I love this truck but GD!

[Lolat]

This your first winter in the truck? 18,000+ miles, would have thought had that experience before. We’re 30 miles from town, but our winter temps usually above zero. With SR truck, have not had your kind of issues, although we brought in winter 2022 in Alabama, it was an adventure getting back to Oregon through Iowa/Nebraska at -4°. Lowest mileage was 0.8 m/kwh and charge stations pretty sparse at best. Do use 240v charger at home so easy to keep it charged up and preconditioned.

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[hturnerfamily]

- no matter the weather, or the temps, your SPEED is going to either hurt you, or HELP you... getting home an hour later, driving slower, versus all the other stresses, makes more sense... but, some just can't bring themselves to EVER be slower than 'others' while on the road...

EVs and travel, and temps, bring a whole different 'thought process' to planning, even when you think you've seen it all...

 

[TMND]

Picked it up in June with 6 k. So yes first winter. And of course, changing our driving habits will affect our economy no matter what we were driving. Still 60%+ loss is undocumented from what I found. Not saying it’s not out there, but I did a ton of homework before taking the leap on this. Everyone said expect a 35 to 45% which I was perfectly OK with and honestly could make this work for me as well but making this work on top of the payment is just a kick in the balls.

 

[Pioneer74]

In case anybody is interested, here is the thread that discussed the OTA that Ford sent out to "fix" the displayed DTE. It was accurate for me in the winter before they did this update. The realization of the effects of the update start on page 6.

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...-update-22-pu-1009-mil-dte-calculation.13449/

 

[Newton]

In winter time in your area I would charge to 100% on days that I was going to use the truck (Ford recommends 90%). You are playing with temperatures that could kill you if you misjudge and run out of power. It might degrade the battery a little bit, but the issue with fully charged batteries is more for people in hot climates. There are issues with charging to any level at freezing or below but I would assume that Ford handles that and will heat the battery first and then charge.

You live in an edge case for EVs and you need an excellent EV to make it work smoothly. The Lightning is an excellent truck but it is not a state-of-the-art EV. I don’t think that your model even has a heat pump (Although it might not make much difference below zero). Ford has said that from the beginning, they always planned to have a “from the ground up” EV in their product line. I think it works amazingly well for an ICE EV conversion and is probably as much electric truck as *most people* need. You are not *most people*.

If you have money and need a truck, the Silverado/Denali would probably be a better choice because it has a much bigger battery, heat pumps, and EV tricks that the Ford does not have. Amazingly it gets the same efficiency with a much heavier battery pack (which shows how much room for improvement there is in the LIghtning). If you don’t need a truck, almost any of the offerings from Hyundai (Hyundai, Kia, or Genesis) would be a better choice. They were. built to be EVs and get almost twice the efficiency. The Ultium platforms (Blazer, etc.) from GM might be worth a look for you although I don’t know much about them. BMW is pretty good if you want to go that route, I’m not convinced about Mercedes or Volkswagen.

One thing that I will say for the truck is that the drop off in range is not linear. If the resistive heaters have to come on that is a big hit, but it isn’t like they have to come on twice as hard if the temperature gets even lower. You are in an excellent position to give us data on what that curve actually looks like.

 

[21st Century Truck]

Picked it up in June with 6 k. So yes first winter. And of course, changing our driving habits will affect our economy no matter what we were driving. Still 60%+ loss is undocumented from what I found. Not saying it’s not out there, but I did a ton of homework before taking the leap on this. Everyone said expect a 35 to 45% which I was perfectly OK with and honestly could make this work for me as well but making this work on top of the payment is just a kick in the balls.

Hmmm... have You considered a checkup of the traction battery's cell balance (of the cells' uniform relative ability to hold a charge)? A good dealership could do this type of check. This might perhaps be a hidden fault within Your truck.

 

[TMND]

I gave the only dealer I have within 200 miles my truck for a week to check the mobile charger and they never touched it instead they replaced the port on the truck

They’re nice people but competent they’re not

 

[TaxmanHog]

I never charge to 100% less going on a long road trip just like Ford recommends. If I need 100% to go 90 miles round-trip on an extended range

and this isn’t about me not having enough range to get home I’m fully capable of making sure of that. It’s about the range being abysmal.

In a Northern state winter conditions, I'd be charging to 95% and then setting that departure timer even if in a warmed shop, the PTC might not warm the battery much but that extra 15% would give a better safety margin with a mid trip charge being a necessity, be it a trip to a sport event or a hospital ER after the event has passed.

The ABC rule in winter is important for routine long trips {not summer long} WINTER long.

 

[TaxmanHog]

So I feel like this may have changed recently. When I charge to 90% and it's been in the 20's to 30's at night, my truck will say my range is between 265 to 270. I have a Lariat ER so that equates to less than 300 miles. I remember when they did the 'feel good' mileage change to make people feel better. Almost feel like they did a compromise now, better than it actually is in the cold, but not full EPA. I'll have to see what I get next time I charge to 100%, see if it resets to 320.

Agreed, lately the feel good value above 80% isn't as optimistic as last year.

This is today, after topping up to 90%, the past 48 hours I've done a lot of inefficient warm idling and off plug cabin warming sessions so the recent historic efficiency has plummeted, as I expected.

 

[Newton]

One thing I will caution you on the LIghtning is that there are issues with taking it to lower levels of charge. Most EVs will give you some range after zero (often quite a bit) but YouTubers have had the truck die at 5% or so (they can be frustratingly vague about the exact point so I don’t have a good number to follow). This is part of the “converted ICE vehicle to get to market quickly” behavior

I believe that there are issues with the Ford BMS, they have sort of acknowledged one issue where it is inaccurate immediately after DC fast charging (!). I find weirdness when I track the internal and external state of charge with my OBDII scanner. (Get one, they are cheap.) It only matters if you are taking the truck to fairly low charging levels, but it sounds like that might be you. I have no issues taking my EV6 or e-Golf to near zero but would never do that with the Lightning.

Charge it to 100% when you go out in the extreme cold, damn the battery life.

 

[Newton]

Another tip - turn down the heat and use the seat warmers (but don’t put anything over them) and the steering wheel heater if you have one. It takes much less energy to heats the seat than the whole cabin.

 

[Scorpio3d]

Sorry I have nothing to offer.
I was all in on a Lightning. 100%
After joining this forum and reading all about the truck, I ended up ordering a 2025 Ford Maverick AWD hybrid for 34k loaded.
I just couldn‘t buy the lightning.

And I really gotta laugh when people suggest a fuel operated heater or carrying a generator to charge the truck. It’s at that point that you need to get rid of your truck. Sorry.
Like I said, I have nothing to offer.

I’m ready to jump in on an EV when they are ready for me. I live in MN so there’s that.
Tom

I understand where you’re coming from being in Minnesota, it may not have worked for you but you cannot really compare a Maverick to a Lightning. I was driving an Expedition, EL and started looking at the Maverick hybrid because I was getting 16 or 17 miles per gallon and was tired of it, 40ish miles to the gallon really sounded awesome but the Maverick could almost fit in the bed of the Lightning. I bought my daughter a Ford fusion hybrid when she started driving a few years ago and my dad has an escape hybrid, which are almost the same platform as the Maverick if I was used to driving something that size the Maverick probably would’ve been great but going from the “bus” as my kids used to call it because I would haul them and all their friends around before they were able to drive to the Maverick just did not work for me. Of course I live in North Texas so the cold weather is not as much of an issue just the heat.

 

[Hammick]

We just did a 1320 mile trip from Kansas City to Red Lodge, Montana via Fargo and across I-94. Coldest temp we saw was -7 on Saturday night. Without the supercharger access and the Level 2 hotel charger in Bismark I believe the trip would have been impossible.

Average for the trip was 1.3 mile per kph and we did the speed limit for the most part. ABRP using live data from our OBDII reader was indispensable for giving me the confidence to not charge past 80% for most legs and to go the speed limit.

Ignore the total trip time as we left the truck on overnight to power our 12 fridge/freezers

 

[Henry Ford]

Still 60%+ loss is undocumented from what I found.

You haven't even documented a "60%+" reduction in efficiency. The photo you posted shows 1.2 m/kWh. That is the efficiency you actually got. You need 2.4 m/kWh to hit the EPA range.

EPA range is pointless in my opinion, because it includes city driving. No one cares what your range is driving around town. I want to know what the highway range is.

Someone actually did the math on this and put it in a handy spreadsheet. I apologize to the person who did the work; I don't recall who it was and can't give attribution.

 

[TMND]

@Henry Ford

Um…. 21 percent x 131 = 27.5 kW
27.5 x 1.2=33 not the remaining shown
Remainder shown is 22 miles

anyways I never get the EPA ever best I’ve gotten was two but I still consider that a loss since that’s the range we were told to expect kwh 27.5 x.2.4= 66

22 / 66=0.33 (percent realized)
100 - 33 = 66 percent loss

I mean, I’m all for someone correcting my math here and making me feel not so terrible about it but that’s the way I crunch the numbers.

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