DC Fast Chargers not recognizing 320 mile range

[PreservedSwine]

Thanks for quick responses. I just assumed I would get a fast charge at 80% of 320 not 80% of 240. My question now is why did I pay for the extended range? I love the truck for daily driving but never get close to going 320 miles in a day. Looks like I wasted 10K getting extended range.

Allow me
*hands beer to rest of forum

I have an SR and just road tripped 900 miles (round trip)
The longest stretch I could manage was 135 miles before recharging. Most stops were right around 100 miles. I love the truck- (disclaimer for those that are about to defend the truck) and I bought it for local use only. The road trip was simply out of curiosity.
While pulling over for 30-40 minutes every hour and a half/two hours might not bother all people, I had places to go and people to see. In hindsight/ this single road trip made me question buying the standard range.
Due to placement of chargers- my road trip would have been at least an hour shorter (perhaps two) with an extended range. Given the option of spending an extra 15k or pulling over every 100 miles, I would have considered selling a child and getting the er right then and there

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[NickOSU7]

The short answer is that what you're seeing is normal for the Lightning (and practically every other EV, for that matter). Your best strategy for road trips will give you a roughly 80:20 split between driving and charging.

There are a few things going on here, so let's unpack them.

First, you should understand that an EV's battery doesn't hold miles, any more than a gas-powered truck's gas tank holds miles (if you don't believe me, try going into QuikTrip and telling the clerk "250 miles on pump 12" ). The battery holds kiloWatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, a lot like a gas tank holds gallons of gas. One kWh has about the same amount of energy as a half-cup of gas; an ER Lightning's battery holds the same amount of energy as 4 gallons of gas.

The second is that how far you can drive on 1 kWh depends a lot on how and where you're driving. Driving at 35 on a country road in springtime, you can get more than 3 miles on one kWh. Hauling a trailer at highway speeds up a mountain pass, you'll be lucky to go a half-mile on one kWh. As a very rough rule of thumb, the EPA-rated 320 miles is achievable if you drive 55 (cue Sammy Hagar's I Can't Drive 55); At 65, you're looking at more like 270 miles, 210 at 75, and maybe 130 miles at a constant 85. Motor Trend gives the ER Lightning a 240-mile highway cruising range, because they do their tests at 70.

Finally, batteries don't charge like a gas tank fills. The Lightning has a "charging curve" -- the battery will charge faster when it is closer to empty, and slower when it is close to full. The Lightning will do what it can to pack as much power into the battery as possible during the first few minutes. Ford's spec is 41 minutes to charge from 15% to 80% and under ideal conditions my truck will beat that number by a few minutes. Charging really slows down above 80%. It isn't too bad (5-10 minutes) to get from 80% to 85%, but it can take more than another hour to get from 85% to 100%. So on road trips, you don't want to charge above 80% unless you absolutely, positively have to.

So here's my advice for your must-do road trip:

1. Plan your trip using FordPass or ABRP (A Better Route Planner), and double-check the your planned charging stops using PlugShare to make sure that you're likely to be able to charge. Ideally have an alternate charging location in mind and enough reserve range to get there.
2. Charge to 100% before you leave home, so that your initial leg can be 20% longer. Similarly, if you stop overnight, do it at a location that has AC charging and ideally arrange things so you can start your next day at 100% charge, too.
3. Plan your charging stops about 150 miles apart if possible. This will give you about 2 hours of driving between 30-minute charging stops, for that 80:20 driving to charging ratio.
4. Program your day's destination and next charging stop into Sync Navigation so that the truck can give you more-accurate range and distance information as you drive.
5. Drive each leg at the prevailing traffic speed, but never more than either 5 miles over the speed limit or 80 miles an hour (whichever is lower).
6. Monitor your remaining range versus distance to destination, and slow down if it looks like you will arrive too close to empty. I aim for about 30 miles remaining in the battery when I pull in to charge unless I need more in reserve to get to my back-up charger.

Thank you for this well detailed response.

 

[bydabeach]

The confusion is *probably* that the truck is simply less efficient at interstate speeds.

At 75mph, it probably has about 240 miles of range on a 100% charge. So, that's why you're getting 80% of 240 miles.

But the "standard range" truck will only cover ~180 miles on a 100% charge at 75mph.

2022 Lariat ER here. Have had it since November 2022. Had not driven it for 10 days because I was on vacation.
Took it to work this morning, connected to the free charger at work, which in the summer months would charge to about 285-290 miles (90% of the 320 miles).

Today, after being parked for 12 hours, truck was charged to 241 miles. Drove highway miles at about 70 mph for 36 miles. Saw I was getting only 1.5 mi/kWh. Range left when I got home was 183 miles. So, I consumed 58 miles on a 36 mile drive.

Based on the purported 241 miles of range, if I continued that same drive, I would have been good for under 150 miles on a truck rated for 320 miles. It was 41 degrees F during my drive home. That sucks.

And have done pre-conditioning prior to the morning commute--it makes minimal difference.

 

[Pioneer74]

2022 Lariat ER here. Have had it since November 2022. Had not driven it for 10 days because I was on vacation.
Took it to work this morning, connected to the free charger at work, which in the summer months would charge to about 285-290 miles (90% of the 320 miles).

Today, after being parked for 12 hours, truck was charged to 241 miles. Drove highway miles at about 70 mph for 36 miles. Saw I was getting only 1.5 mi/kWh. Range left when I got home was 183 miles. So, I consumed 58 miles on a 36 mile drive.

Based on the purported 241 miles of range, if I continued that same drive, I would have been good for under 150 miles on a truck rated for 320 miles. It was 41 degrees F during my drive home. That sucks.

And have done pre-conditioning prior to the morning commute--it makes minimal difference.

1.5 mi/kWh x 131 kWh battery = 196 miles of range. Welcome to winter.

 

[bydabeach]

1.5 mi/kWh x 131 kWh battery = 196 miles of range. Welcome to winter.

Thanks for the calculation, which I am well aware of and in my estimation is utter bullshit. I went through one winter already with my Lightning. Maybe the power consumption would have "leveled out" on my drive last evening, but based on the first 36 miles of my ride, if I continued driving at that rate, I would have "enjoyed" 149-150 miles of range on a vehicle "rated" for 320 miles.

Last winter, I recall the range of meter would "give" me 260 miles on a 90% charge. Now it's 240 miles, and even that is not a true number.

I'm an engineer and handle patents, some in battery technology. I well understand how the cold, aerodynamics, velocity and load (trailers) impact power consumption, just like in a gasoline vehicle.

EV manufacturers and the EPA would be well advised to be more transparent in their advertising and touting of range. For example:

Range: 320 Miles- when fully charged, on a warm summer day, driving on a flat road at 50 mph. At temperatures below 45 degrees, driving an highway speeds of 70 mph, expect your range to be as low as 150 miles.

 

[USA EV]

Range: 320 Miles- when fully charged, on a warm summer day, driving on a flat road at 50 mph. At temperatures below 45 degrees, driving an highway speeds of 70 mph, expect your range to be as low as 150 miles.

* when charged to 90% and not preconditioning before leaving

I for one would be interested if you could repeat with preconditioning (since it's a commute). It could have been running the heater for your battery at first and leveled out on a longer trip as you say.

 

[bydabeach]

* when charged to 90% and not preconditioning before leaving

I for one would be interested if you could repeat with preconditioning (since it's a commute). It could have been running the heater for your battery at first and leveled out on a longer trip as you say.

still tinkering and hoping. Oddly, however, I do precondition for the morning commute, and my "consumption" is almost always nominally worse (about 50 miles) on the morning commute versus the evening commute (about 45 miles) without pre-conditioning on the exact same route (and speed, about 70 mph) to and from work. The difference, which obviously makes a difference, is the temperature, which is in the high 20's to low 30's in the morning and high 30s to low 40s in the evening commute. I don't precondition for the ride home because I don't leave work at a fixed time- sometimes it's 5 p.m., and last night it was 8 p.m., which explains why my post last night was so cranky.

 

[RickLightning]

still tinkering and hoping. Oddly, however, I do precondition for the morning commute, and my "consumption" is almost always nominally worse (about 50 miles) on the morning commute versus the evening commute (about 45 miles) without pre-conditioning on the exact same route (and speed, about 70 mph) to and from work. The difference, which obviously makes a difference, is the temperature, which is in the high 20's to low 30's in the morning and high 30s to low 40s in the evening commute. I don't precondition for the ride home because I don't leave work at a fixed time- sometimes it's 5 p.m., and last night it was 8 p.m., which explains why my post last night was so cranky.

Are you plugged into a level 2 charger when you the departure time runs (I assume you mean departure time when you use the term "precondition")?

 

[jimfigler]

Just went on my first long road trip and felt I had everything mapped out perfectly, until I got to electrify America's DC Fast chargers and it thought I had the 240-range lightning. Every time I hit 80 percent of 240 the chargers slowed to a crawl, and I could never get to 320. Any suggestions? This is a trip I take alot and cannot keep truck if no solution.

The charger doesnt care what the guessimated range is showing it just cares what the current SOC is, like 80%.

 

[bydabeach]

Are you plugged into a level 2 charger when you the departure time runs (I assume you mean departure time when you use the term "precondition")?

Forgive my naivete, but I am plugged into my home charger supplied by Ford when I bought the Lightning. Stupid question- that's level 2, right? I think the charger at work is Level 2, but it is slow AF (much slower than the home charger), but also free.

 

[RickLightning]

Forgive my naivete, but I am plugged into my home charger supplied by Ford when I bought the Lightning. Stupid question- that's level 2, right? I think the charger at work is Level 2, but it is slow AF (much slower than the home charger), but also free.

Yes, that is level 2 IF it's plugged into a 240v circuit. If plugged into a 120v circuit it's level 1.

 

[bydabeach]

Yes, that is level 2 IF it's plugged into a 240v circuit. If plugged into a 120v circuit it's level 1.

240V.
As an engineer, I'm a bit curious about my pre-condition morning commute battery consumption being greater than my evening commute without pre-condition. It has to be due to the temperature difference. There is no meaningful difference in the commute (route is exactly the same and traffic is minimal on the Parkway).

 

[sotek2345]

240V.
As an engineer, I'm a bit curious about my pre-condition morning commute battery consumption being greater than my evening commute without pre-condition. It has to be due to the temperature difference. There is no meaningful difference in the commute (route is exactly the same and traffic is minimal on the Parkway).

Any elevation change? Also - is it dark in the morning and light at night? Headlights take power, but not that much.

For the precondition, are you setting a departure time, or just remote starting? That could be a big difference. If you are just remote starting, the energy use while it is sitting will be counted towards the trip and give you lower average economy.

 

[Pioneer74]

240V.
As an engineer, I'm a bit curious about my pre-condition morning commute battery consumption being greater than my evening commute without pre-condition. It has to be due to the temperature difference. There is no meaningful difference in the commute (route is exactly the same and traffic is minimal on the Parkway).

If you really want to figure out the numbers, get an Emporia energy monitor. You'll need one rated for a main panel if you're using the Charge Station Pro. The individual circuit monitors are not accurate above 50 amps. You can then track how much energy you are putting into the truck preconditioning and compare it to the energy your truck consumes on your commute without it.

https://shop.emporiaenergy.com/coll...s/gen-2-emporia-vue-whole-home-energy-monitor

 

[djwildstar]

Last winter, I recall the range of meter would "give" me 260 miles on a 90% charge. Now it's 240 miles, and even that is not a true number.

EV manufacturers and the EPA would be well advised to be more transparent in their advertising and touting of range.

We call it the guess-o-meter because it is basically just a guess. Part of the problem is that there are so many variables that can affect the range computation that it is practically impossible to determine it says 240 miles today versus 260 miles on January 3rd last year. In the past 2 weeks alone, mine has said anything from 235 miles to 275 miles at a full charge.

Ultimately, your battery holds kWh, and the number of miles you get out of that depends greatly on how and where you drive. While it would be nice if Ford published a chart of expected range or efficiency under different driving conditions, the reality is that individual drivers can cause enough variation to make it functionally useless -- you're better off getting some experience with your truck driven the way you drive it.

The real purpose of the EPA range and efficiency figures are to provide an apples-to-apples comparison between different vehicles, and not to tell you how far you can expect to drive today. The EPA number is pretty transparent -- their test methodology is publicly-available, so that if you want to understand how and why they got to a specific number, it is available to you.

Most EV reviews include a variety of real-world range tests, which can give you a better idea of how far an experienced driver can expect to go under good conditions. For what it's worth, Motor Trend gives the ER Lightning a "real world" range estimate of 240 miles.

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