F150 Lightning as an Urban Assault Vehicle

[F150ROD]

Love, Love, Love your, "Pop your collar" comment! Classic.

To be honest, I thought it was a troll thread.

My apologies to the OP…..

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[ivan256]

Curbs and anything else you want to run over are absolutely no problem unless you approach them with the sidewall. There is approximately infinity torque from a stop and the truck will happily run up or over anything you don’t hit with the bumper. It’s climbs rocks like crazy.

The things I would list under “other” for city driving are:

• The mirrors are terrible. They will leave you with blindspots and you will have to get used to them and/or rely on the technological aids.
• The technological aids are overly sensitive for tight urban environments. Especially the cross traffic detection when backing up. But the pre-collision assist will also frequently tell you that you’re about to die when it sees brake lights that aren’t actually in your path of travel.
• The turning radius means even if the parking space is wide enough, you might not have enough approach distance to get into it without multi-point entry

I think that most of your difficulty will simply be due to the fact that it’s a large vehicle and you will have to take special care, just like if you bought an Escalade or something.

 

[djwildstar]

I apologize for any sarcastic or unfriendly messages you may have gotten. As a first-time full-size truck buyer, I'm sure you have a lot of questions and concerns. Though it isn't my first full-size truck (I learned to drive on the family farm in a Chevy pickup), I now live near Atlanta and I'm coming to the Lighthning from a Ford Flex SUV. I'll do what I can to offer serious answers.

1. Popping Curbs: In general, a Lightning Pro or XLT should be able to drive on and off curbs easily. These trims come stock with 18" wheels. The Lariat comes with 20" wheels so not much additional concern. I have a Lariat and may have cut a corner a tad too tight once or twice, and had the rear wheels hop on and off a curb. A bit of a bump, but no problem. If you've ordered a Platinum (22" wheels) I would be careful around curbs with the relatively low sidewalls on those tires.
2. Speed Bumps: The Lightning has good ground clearance and rides better than practically any other pickup truck on the market due to the heavy battery down low between the frame rails and the independent rear suspension. As long as your speed isn't excessive, you can mostly ignore speed bumps.
3. Stop-and-Go Traffic: One-pedal driving is great for stop-and-go traffic. The Lightning has great acceleration and plenty of brake authority. Electric vehicles in general are good for urban environments: lower speeds are more efficient, and regenerative braking will recapture a good bit of the energy that would otherwise be lost when stopping.
4. Turn Radius: Turn radius is typical for a full-size truck: you will need a median and two lanes in the oncoming direction to make a U-turn. In general, typical city intersections are not a problem. Tight parking garages, alleyways, and driveways can be a challenge, but if you have the 360-degree cameras these help a lot.
5. Parking: A full-size pickup can be a beast to maneuver into big-city parking spaces. The Lightning is 19'5" long, 8' wide (7' with the mirrors folded), and 6'7" tall. For comparison, a US "compact" parking space is 16' long and 8' wide, a "standard" parking space is 18' long and 8'6" wide, and a "large" parking space is 20' long and 9' wide. Clearly, a "large" parking space is ideal, but the Lightning will fit in many standard parking spaces too -- it has 37" of front overhang and 49" of rear overhang, so if there is at least 17" between the parking block or curb and any obstacles, that will take care of it. In some parking garages, the truck sticks out more than most vehicles because of its length, but in general it hasn't been a problem.
   I love one-pedal driving for parking, because it is easy to creep forward very lowly and stop immediately by lifting your foot. The 360-degree cameras in the Tow Technology Package are a game changer (the Tow Technology Package is optional on Pro, XLT, and SR Lariat, standard on ER Lariat and Platinum) because you can see exactly how much clearance you have.
   The ER Lariat and Platinum also include Active Park Assist, which can automatically park the truck for you and correctly handles both parallel parking along the street and back-in parking in a parking lot.
6. Car Wash: A typical self-service car wash bay is 13' to 15' wide and 25' to 30' long, so no problem fitting the truck into one of these and giving it a good wash. I haven't taken my truck through an automatic car wash, and don't plan to. I've had previous vehicles scratched up by these (in general, you'll get scratches unless the operator keeps the brushes really clean), and people have reported issues with "touchless" car washes taking off some of the "Lightning" lettering from the side of the truck. The Lightning does have a timed neutral setting specifically for automatic car washes.
7. Anything Else: Do you have a Level 2 charging solution, either at home or at work? This is key to making an EV practical for a lot of people: having the truck charged and ready to go every morning is a huge plus.

 

[RaptorEV]

(im in real estate development)

Checks out.

 

[Ventorum94]

I live in a big city in a very dense downtown area. I have a lightning coming soon, but want to understand it’s ability to do urban assault activities (such as
1. popping curbs,
2. speed bumps,
3. accelerating/decelerating at a gazillion stop signs,
4. turn radius - how many lanes do you need to pull a U turn?,
5. parking - is it impossible to find a space large enough?
6. car wash - can it fit in an auto car wash? (im a first time truck buyer),
7. anything else im missing!

Thanks!

I think no. 7 should be at the top of the list: if you live in a big city, in a dense downtown area, it seems less likely that you own a garage at your home. This is critical for success with a Lightning, or any EV, imho. One really needs the convenience and flexibility of at-home charging (not just “accessible” charging- needs to be indoors, and steps away from where you sleep). The other aspect of home-garaging is that it enables you to maintain an optimal battery temperature while parked during winter. This is a huge advantage for avoiding range loss, and cannot be equalled by a parking space in a cold parking garage, or a curbside/alley parking place. It’s ironic that dense urban areas, which might benefit most from electrification of personal transportation, are about the least practically-equipped for EVs, due to a scarcity of personal garages.

 

[ctuan13]

Curbs and anything else you want to run over are absolutely no problem unless you approach them with the sidewall. There is approximately infinity torque from a stop and the truck will happily run up or over anything you don’t hit with the bumper. It’s climbs rocks like crazy.

The things I would list under “other” for city driving are:

• The mirrors are terrible. They will leave you with blindspots and you will have to get used to them and/or rely on the technological aids.
• The technological aids are overly sensitive for tight urban environments. Especially the cross traffic detection when backing up. But the pre-collision assist will also frequently tell you that you’re about to die when it sees brake lights that aren’t actually in your path of travel.
• The turning radius means even if the parking space is wide enough, you might not have enough approach distance to get into it without multi-point entry

I think that most of your difficulty will simply be due to the fact that it’s a large vehicle and you will have to take special care, just like if you bought an Escalade or something.

I'll agree with you on the tech nanny stuff being hyper sensitive, but I couldn't disagree with you more on the mirrors. They're large and wide and provide excellent visibility. Unless you're not adjusting them properly and have them set to where you're still looking at the side of your truck, you can easily eliminate blindspots. I'd argue the only mirror that might need a bit of improvement is the central rear view mirror, as it could be slightly bigger, but the side view mirrors are perfect.

 

[ivan256]

I'll agree with you on the tech nanny stuff being hyper sensitive, but I couldn't disagree with you more on the mirrors. They're large and wide and provide excellent visibility. Unless you're not adjusting them properly and have them set to where you're still looking at the side of your truck, you can easily eliminate blindspots. I'd argue the only mirror that might need a bit of improvement is the central rear view mirror, as it could be slightly bigger, but the side view mirrors are perfect.

I find that I need to move the mirror farther out than typical to have any chance to see, and the cutout at the bottom of the mirror results in small cars close to the truck being invisible - not visible in your rear view, and haven't moved into your side field of view yet. If you pull the mirrors in farther you have the opposite problem where they will disappear from the side view before they're in your peripheral vision (if they ever are, since the truck is so tall).

You cannot adjust mirrors to completely eliminate blind spots (Even if you adjust them this way, which minimizes blind spots for vehicles travelling parallel to your direction of travel). But the shape of the F-150 mirrors makes the blind spots significantly bigger than they were in my previous F-350 (with the standard mirrors, not the towing mirrors).

The lower-spec F-150s have these mirrors, and the visibility out of them is MUCH better due to the parabolic insert:

The lack of the bottom right corner of the mirror is most noticeable when you are merging and the person behind you decides that you're a big slow truck they can try to go around on the same side you're merging towards (I drive in Massachusetts!). Or when you're backing into a perpendicular parking space. Or trying to get super close to the curb parallel parking. Or...

 

[ivan256]

I'd like to add that I've never had a situation where I couldn't see a car AND the blindspot light wasn't on. But my brain just doesn't process that little yellow light as fast as it does seeing a car in the mirror.

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