Just took a 450 intersate road trip in a standard range lightning. Never again

[PreservedSwine]

I’m still a big fan of my Platinum, but yes, ‘Range’ is such a versatile word & something I was slow to take into account for interstate travel. Even with an average range slightly north 275, trip planner will conservatively stop at shorter intervals. Yes, the ER could allow for longer intervals comparatively, even at 80-90% of charge, but that still depends on station availability. It’s going to take some time for me to feel comfortable with bypassing a stop in the hopes another one will be available a few more miles down the road.

Can’t wait for the infrastructure to catch up with bigger/better stations & easier freeway access. Until then I’ll try to be efficient by overlapping meal and restroom breaks.

Nice to hear you had good experiences with EA? What part of the country?

I feel the same, infrastructure improvement is inevitable. I’m in Southwest Florida (Fort Myers)The road- trip was to Georgia.

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[hoovertac]

Good to know.
I drive my lightning from Tacoma WA to Coos Bay OR (6 hours ice driving). It’s a pretty stress free drive.

Drove my MME to San Diego and back. Going down was fine. Seemed quicker, used the ford trip planner. But coming home used apple car play. It was tedious.

 

[Ventorum94]

The SR battery clearly makes it a challenge. I was using my Mach-E ER, same size battery, but lower consumption. The biggest issue is from Georgetown to Williamsburg, where most could make it on an 80% charge, but the SR is saying you would have to charge to 89%. That's a 20 minute or so hit right there.

Changes:

1) Set departing SOC to 100%.
2) Change consumption at 65 to 2.0. ABRP is very conservative.
3) Move trip to 7/1 . That changes from 4:51 charging to 4:05.
4) Wait until ~Feb. Tesla chargers fill in the gaps. I got it to 3:20 on 7/1 and 4:24 now.

Just curious why “the SR makes it a challenge” (as in, having an ER with another 26kWh really makes a huge difference??). SR requires one (worst case two) more charging stop than ER in 450mi. Challenge? Not in my SR experience- just avoid chargers that don’t output 500A. Stick with EA 350kW (500A), avoid the 150kW (only 350A), and don’t even consider anything under 150kW, on a long road trip. Avoid routes that require 50kW charging-they’re not suitable for EV road tripping, imho.

 

[MM in SouthTX]

Just curious why “the SR makes it a challenge” (as in, having an ER with another 26kWh really makes a huge difference??). SR requires one (worst case two) more charging stop than ER in 450mi. Challenge? Not in my SR experience- just avoid chargers that don’t output 500A. Stick with EA 350kW (500A), avoid the 150kW (only 350A), and don’t even consider anything under 150kW, on a long road trip. Avoid routes that require 50kW charging-they’re not suitable for EV road tripping, imho.

Under those parameters I could not leave Corpus Christi in an SR. I would call that a challenge.

 

[Ventorum94]

Me, too -- which sealed the deal for the ER battery for me. There are actually two factors at play here. Of course, the extra range lets the ER truck drive farther between charging stops, saving the time of getting on and off the highway.

However, the ER truck also charges significantly faster. The published specifications for 15% to 80% charging are 44 minutes for an SR truck and 41 minutes for an ER truck, but the ER truck has a significantly larger battery. So:

• SR is 63.7kWh in 44 minutes, or an 86.8kW average charge acceptance rate, versus
• ER is 85.2kWh in 41 minutes, or an 124.6kW average charge acceptance rate.

So in terms of kilowatts accepted or miles of range added, the ER truck charges over 40% faster than an SR truck. This is the key difference in road-tripping between the SR and ER Lightnings.

A recent charge session of my SR at an EA 350kW (500A), showing 98kW avg charge acceptance:

I’d be interested to see a similar real-world ER charging session with an average charging rate >124kW.

 

[RickLightning]

Just curious why “the SR makes it a challenge” (as in, having an ER with another 26kWh really makes a huge difference??). SR requires one (worst case two) more charging stop than ER in 450mi. Challenge? Not in my SR experience- just avoid chargers that don’t output 500A. Stick with EA 350kW (500A), avoid the 150kW (only 350A), and don’t even consider anything under 150kW, on a long road trip. Avoid routes that require 50kW charging-they’re not suitable for EV road tripping, imho.

SR charges slower than ER. Adds more time.

Georgetown KY and Williamsburg KY are 120 miles apart. 1.86kw at 65mph per ABRP, 70% battery (80% - 10%), 0.7 x 98 = 68.6 x 1.86= 128 miles...

So, ABRP recommends charging to over 90%, which takes much longer.

 

[Hugh_Bris]

At 55 mph highway plus some city driving the Lightning is stated to use 48 kWh per 100 miles. BEV’s thrive in stop and go traffic but if you compare your 1.6 with 2.0 then you are dead nuts on for the effect of velocity on fuel efficiency
Ford told us loud and clear what to expect. Many chose not to listen.
Check fueleconomy.gov

What highways are 55 mph? I live in TX and they are all 75…Again misleading. Where is the memo that your range is 200 mile max at hwy speeds with ER?
They need to state miles per kWh separately for city and highway and let people do the math themselves. For example
2.5 m/kWh City
1.6 m/kWh Hwy

The fueleconomy.gov portion of that window sticker is trash.

 

[Hugh_Bris]

A recent charge session of my SR at an EA 350kW (500A), showing 98kW avg charge acceptance:

I’d be interested to see a similar real-world ER charging session with an average charging rate >124kW.

This is recent from my ER

 

[Mike G]

For all those who bought SRs...can you imagine what it must be like to drive a Mini Cooper E on a cross-country trip...with a stated 100 mile highway range?

That's like buying a $38K golf cart and thinking you can take it on a road trip.

 

[djwildstar]

I’d be interested to see a similar real-world ER charging session with an average charging rate >124kW.

Your session was 62kWh, which is about 63% of an SR battery. 62kWh is about 47% of an ER battery, so here's two screenshots for you. On the left, adding 66% to an ER battery in 39 minutes at an Electrify America 350kW charger, for an average acceptance rate of 133kW. On the right, adding 47% (61.6kWh) to an ER battery in 26 minutes at an EVgo 350kW charger, for an average acceptance rate of 142kW. The ER trucks really do charge up to 40% faster than SR.

Two interesting things about ER and SR trucks. One is that they have roughly the same charging times by percentage -- it took 38 minutes to add 63% to an SR truck, and 39 minutes to add 66% to an ER truck. The other is that both the ER and SR trucks have roughly the same peak acceptance rate, somewhere in the vicinity of 170kW. However, the SR trucks have a lower average rate, which means that they must drop down to a lower sustained rate for the bulk of the charge.

 

[djwildstar]

This is recent from my ER

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your screenshot shows 78.8kWh delivered in 43.5 minutes, for an average charge acceptance rate of 78.8 / 43.5 * 60 = 108kW. This is barely faster than Ventuorum94's 98kW average charge acceptance for his SR truck. He was looking for ER charging sessions that show an average charge acceptance rate greater than 125kW.

 

[Ford Motor Company]

75-80mph

We'd love to see some pics, Kevin! So we can gawk too!

 

[Tony Burgh]

What highways are 55 mph? I live in TX and they are all 75…Again misleading. Where is the memo that your range is 200 mile max at hwy speeds with ER?
They need to state miles per kWh separately for city and highway and let people do the math themselves. For example
2.5 m/kWh City
1.6 m/kWh Hwy

The fueleconomy.gov portion of that window sticker is trash.

If they gave m/kWh then the tesla folks would complain that it’s not Wh/mile.
At any rate, you got the mileage expected at 75. When I lived in TX, no one drove only 75.

 

[kbuicker]

We'd love to see some pics, Kevin! So we can gawk too!

You know it! Recent Trip to Tyler State Park in Tyler Texas, with my Ruby Sue to take in the fresh air, hike & just take it all in. Lightning got us there & back no problemo!

 

[LifeAsDane]

This truck should come with a disclaimer
*not meant for interstate use.

Driving at normal interstate speeds, going from 80% SOC to 20 % SOC took all of ~115 miles.
Stated average of 1.7 kWh, pencil came to about 1.55

Love it around town, average between 2.7 and 2.9. but this interstate travel is bananas. Contemplated driving 65 but would have still had to make 3 stops to charge, so went around 75mph.
Stopping every 2 hours for another 30-40 minutes is a big ask, added about 50% more time to the trip 6 hours vs 9 hours. Had to charge to 90% on the final charge- didn’t want to arrive dead.

Anyway, I suspected it would be a challenge, but didn’t expect it to be like this.

I may have opted for the extended range had Intaken a trip before purchase.
Again, love the truck and it fits my needs, was just a bit shocked how 240 mile range is actually about 115 miles when keeping it between 80% and 20% interstate driving.

On the plus side, had great luck with Electrify America charging stations.

Yeah, it is quite pathetic on the Interstate. I bought it knowing it was my intown vehicle but I'd never try a trip longer than 2hrs that involves the interstate. The funny part is I kinda hope for traffic on the interstate these days, just because I know I'll have that much less concern. Going ER wouldn't improve your analysis much either. what an additional 30mi maybe? Here in Florida the Interstate Speed Limit is 70 and NO ONE goes 70. 80 is the standard. Still love it. Just very limited the side trips I can make when planning for my 150ish mile roundtrips. And you better not forget to plugin the night before.

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