2 for the UK trip. The overnight stops would've cut out a lot of the fast charging and the average travel distance per day was less than 500 in both cases.

It's much more common for me to do 2-4 hours drives up into the mountains to the north. Those trips are usually 100-250 miles each way. Most cases won't require a charge stop, although current charging infrastructure up that way is pretty weak so a DCFC stop on the return will often be the best option.

It's a good point about depreciation, as well, for people who only keep their vehicles for a few years. adding another 4000 miles a year in roadtripping will cost you several thousand dollars in depreciation by the time you go to sell.

 

[stimpy]

I don't know how many people take 1000 mile roadtrips but I don't think it's all that common around where I live. The longer trips are surely more common outside the Northeast since things are much more spread out but around here people aren't generally going on epic roadtrips. I drive down to see my parents in Maryland about once a year, that's 430 miles. I can only think of two times in my 30yrs of driving that I drove farther than 500 miles in a trip (neither with my own vehicle), one was driving a U-haul from NH to FL to help in-laws with a move, the other was driving from northern Scotland to London. Both of those trips extended over multiple days, 3-4 for the NH-FL trip and 2 for the UK trip. The overnight stops would've cut out a lot of the fast charging and the average travel distance per day was less than 500 in both cases.

It's much more common for me to do 2-4 hours drives up into the mountains to the north. Those trips are usually 100-250 miles each way. Most cases won't require a charge stop, although current charging infrastructure up that way is pretty weak so a DCFC stop on the return will often be the best option.

It's a good point about depreciation, as well, for people who only keep their vehicles for a few years. adding another 4000 miles a year in roadtripping will cost you several thousand dollars in depreciation by the time you go to sell.

We do a trip from Maryland to Maine every August, which is about 500 miles over 2 days. We’ve been doing it in an EV for the last 3 years with no problem. We stop somewhere in New Jersey to charge and then charge at a hotel overnight in Connecticut. Day 2 we could make it to the campground in Maine without charging, but we usually have to stop so we plug in while we do. We plug into the cabin outlet when we get there, so it’s slow charging. However, we’re there for a week, so 3 days to charge at 12 amps is no problem.

 

[vandy1981]

Why decide to drive the truck brand new, on a 1600 miles road trip. The <1.6mi/kwh efficiency, horribly slow 0-80% charging speeds and piss poor EV charging infrastructure (compared) to Tesla .. was all know. That sounds like a horrible experience to me

Tesla charging infra really is years ahead. They are already in all of the prime locations, right on the highway, and next to stores or restaurants. Speeds are faster and there are 10x more charging units to meet the demand.

But even with that said, road tripping an EV (even a Tesla) is still a total pain compared to a gas vehicle. It adds 20-50% extra time easily.

I recognize that Tesla's charging network is superior to the CCS1 network in the USA (for now) but I'm not sure where you got some of these numbers.

-<1.6 mi/kwh efficiency? I've been seeing 1.8-2.1 kWh from most users at highway speeds.
-SC speeds are faster? EA stations max out at 350 kW vs 300 kW for the SC.
-Prime locations? Prime is a subjective term. There are plenty of SC located at nearly abandoned malls and random hotel parking lots.
-Horribly slow 0-80% charging speeds? Horribly is a subjective term but we're talking a 15-20 minute difference in charging time and the F150L accepts higher kW than the M3 and MY at higher SOC.
-10x more charging units to meet the demand? EA alone has 3,500 cabinets vs ~20,000 SC across the world so you're exaggerating.

Again, I'm not arguing that the F150L is going to be a faster road tripper than most Teslas, but things aren't as dire as you're asserting.

 

[RDeFran]

"Why decide to drive the truck brand new, on a 1600 miles road trip. The <1.6mi/kwh efficiency, horribly slow 0-80% charging speeds and piss poor EV charging infrastructure (compared) to Tesla .. was all know. That sounds like a horrible experience to me "





Why not? They bought a new vehicle in a different part of the country and drove it home for the experience. I would but a Bronco at Grainger and hit Moab on the way home.

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