Those after delivery *and* drove an EV before, what's missing or could be improved?

[FlasherZ]

I haven't seen a similar thread, so I figured I'd start one.

For those of you who have 1) taken delivery, AND 2) have driven an EV as a regular vehicle before, what's missing or needs to be improved? (No trolls, please - real experiences only.)

I've driven 350,000 miles in Tesla cars since 2012, so it's the brand with which I'm the most familiar. But I've also had a few spins in other EV's.

I'll start with my "top 5" in priority order:

* A setting to keep climate control on and/or "dog mode". It's pretty criminal that you can't keep climate on for more than 15 minutes without re-extending every 15. At a bare minimum, give me the ability to set the threshold at which it'll turn off (20%?) and the ability to set the time for which I want climate to remain on. If I want it to remain on for 3 hours, honor it.

* A setting for maximum charge current at any given location. I can't count how many times I've blown circuit breakers because the receptacle given to me by the hotel or resort is shared with some other stuff. The ability to set a 120V charger down to 9A or a touchy campground receptacle or breaker to 24A is immensely valuable. The existing solution just can't handle this case, and it's fairly common.

* The information provided about charging is very poor. At a minimum, on AC chargers you should be able to show voltage & current (in amps), or AT MINIMUM the power (in kW). For DC chargers, I'm fine without the technical details of volts & amps, but you should be able to show me the power (kW) being drawn from the station. The "estimated time to set charge point" is just a poor display all-around.

* The FordPass app needs some usability improvements... it's just... clunky. It should be delivering succinctly all of the functions and information about my truck. I think it's rather stupid that it will offer me a "software updates" option, but instead of setting up software updates, it tells you to sit in the truck and configure some stuff on the screen. And show me live information please - none of this "here's what your car looked like before it fell asleep", it should wake the truck up to get information.

* An option to eliminate the Ford animations... I want to be able to hop into the truck and just go without having to wait for the cool Ford logo to drive down the road and ride the wave. Let me choose whether I need the animations or just want the operating screens immediately.

Perhaps @Ford Motor Company will consider roadmapping some of these items and the ones below... what are yours?

Sponsored

 

[vbaker4444]

Only a few things missing for me. Climate controls on the app when remote starting (or conditioning). Haven’t been successful adjusting the max charge on the app with the mobile charger (fails every time I save my preferences). My plan is to change it I’m the truck under settings (just lazy last night when testing out the charger at home). Outside of that, I love the Pro and think it’s the best EV out there. Don’t even miss adaptive cruise to be honest. Hardly ever used it in my Tesla. I did test the blue oval network plug and charge through the EA stations and it was as easy as using the SC. Area of improvements, maybe the frunk opening a little faster? I will be testing a long trip this weekend across Michigan and will be doing another set of EA charging (with EVgo as my backup). It’s been a great truck. Does everything I need from a truck standpoint (precious Tacoma owner) and all the EV goodness that my model S had. The wife and kids love it and we pretty much parked our other vehicle after getting the Pro.

 

[vbaker4444]

Only a few things missing for me. Climate controls on the app when remote starting (or conditioning). Haven’t been successful adjusting the max charge on the app with the mobile charger (fails every time I save my preferences). My plan is to change it I’m the truck under settings (just lazy last night when testing out the charger at home). Outside of that, I love the Pro and think it’s the best EV out there. Don’t even miss adaptive cruise to be honest. Hardly ever used it in my Tesla. I did test the blue oval network plug and charge through the EA stations and it was as easy as using the SC. Area of improvements, maybe the frunk opening a little faster? I will be testing a long trip this weekend across Michigan and will be doing another set of EA charging (with EVgo as my backup). It’s been a great truck. Does everything I need from a truck standpoint (precious Tacoma owner) and all the EV goodness that my model S had. The wife and kids love it and we pretty much parked our other vehicle after getting the Pro.

Autocorrect did a great job here

 

[LightningShow]

Even my lowly Bolt allows you to restrict level 1 to 8A. It actually defaults to 8A, you have to tell it to charge at 12A every time you plug it in to a 120v outlet.

Also, i just can’t see the justification for hiding the charging details. That’s a massive screwup. Is there any other company that doesn’t show EV owners the rate that their vehicle is charging? It’s a mindboggling omission.

 

[hturnerfamily]

I think Ford will hear these suggestions and make upgrades to the onscreen information, as, yes, we all seem to want certain things, like charging information, that Ford software engineers might have not thought was important to put in front of the customer... maybe one day in the far future these things will be worries of the past, but right now, with a low charging infrastructure, the owner needs all the information they can get, and more.
These should also be easily seen on the primary screens, not deep down into several onscreen icon presses, especially while driving. Make it easy. Make it functional. Make it intuitive. Just make it...

 

[2000Firehawk]

Similar to what everyone else has said, but charging information seems to be the biggest miss, but would also add a % charge icon on all screens instead of just the calm/blue cruise screen.

BlueCruise needs a sound for when it jumps from hands free to hands on - which is a lot.

One pedal driving works really well for me with two small nit picks. On coming to a complete stop or starting off on certain angles it will roll back ever so slightly - like driving a manual. Also, if one pedal is on and you back up down a hill, quickly flip from reverse to drive without hitting the brake (since you have one pedal on and it slows down) - it jumps into neutral as you pass from R-N-D (naturally), but that jump is really noticeable as it hits neutral and jumps since the one pedal was holding the resistance in R.

Would also agree on the frunk opening speed. It is a great feature of the truck and I use it a lot, but it is frustratingly slow.

Also, not an EV thing, but the middle of speedometer/range screen should be able to show more useful information. The single line of information about the radio/XM station on the bottom is useless. I don't need to be looking at my trip data, etc. constantly (even customized).

 

[F150ROD]

The App sucks for setting in cabin temp, anything related to charging.

I think they should have also left some buttons instead of moving it to the infotainment mainly the 360 Camera, one step became two steps.

Better instrument cluster graphics

But my main gripe is Ford Pass and how useless it is.

 

[bp299]

Maybe I missed how to find it, but how about the actual weight on the onboard scale instead of just a green level?

 

[Nate977p]

Oh boy here we go! I am 8 days in and I wanted to love the truck. I've been waiting for an EV F150 for a decade (ever since the DOA Toyota/Ford hybrid was announced). The wife and I are not fully in love with it. We really like it, but it's stupid little things getting us, which is frustrating because they are so fixable in software. Mine are (some are repeat).

1) Dog mode. This is a killer. We travel a lot and the dogs come EVERYWHERE. We picked the truck up and drove about 120 miles north to a family birthday dinner. We tested and saw remote start left climate on, leaving us to think "awesome we can make our own dog mode". I figured I could keep extending the remote start by 15 minutes. Welp at dinner I learn you can only extend it once. Okay fine I'll just turn the car off and on again from the app. NOPE you have to go to the car, start it, and then it lets you reset. So a 2 hour dinner had me setting a timer, having it go off every 28 minutes and going out to cycle the car. Each time disturbing the dogs who had settled down. This put a huge damper on day one excitement. We also thought it was a given we could monitor temps from the app; nope. So the whole time we were worried if it was on or not. Losing Dog Mode is almost enough justification to sell the truck. We didn't realize how much we rely on it, but we live and breath by it. Just today, she is out of town and I couldn't take the truck because I had client meetings and was going to be away from home much of the day. I needed dog mode and took the Tesla. With it being 100 degrees, knowing it would alert me if it failed, or that I could check the temp every 5 minutes was a huge relief.

2) The Navigation. This has me very irritated daily, especially in stressful driving situations. I never had a car, or drove a car, with any good navigation UI, and I have been in many cars, besides the Tesla. I was so pumped when Android Auto/CarPlay came out. Well we had a Jeep Gladiator from May '20 - Nov '21 and really disliked both Android Auto/CarPlay (mixed OS household). We thought it was Jeep adding extra nannies and having poor USB connections. Well now in the F150L I learned how much I prefer the Tesla OS to AA/CP. It's just so fluid and fast to boot. There's a weird delay in AA that has me missing turns (turns are very close in Boston area); it's weird and cannot explain it but it (Google Maps or Waze) lag a fraction of a second that messes me up. Also the boot up time is long. But more than anything, the inability to type in an address.

Day 2 of having the truck. My wife calls me and we plan on me picking up dinner, I need to change the address. I go to type it into Waze, but I'm locked out. I go to use built in Nav, I'm locked out. I have to then hang up on her, try voice commands and they don't work. Then I try voice commands on AA and it works. Then I call the wife back. It was so frustrating and much less safe than me quickly typing a few letters in the Tesla; I was so distracted for a good 2 minutes.

On top of all that, the Ford voice prompts suck. I am at about 30% success.Tesla is about 95% success. AA is better, but I prefer the built in. So any time my plan changes, I gotta pull over to type in the address; how is that safer when on a highway!

3) Boot up: In the Tesla, as I am walking out the door, I click the address and send it the Tesla (takes 10 seconds). I unplug the car, get in, put my phone on the wireless charger, and drive. It's booted up immediately, has my address, and Spotify is picked up and playing where I left it off; 15 seconds and I'm on the road. In the truck, I unplug, get in, hit the start button, wait 10-20 seconds, enter the address, wait for Android auto, plug in my phone, realize I forgot to close the charge port, get out, close it, get in, and go. It's so many more steps and most have been eliminated in the Tesla. Again I had no idea how good I had it with the Tesla UI/Nav/integrated music.

4) Manual Charge Door: I feel like I'm breaking it with how hard you have to push to open. Then on top of that, I have forgotten to close it every single time. I am sure I will get better with this, but it's just something I am not used to at all.

5) Start Button: I mentioned it above BUT WHY IS THERE A START BUTTON. First time I drove a Model 3 I was so confused, but after that, it just made sense. It's so silly to need a start button in an EV.

6) Cabin overheat protection: I didn't realize how nice it was to have a cabin that is never over 100 degrees getting into it. Coffee is never melted after 5 minutes, waters still drinkable, etc.

7) The Data: Everything that was said earlier about the charge data. It's crazy how limited your data is and how important that is. Why limit it?! And not being able to set the amps per charge is a giant miss. I still have been unable to find where to set the charge to 90 from 100, except the one time override (this is me being dumb probably and not researching).

8) The instrument cluster. I was excited to have one again after the 3, but it is very limited. I would have hoped for a lot more efficiency data, configurability, or maps. I assumed I would see the GPS overlay there like Audi does (most of my experience with digital dash). It's not bad, but I just thought there would be more.

9)BlueCruise. I love it except the nags have me not using it . The eye tracking is a good idea, but with sunglasses, it beeps at me at all the time. If I got to change my seat temp, beep. Change the volume, beep. Even many times looking fully ahead it beeps and only way I can avoid the harsh brake warning is to take them off. Without sunglasses, no issue, but I almost always drive with them during the day. I feel on the highway it is more stable than Tesla AP, but the nags are killer.

Also, when is it on?! It seems there are no real tones and very minor visual details to tell you it's on and what mode it is in. I am not sure, but I think there are 3 modes: 1) Basic ACC/Lane Keep 2)BlueCruise not hands free 3) BlueCruise hands free. After 700 miles, I still am not sure if that 3 mode assumption is right and can never realize, without looking at the tiny icon, what mode I am in. Tesla has one mode - AP (ignoring all the FSD BS).

10) The App. If you are coming from Tesla, just assume there is no app. The features are minimal (no HVAC, no temp, no ability to change chargin settings, no radio control) and the features it has are so slow to load. You open the location and most times it's out of date and hasn't loaded a recent location. I was walking the dogs and thought cool, I can turn Zone Lighting on the see better in the yard. Well that takes 15-20 seconds to load, then once it does, another 15-20 to turn on. Just an incredibly poor app, horribly slow, and leaps and bounds behind Tesla even when I got it in 2018.

11) DahsCam: I've had dashcams for some time and when Tesla integrated them, it was a great feature add! Recording wasn't as good as a dedicated one, but it hit all the main points and gave a great 360 view. I miss having that and didn't even think about needing to buy and install one now; it's been a given for years now.

12) Charging: Small note, but a 131 kWh battery is Huge! I knew, but didn't fully realize the impact. I'm on the mobile charger right now, that's about 18 hours to fully charge! One night we got home with range around 20% and the next day I left and it was only at 65% range after a full night's sleep. It wasnt an issue, but just very surprising as I had not done the math out.

13) DCFC: I had thought the networks were better than what is being said, and did a big post on this earlier on. The chargers are so much fewer, and I am not sure why this isn't a giant talking point, but they seem to average 4 stalls! That's so few, most Tesla SC are a minimum of 8. We have only had to DCFC once, and it was a great comparison as the EA charger was in the same lot as the Tesla SC we frequent. Man did the experience leave a lot to be desired. I didn't realize we had to think about parking orientation. Tesla SC are easy, back in and you are good. I had to remember where the port was and park the right way. Easy enough to do, but just something I didn't realize. Then when I parked realized station was down. Okay there are 4 stalls and all are open. We go to the next stall. Well that one was broken too. We go to the 3rd and it works! Plug and Charge gets a lot of fan fare, and maybe it is better than our experience, but it took ~2 minute to start; it was like booting up a computer with a HDD vs SSD, spinning that felt like it was never gonna stop. So our experience probably 50+ times of using the SC in the same lot was magnitudes better than the EA station. It took about 6/7 minutes to start charging between finding a working stall and waiting for it to finally go. Maybe this was a fluke, but from the experiences we are hearing about, this sounds normal. It feels like a giant step backwards.

14) Charge Speeds: I knew 150 kWh on a big battery was going to be slower, but man. We ran into WalMart and did a little shopping. We charged for 24 minutes and had gained about 40%. In the same time on a Tesla V3 we get about 75-80% and about 70% on a v2. Charge stops are now going to be charge stops we lose time to. With the Tesla, charge stops are usually perfectly timed breaks and 80%+ of the time, car is done before us.

15) Range: From the Mach-e efficiency tests, we were hopeful to get 80% of rated in mild weather, worse in the winter, and better in the summer. We hoped to get a real 280 miles out of it based on past Ford EVs. Well, we are getting 260 miles real range (from 100% to 0%) in the summer. I am nervous what winter will bring. Again, expected with an EV, and what we get in the Tesla, but I just had higher hopes based on Mach-es.

16) Wireless Charging. Huge hardware miss. In an hour drive, I get a few % at most. It must be 5w wireless charging, which is an incredibly old standard and overheats phones fast, with virtually no charge; it is a maintainer at best. And why only one phone slot? There is plenty of space for dual wireless chargers. I never realized how smart Tesla's setup is. My Model 3 has the older console and had a wired charger, but the aftermarket (and later factory) dual wireless charges are much faster. I looked online for aftermarket, but no good solutions.

17) Guess-o-meter(GOM): I often wondered why Tesla did not adjust it's GOM on the fly. I always hoped they would let you out your own efficiency in and have it recalulate to that. Ford's automatically recalulates on the fly. And of the 3 ways to do a GOM (Static/Change parameters manually/Change parameters real time) is this by far the worse. You start a trip based on your last trip. Is it 30 degrees colder today? Are you driving all highway today and yesterday was all city? I have had days it start at 280 miles, 230 miles, and many more random numbers. It is completely meaningless as every day is a different drive with different variables. At least with a static GOM, you can learn the efficiency and mentally calculate. The numbers always changing on the fly kill any planning I typically do in an EV.

Okay fine, ignore the GOM then, just use % you say. We guess what? It is about 3/4 taps down on the center screen or shows on the IC if you are in Calm Mode/BC only. Ford assumes the always changing and temperamental GOM is what you should listen to and shows it 100% of the time, where % is hidden a majority of the time. Tesla lets you pick either and quickly swap by tapping it. Give me that, or at least show both at all times.

Overall, this sounds like a scathing review. It's not! We love the truck and think it is amazing at being an EV F-150. But if you look at it from the lens of an experienced EV (Tesla) owner, it feels very behind the game in many areas. Honestly, almost all of these gripes (minus charging) are pretty straightforward software fixes in the future. I will say though, I was 15/10 excited for this truck and am 6/10 happy with it. I had fully written off the Cybertruck as Tesla BS that will be plagued with issues, and just look at how ugly it is. That being said, I am now more excited for the CT as the software and UI of the F150L really is half a decade behind Tesla. There is not a single "EV" thing it does better. Truck things, oh heck yes! And features, love the cooled seats, love the 360 cameras, power frunk is amazing! And countless more great features.

If you are looking at the F150L through the lens of an ICE owner, especially a F150 owner, this is an amazing vehicle and you will love it. The interface and features are leaps and bounds above any non-EV I have driven. And I think that is what Ford was benchmarking for, and crushed.


Hope this helps!

 

[Nate977p]

Wow pardon the long post! Hope it comes off as helpful and not negative. I have really been thinking on all this over the last week and wondering why I don't "love" it fully yet (but we do really like it).

I will also add I think for the price, battery size, performance, and features it's an amazing (the best?) Value in EVs at all trim levels

 

[skiborsy]

12) Charging: Small note, but a 131 kWh battery is Huge! I knew, but didn't fully realize the impact. I'm on the mobile charger right now, that's about 18 hours to fully charge! One night we got home with range around 20% and the next day I left and it was only at 65% range after a full night's sleep. It wasnt an issue, but just very surprising as I had not done the math out.

This is exacerbated by the mobile charge connector being limited to 30A. It's interesting they give you a powerful, 80A hardwired charge connector but not a 40A mobile charge connector. Tesla is similarly limited to 32A these days, but on a 100 kWh battery max.

And just to echo the gripes above, would be great to (a) be able to select a current limitation and (b) see the rate you're charging at. I'd also like to be able to set a default charge limitation (e.g., 90%) rather than having to set a limit on a per-location basis.

Others for the list:

• I get that it's a truck and truck buyers historically want a shifter, and not saying they should go to the Tesla system of guessing which direction you want to go, but I can't get behind a purely drive-by-wire shifter that takes up half the console. Maybe go with the Lincoln PRDL push buttons as a happy medium.
• May just be me, but the proximity key seems to require you to be inches from the door to unlock. Which is weird given the lights come on when you're 15 feet away, so clearly the vehicle knows you're there.
• Why limit us to three user profiles linked to memory buttons on the door? Seems like with phone as a key, it would be more convenient to link to the driver's phone (like Teslas do).
• Frunk is slow, but so is the tailgate on the way up.
• Truck seems to love defaulting to enabling driver-focused HVAC setting - how about turning on/off in the back automatically based on seatbelt usage (like I believe our Model X does)?

 

[GDN]

I drove a Model 3 for 4 years and still have another in the garage. So I definitely think Ford should have been able to at least copy the good features from Tesla, but they haven't. I think all of my issues have been listed above, I'll capture though for what bugs me the most.

1 - Lack of motor control at slow speeds or shifting F to R and vice versa. There should be no roll, there should be no slack but there is. I think this is what Kyle from OOS noted in his test drives. It's just sloppy.

2 - The app and charging. It is the most unintuitive way to set your charging limit ever. In fact you have to charge once at any address it looks like to be able to set the limit at that address for future chargers. Why?

3 - Navigation voice feedback is way too wordy and so far likely only correct 40% of the time - the Tesla rarely missed it. It is taking a step backwards.

4- Start/Stop button - personally I hate this and didn't see a need - it doesn't make sense for those that use this as a daily driver and commuter family vehicle. However, I'll go on record as saying I get it now. For those that use the truck for work. Those that might be in and out of the truck but not need to go anywhere - a job site for example. You don't need the AC firing up every time. You don't need it to power up to drive at times. For those folks I get it. For my use - it is a big waste. The truck could be more intuitive.

5 - PRND shifter. The stalk on a Tesla is easier and makes more sense. I don't want a dial, but the old traditional shifter Ford left behind is clunky.

6- COHP - Cabin Overheat Protection - just do it already. Way too simple and needed in the heat.

7 - The GUI. - way over complicated. Narrow it down. Controls and Settings. The dash could be way more customizable.

8 - Edit to add - Bluecruise is dangerous as hell dis-engaging without more of a warning. You get a flash on the screen, but there has to be more of an alert than that you need to take over your truck just quit steering for you. This will make you scratch your head.

9 - Edit to add - this deserves its own thread to see how to improve, but for this price point the stereo sucks. Paying for a name like B&O to have something like this in the Lightning is kind of embarrassing. Those that drive a Tesla - 3 and Y and later S will understand this.

I'll acknowledge that Tesla has evolved, the app wasn't near what it is today on day 1, but Ford has had time to cheat and copy and they haven't. Their thought process to make things happen is clunk. Tesla takes it to the extreme to need so little interaction so maybe a middle ground, but Ford could have at least copied the good parts.

 

[FlasherZ]

I didn't intend for this to become a gripe approach, which is why I asked what was missing rather than what's wrong - but feedback is a gift and hopefully accepted.

 

[adoublee]

Oh boy here we go! I am 8 days in and I wanted to love the truck. I've been waiting for an EV F150 for a decade (ever since the DOA Toyota/Ford hybrid was announced). The wife and I are not fully in love with it. We really like it, but it's stupid little things getting us, which is frustrating because they are so fixable in software. Mine are (some are repeat).

1) Dog mode. This is a killer. We travel a lot and the dogs come EVERYWHERE. We picked the truck up and drove about 120 miles north to a family birthday dinner. We tested and saw remote start left climate on, leaving us to think "awesome we can make our own dog mode". I figured I could keep extending the remote start by 15 minutes. Welp at dinner I learn you can only extend it once. Okay fine I'll just turn the car off and on again from the app. NOPE you have to go to the car, start it, and then it lets you reset. So a 2 hour dinner had me setting a timer, having it go off every 28 minutes and going out to cycle the car. Each time disturbing the dogs who had settled down. This put a huge damper on day one excitement. We also thought it was a given we could monitor temps from the app; nope. So the whole time we were worried if it was on or not. Losing Dog Mode is almost enough justification to sell the truck. We didn't realize how much we rely on it, but we live and breath by it. Just today, she is out of town and I couldn't take the truck because I had client meetings and was going to be away from home much of the day. I needed dog mode and took the Tesla. With it being 100 degrees, knowing it would alert me if it failed, or that I could check the temp every 5 minutes was a huge relief.

2) The Navigation. This has me very irritated daily, especially in stressful driving situations. I never had a car, or drove a car, with any good navigation UI, and I have been in many cars, besides the Tesla. I was so pumped when Android Auto/CarPlay came out. Well we had a Jeep Gladiator from May '20 - Nov '21 and really disliked both Android Auto/CarPlay (mixed OS household). We thought it was Jeep adding extra nannies and having poor USB connections. Well now in the F150L I learned how much I prefer the Tesla OS to AA/CP. It's just so fluid and fast to boot. There's a weird delay in AA that has me missing turns (turns are very close in Boston area); it's weird and cannot explain it but it (Google Maps or Waze) lag a fraction of a second that messes me up. Also the boot up time is long. But more than anything, the inability to type in an address.

Day 2 of having the truck. My wife calls me and we plan on me picking up dinner, I need to change the address. I go to type it into Waze, but I'm locked out. I go to use built in Nav, I'm locked out. I have to then hang up on her, try voice commands and they don't work. Then I try voice commands on AA and it works. Then I call the wife back. It was so frustrating and much less safe than me quickly typing a few letters in the Tesla; I was so distracted for a good 2 minutes.

On top of all that, the Ford voice prompts suck. I am at about 30% success.Tesla is about 95% success. AA is better, but I prefer the built in. So any time my plan changes, I gotta pull over to type in the address; how is that safer when on a highway!

3) Boot up: In the Tesla, as I am walking out the door, I click the address and send it the Tesla (takes 10 seconds). I unplug the car, get in, put my phone on the wireless charger, and drive. It's booted up immediately, has my address, and Spotify is picked up and playing where I left it off; 15 seconds and I'm on the road. In the truck, I unplug, get in, hit the start button, wait 10-20 seconds, enter the address, wait for Android auto, plug in my phone, realize I forgot to close the charge port, get out, close it, get in, and go. It's so many more steps and most have been eliminated in the Tesla. Again I had no idea how good I had it with the Tesla UI/Nav/integrated music.

4) Manual Charge Door: I feel like I'm breaking it with how hard you have to push to open. Then on top of that, I have forgotten to close it every single time. I am sure I will get better with this, but it's just something I am not used to at all.

5) Start Button: I mentioned it above BUT WHY IS THERE A START BUTTON. First time I drove a Model 3 I was so confused, but after that, it just made sense. It's so silly to need a start button in an EV.

6) Cabin overheat protection: I didn't realize how nice it was to have a cabin that is never over 100 degrees getting into it. Coffee is never melted after 5 minutes, waters still drinkable, etc.

7) The Data: Everything that was said earlier about the charge data. It's crazy how limited your data is and how important that is. Why limit it?! And not being able to set the amps per charge is a giant miss. I still have been unable to find where to set the charge to 90 from 100, except the one time override (this is me being dumb probably and not researching).

8) The instrument cluster. I was excited to have one again after the 3, but it is very limited. I would have hoped for a lot more efficiency data, configurability, or maps. I assumed I would see the GPS overlay there like Audi does (most of my experience with digital dash). It's not bad, but I just thought there would be more.

9)BlueCruise. I love it except the nags have me not using it . The eye tracking is a good idea, but with sunglasses, it beeps at me at all the time. If I got to change my seat temp, beep. Change the volume, beep. Even many times looking fully ahead it beeps and only way I can avoid the harsh brake warning is to take them off. Without sunglasses, no issue, but I almost always drive with them during the day. I feel on the highway it is more stable than Tesla AP, but the nags are killer.

Also, when is it on?! It seems there are no real tones and very minor visual details to tell you it's on and what mode it is in. I am not sure, but I think there are 3 modes: 1) Basic ACC/Lane Keep 2)BlueCruise not hands free 3) BlueCruise hands free. After 700 miles, I still am not sure if that 3 mode assumption is right and can never realize, without looking at the tiny icon, what mode I am in. Tesla has one mode - AP (ignoring all the FSD BS).

10) The App. If you are coming from Tesla, just assume there is no app. The features are minimal (no HVAC, no temp, no ability to change chargin settings, no radio control) and the features it has are so slow to load. You open the location and most times it's out of date and hasn't loaded a recent location. I was walking the dogs and thought cool, I can turn Zone Lighting on the see better in the yard. Well that takes 15-20 seconds to load, then once it does, another 15-20 to turn on. Just an incredibly poor app, horribly slow, and leaps and bounds behind Tesla even when I got it in 2018.

11) DahsCam: I've had dashcams for some time and when Tesla integrated them, it was a great feature add! Recording wasn't as good as a dedicated one, but it hit all the main points and gave a great 360 view. I miss having that and didn't even think about needing to buy and install one now; it's been a given for years now.

12) Charging: Small note, but a 131 kWh battery is Huge! I knew, but didn't fully realize the impact. I'm on the mobile charger right now, that's about 18 hours to fully charge! One night we got home with range around 20% and the next day I left and it was only at 65% range after a full night's sleep. It wasnt an issue, but just very surprising as I had not done the math out.

13) DCFC: I had thought the networks were better than what is being said, and did a big post on this earlier on. The chargers are so much fewer, and I am not sure why this isn't a giant talking point, but they seem to average 4 stalls! That's so few, most Tesla SC are a minimum of 8. We have only had to DCFC once, and it was a great comparison as the EA charger was in the same lot as the Tesla SC we frequent. Man did the experience leave a lot to be desired. I didn't realize we had to think about parking orientation. Tesla SC are easy, back in and you are good. I had to remember where the port was and park the right way. Easy enough to do, but just something I didn't realize. Then when I parked realized station was down. Okay there are 4 stalls and all are open. We go to the next stall. Well that one was broken too. We go to the 3rd and it works! Plug and Charge gets a lot of fan fare, and maybe it is better than our experience, but it took ~2 minute to start; it was like booting up a computer with a HDD vs SSD, spinning that felt like it was never gonna stop. So our experience probably 50+ times of using the SC in the same lot was magnitudes better than the EA station. It took about 6/7 minutes to start charging between finding a working stall and waiting for it to finally go. Maybe this was a fluke, but from the experiences we are hearing about, this sounds normal. It feels like a giant step backwards.

14) Charge Speeds: I knew 150 kWh on a big battery was going to be slower, but man. We ran into WalMart and did a little shopping. We charged for 24 minutes and had gained about 40%. In the same time on a Tesla V3 we get about 75-80% and about 70% on a v2. Charge stops are now going to be charge stops we lose time to. With the Tesla, charge stops are usually perfectly timed breaks and 80%+ of the time, car is done before us.

15) Range: From the Mach-e efficiency tests, we were hopeful to get 80% of rated in mild weather, worse in the winter, and better in the summer. We hoped to get a real 280 miles out of it based on past Ford EVs. Well, we are getting 260 miles real range (from 100% to 0%) in the summer. I am nervous what winter will bring. Again, expected with an EV, and what we get in the Tesla, but I just had higher hopes based on Mach-es.

16) Wireless Charging. Huge hardware miss. In an hour drive, I get a few % at most. It must be 5w wireless charging, which is an incredibly old standard and overheats phones fast, with virtually no charge; it is a maintainer at best. And why only one phone slot? There is plenty of space for dual wireless chargers. I never realized how smart Tesla's setup is. My Model 3 has the older console and had a wired charger, but the aftermarket (and later factory) dual wireless charges are much faster. I looked online for aftermarket, but no good solutions.

17) Guess-o-meter(GOM): I often wondered why Tesla did not adjust it's GOM on the fly. I always hoped they would let you out your own efficiency in and have it recalulate to that. Ford's automatically recalulates on the fly. And of the 3 ways to do a GOM (Static/Change parameters manually/Change parameters real time) is this by far the worse. You start a trip based on your last trip. Is it 30 degrees colder today? Are you driving all highway today and yesterday was all city? I have had days it start at 280 miles, 230 miles, and many more random numbers. It is completely meaningless as every day is a different drive with different variables. At least with a static GOM, you can learn the efficiency and mentally calculate. The numbers always changing on the fly kill any planning I typically do in an EV.

Okay fine, ignore the GOM then, just use % you say. We guess what? It is about 3/4 taps down on the center screen or shows on the IC if you are in Calm Mode/BC only. Ford assumes the always changing and temperamental GOM is what you should listen to and shows it 100% of the time, where % is hidden a majority of the time. Tesla lets you pick either and quickly swap by tapping it. Give me that, or at least show both at all times.

Overall, this sounds like a scathing review. It's not! We love the truck and think it is amazing at being an EV F-150. But if you look at it from the lens of an experienced EV (Tesla) owner, it feels very behind the game in many areas. Honestly, almost all of these gripes (minus charging) are pretty straightforward software fixes in the future. I will say though, I was 15/10 excited for this truck and am 6/10 happy with it. I had fully written off the Cybertruck as Tesla BS that will be plagued with issues, and just look at how ugly it is. That being said, I am now more excited for the CT as the software and UI of the F150L really is half a decade behind Tesla. There is not a single "EV" thing it does better. Truck things, oh heck yes! And features, love the cooled seats, love the 360 cameras, power frunk is amazing! And countless more great features.

If you are looking at the F150L through the lens of an ICE owner, especially a F150 owner, this is an amazing vehicle and you will love it. The interface and features are leaps and bounds above any non-EV I have driven. And I think that is what Ford was benchmarking for, and crushed.


Hope this helps!

Get it out. Get it all out.

 

[Maquis]

If I needed a dog mode, I’d just leave the truck “running” and lock it with the fob inside. Re-enter via door code.

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