Charging the F-150 Lightning: Everything You Need To Know [Video]

[Bill from King Ranch]

Who has 320A residential service? That's crazy!

Me (he says sheepishly with hand up stretched)?

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[tommolog]

Hello everyone. I'm the guy in that video, thanks for sharing it here. I also have an F-150 Lightning reservation (which I made the first day reservations opened).

I see a lot of people here have questions about the Intelligent Backup Power system. I just had an interview with Ford engineers about it and I'll be posting a video next week on what I've learned.

There's good news including you do NOT have to have a 320-amp service at your home to have the system, regardless of what Ford's website says.

Stay tuned for the video. I'll post it in these forums as soon as it's up.

 

[sotek2345]

Hello everyone. I'm the guy in that video, thanks for sharing it here. I also have an F-150 Lightning reservation (which I made the first day reservations opened).

I see a lot of people here have questions about the Intelligent Backup Power system. I just had an interview with Ford engineers about it and I'll be posting a video next week on what I've learned.

There's good news including you do NOT have to have a 320-amp service at your home to have the system, regardless of what Ford's website says.

Stay tuned for the video. I'll post it in these forums as soon as it's up.

Can't wait - love your videos!

 

[shutterbug]

Hello everyone. I'm the guy in that video, thanks for sharing it here. I also have an F-150 Lightning reservation (which I made the first day reservations opened).

I see a lot of people here have questions about the Intelligent Backup Power system. I just had an interview with Ford engineers about it and I'll be posting a video next week on what I've learned.

There's good news including you do NOT have to have a 320-amp service at your home to have the system, regardless of what Ford's website says.

Stay tuned for the video. I'll post it in these forums as soon as it's up.

I like your videos. Even if not always news to me, they are informative and fact based.

 

[adoublee]

Hello everyone. I'm the guy in that video, thanks for sharing it here. I also have an F-150 Lightning reservation (which I made the first day reservations opened).

I see a lot of people here have questions about the Intelligent Backup Power system. I just had an interview with Ford engineers about it and I'll be posting a video next week on what I've learned.

There's good news including you do NOT have to have a 320-amp service at your home to have the system, regardless of what Ford's website says.

Stay tuned for the video. I'll post it in these forums as soon as it's up.

Hope you are feeling well and looking forward to this video being prioritized with the scoop ?.

Also, sorry to here you did not get in wave 1 for your Lightning, but hoping you will get a chance to review a production-ready build asap. Any word on if that will be available to you from Ford and when? My vote would be for a Lariat ER with max tow, and sadly for you I think you are going to have to come up with a standard tow rig for your mileage testing... any thoughts on if you will add that and what the standard tow test might be?

 

[tommolog]

Hope you are feeling well and looking forward to this video being prioritized with the scoop ?.

Also, sorry to here you did not get in wave 1 for your Lightning, but hoping you will get a chance to review a production-ready build asap. Any word on if that will be available to you from Ford and when? My vote would be for a Lariat ER with max tow, and sadly for you I think you are going to have to come up with a standard tow rig for your mileage testing... any thoughts on if you will add that and what the standard tow test might be?

I'm probably going to do the tow test with my friend Kyle from Out of Spec motoring. He's developing a standardized tet that he's going to do with all trucks. So he and I will do the tow range test together.

 

[Nick Gerteis]

Hello everyone. I'm the guy in that video, thanks for sharing it here. I also have an F-150 Lightning reservation (which I made the first day reservations opened).

I see a lot of people here have questions about the Intelligent Backup Power system. I just had an interview with Ford engineers about it and I'll be posting a video next week on what I've learned.

There's good news including you do NOT have to have a 320-amp service at your home to have the system, regardless of what Ford's website says.

Stay tuned for the video. I'll post it in these forums as soon as it's up.

That’s awesome, thank you for sharing. Puts this back into play for me, I was NOT going to tear everything up in here to upgrade from my current 200 Amp service to 400. Let’s hope the price is reasonable and it’s a go!

 

[Sam James]

Hello everyone. I'm the guy in that video, thanks for sharing it here. I also have an F-150 Lightning reservation (which I made the first day reservations opened).

I see a lot of people here have questions about the Intelligent Backup Power system. I just had an interview with Ford engineers about it and I'll be posting a video next week on what I've learned.

There's good news including you do NOT have to have a 320-amp service at your home to have the system, regardless of what Ford's website says.

Stay tuned for the video. I'll post it in these forums as soon as it's up.

Excited to see the video! Hope it goes up before Wave 2 ordering (and that we’re both invited!).

 

[Kev12345]

There's good news including you do NOT have to have a 320-amp service at your home to have the system, regardless of what Ford's website says

they just listed that for no apparent reason? wtf...

 

[GarageMahal]

they just listed that for no apparent reason? wtf...

I bet it was taken out of context. It made no sense so I was ignoring it.

 

[RickLightning]

I think that the reality is that if someone has 200amp service, and they have to devote 100 amps to the truck, that the remaining 100 amps (80amps of usage) isn't enough to power many homes. Of course if they already have an EV, then it absolutely cannot

We have 200amps. When we got our Mach-E, I did some research and verified that in fact our house is fed with a large enough cable for 400amp service / 320amp usage. There is a separate set of lugs in the box to connect to the existing meter and feed a second panel, which would then feed a 100 amp service into the garage, which would feed the truck. Of course the required setup to power the house might mean wiring has to be different, because it has to cut juice to the meter when feeding the house, and with two separate meter feeds into the house that's problematic. We'll know more when Sunrun releases more info.

Of course if one doesn't want to use the ChargeStation Pro, then can likely use the included portable charger, or any other EV charger.

One option I'll have is to add a second JuiceBox and let them share the existing 60amp circuit, which it's designed to do with load sharing built into the app. https://support-emobility.enelx.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002651411-What-is-Load-Sharing-

 

[sotek2345]

I think that the reality is that if someone has 200amp service, and they have to devote 100 amps to the truck, that the remaining 100 amps (80amps of usage) isn't enough to power many homes. Of course if they already have an EV, then it absolutely cannot

We have 200amps. When we got our Mach-E, I did some research and verified that in fact our house is fed with a large enough cable for 400amp service / 320amp usage. There is a separate set of lugs in the box to connect to the existing meter and feed a second panel, which would then feed a 100 amp service into the garage, which would feed the truck. Of course the required setup to power the house might mean wiring has to be different, because it has to cut juice to the meter when feeding the house, and with two separate meter feeds into the house that's problematic. We'll know more when Sunrun releases more info.

Of course if one doesn't want to use the ChargeStation Pro, then can likely use the included portable charger, or any other EV charger.

One option I'll have is to add a second JuiceBox and let them share the existing 60amp circuit, which it's designed to do with load sharing built into the app. https://support-emobility.enelx.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002651411-What-is-Load-Sharing-

It really depends on the house. Our 150A service is enough to cover the 100A circuit for the Lightning and all of our normal demand. Our heat, hot water, and stove are all natural gas, so our normal operating loads are very low.

 

[Tenetke]

Me (he says sheepishly with hand up stretched)?

Me too

 

[hturnerfamily]

200amp service to a home is 240v, meaning that it is actually 400amps of 120v power, although, yes, you will have 240v appliances such as oven, clothes dryer, air conditioning, and, of course, EV charging, amoung other things. What's interesting, though, is that while most electricians will tell you that you 'must' have a much larger panel to handle all those loads when you add a large EV charger, it's not really the case for most of us. No one uses 'all' of their 240v appliances and draws at the same time. So, while a clothes dryer might be on a 30amp double-pole 240v breaker, that's 30amps at 240v that is rarely used, or 60 amps at 120v. Most electrical panels in homes already have 'more' breaker Amps, when you add them up, than the panel's main breaker is rated for. The idea is that you'll never be using 'everything' that the panel can provide at the same time anyway.
If you have an 80amp charger for your Lightning, which is 80amps max at 240v, you'll still have 120amps at 240v for your home's usage, or 240amps at 120v. Either is plenty for most any home. If you have a 100amp panel, you might have to really be on top of what else is needing power while you are charging the truck since you'll only have 20amps at 240v headroom left. If the air conditioner for the home kicks on, that's when your main breaker might trip.
My home is totally electric, with a 200amp exterior main panel, with 10 breaker slots, feeding a 200amp interior 'home' sub-panel, with 30+ breaker slots. I have no problem running my charger wiring from the exterior main panel since I know that my normal everyday usage of power is still very low, even with the full draw of the charging needs. During hot summer months, yes, monitoring the usage of two or three different air conditioners(all on 20amp double-pole breaker sets for each), and the water heater(30amp breaker set), and the oven and microwave and stovetop, and computers, tvs, lights, hot tubl(15amp), etc., will require some attention, just in case.

 

[vandy1981]

Who has 320A residential service? That's crazy!

I'm pretty sure 320A residential service is a red flag for the DEA.

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