This will be my last attempt at a Lightning Road Trip

[luebri]

My summary...

1) OP is 100% correct as others have also said. Ford should not get a "free pass" for their horrible NAV system. It's pathetic and they deserve criticism so hopefully they can address it in the future.

2) That said, do your research before buying a vehicle. I knew the NAV sucked, I knew the lack of DCFC especially back in 2022. I knew the deprecated range at high speed and cold. I knew all of those things because I did research. It's mind boggling to me how people pay this much money for a vehicle and have not done their due diligence.

Sponsored

 

[evowner]

Gasoline is substantially cheaper than electrons

Not for me. It costs between 10 to 15 dollars for me to fill up at home. I see you live in Cincinnati too. If you use the public chargers it is still cheaper than gasoline.

 

[Brons2]

Not for me. It costs between 10 to 15 dollars for me to fill up at home. I see you live in Cincinnati too. If you use the public chargers it is still cheaper than gasoline.

He was talking about DCFC.

That said it depends on what you're comparing.

It cost me $40.45 to drive my prior 13.3 MPG, similar sized vehicle 200 miles at $2.69 a gallon, which is the price I saw yesterday at the closest station to my house here in Central Texas. Plus other occasional maintenance costs like engine oil, etc, that aren't present on an EV.

Assuming I can average 2.0mi/KWh, it would cost me 100KWH to drive 200 miles. I averaged around that on a 165 mile trip last weekend. At the "rack rate" for the Electify America closest to my house, it's .53 per KWH thusly $53 for 200 miles. That's definitely more.

But if you buy a membership for a month for $7, you can get prices down into the .30s from a KWH standpoint. Then, the EV trip fuel is cheaper than gas. The breakeven on that $7 is pretty low, about 2 charges on a trip.

Of course, you throw in different vehicles and everything is different. Someone's probably saying right now, but my 2.7EB F150 gets 24mpg on the highway! Or, my Tesla Model Y gets 3.5mi/kwh! Or my Sienna hybrid van gets 35MPG! (experienced this personally when I rented one for 10 days).

That's why they say, your mileage may vary.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Assuming I can average 2.0KWH/mi, it would cost me 50KWH to drive 200 miles. I averaged around that on a 165 mile trip last weekend. At the "rack rate" for the Electify America closest to my house, it's .53 per KWH thusly $53 for 100 miles. That's definitely more.

If my Lightning could get 2.0 Miles per kWh[MPK}, a 200 mile trip around my local EA at $0.56 a kWh would cost me $56.00 for 200 miles traveled after sales tax (Mass) $59.50!!!!

My old PSD at 15 MPG with diesel priced at $3.339 today would cost $44.52 for 200 miles traveled.

 

[BlueLightning]

I am in one hotel, and my lightning is languishing at another hotel, hooked up to a slow-ass Blink L1 charger because it was all I could find. I had to take an Uber back to my hotel, and will have to take an uber back to the other one tomorrow morning, and hope that it picked up enough miles to get me to a real charger.
Until Ford decides to get serious and actually build a freaking network I will confine my Lightning driving to local only. The Ford Pass "network" is just a list. It doesn't work. What i have now are two nav systems (Google and Ford). Google is flawed and unreliable when it comes to charging, but at least I can get somewhere with it. Ford can't find many locations, has all the functionality of Garmin 2004, and looks awful. The FordPass app can find chargers and sometimes feed them to Google Maps, but it's as likely to take me to the wrong place or to a charger that is not available or compatible. After two long days of driving 2 hours to charge for an hour (when I can actually find a charger close to the route), collecting charging apps so I can sit in an isolated spot with no rest rooms and no amenities, I have had it. My wife is ready to leave the Lightning at an airport and rent an ICE so we can finish driving to our vacation destination.
Ford, if you're listening, quit making us beta test your tech. Get it together.

Very brave, never driven outside 10 mile radius in my Lightning. No reliable public charger.

(Nothing like the fear of driving up to four or five chargers and none work or cables broken).

Had a LRM3 and used to take long trips several times a year with no issues. (Miss that feature, but truck is way less bumpy).

But, feel your pain a little, made similar mistake of staying in a hotel that was about hour away from Supercharger in wrong direction. LOL.

Take care and safe travels.

 

[luebri]

If my Lightning could get 2.0 Miles per kWh[MPK}, a 200 mile trip around my local EA at $0.56 a kWh would cost me $56.00 for 200 miles traveled after sales tax (Mass) $59.50!!!!

My old PSD at 15 MPG with diesel priced at $3.339 today would cost $44.52 for 200 miles traveled.

True... but the thing with EV's is yes the miles you need from DCFC are often times as expensive as ICE but you get the benefit of at least your first ~200 miles being at home charge rate and you can also can roll into your house at a low SOC so you can replenish your tank/battery at home rate.

 

[TaxmanHog]

True... but the thing with EV's is yes the miles you need from DCFC are often times as expensive as ICE but you get the benefit of at least your first ~200 miles being at home charge rate and you can also can roll into your house at a low SOC so you can replenish your tank/battery at home rate.

No doubt at $0.34 it's the cheapest I'll get away with, but if I were hopping from EA to EA on a longer trip, I would invest in the pass plus plan to get a better price would barely break-even with liquid fuel.

 

[Brons2]

If my Lightning could get 2.0 Miles per kWh[MPK}, a 200 mile trip around my local EA at $0.56 a kWh would cost me $56.00 for 200 miles traveled after sales tax (Mass) $59.50!!!!

My old PSD at 15 MPG with diesel priced at $3.339 today would cost $44.52 for 200 miles traveled.

I fixed my errors, saw your corrections. Almost $60 to go 200 miles is pretty high.

This is one of the reasons I would probably reach for the keys of the Mach-E rather than the Lightning for a long trip, if cost was a primary consideration. Can get 2.8mi/KWh easily at 75-80, plus it has BlueCruise, my XLT lightning does not. Even at your price of .59 and change for 200 miles I'm around $42 at 2.8mi/kwh.

In a M3 or MY you'd probably do better, owing to the superior aerodynamics to the Mach-E. That said I didn't like the MY, maybe the refresh will be better.

 

[Sdctcher]

I just got home from my 10th - TENTH!!! - road trip of more than 1500 miles in my Pro SR. I have DC fast charged (more than 250 billed sessions) in eight different states; L2 in three more. These trips have NOT been coastal excursions in areas where there are lots of chargers, but in the wide open West. Worse, I love the challenge of crossing EV (and real) deserts. With 43K+ miles on my Lightning, I’ve never found myself stuck anywhere. Maybe it is because I am an intelligent and careful guy who also has the maturity not to blame the vehicle or the manufacturer for my failures to responsibly plan my trips.

Agree completely! I have over 30K across 40 states in the past 8 months with no lasting problems - of course, I have learned from the state of charging just two years ago to always expect the worst and love anything better. I trust nothing called NAV and always use the many great apps available (Plugshare etc.) and now even seldom use Ford Pass on the road. But I have been taught to never completely trust a single source (sounds a bit like the internet?).

 

[Newton]

After purchasing my first EV over 8 years ago, I came to realize that I won't use it for long trips. The thought of sitting for a couple of hours while charging is not for me. I use my EVs for round trips up to around 250 miles. I have not had to use a public charger so far. I have not used the new TESLA supercharger technology yet. That may make it more palatable to extend those trips to 500 miles. I have a hybrid, and an old fashioned ICE for really long road trips.

Um, are you talking about the Ford here? I have never sat for “a couple of hours” charging unless you count when it is at home. I think 40 minutes is the max on any of my 2000+ mile road trips, and this is a particularly slow EV for charging. My Kia’s fast charging sessions are so quick that there is hardly time to reach the bathroom (which is sometimes quite distant from the charger, to be fair)

 

[Newton]

I guess the frustration from the other users here is with this type of post. “My Lightning ran out of charge, I’m currently walking 50 miles in the snow, my wife divorced me, the dog froze to death in the back seat and my kids were taken from me by CPS because the Lightning just sucks, sucks sucks.“ - with no information about what happened or where they were, what model of truck, or what went wrong.

The point of the forums is to share information. “The Lightning can’t be used for road trips“ is not information, because people (including me) use it happily for road trips. It would be good information to know in what circumstances it doesn’t or didn’t work, and if it was user error or something that we should know about. If you want to complain about the NAV, complain about the NAV and explain what happened. If you want to complain about range, the GOM or anything else - complain about it and maybe we can all learn a solution from somebody who found one. Maybe an engineer will read something and fix it.

It doesn’t help when people pile on with ridiculous statements that it takes “20 minutes” to plan a route or “2 hours” to fast charge. It takes less than 30 seconds to get most routes using the ABRP route planner app. I have never spent as long as an hour at a fast charger, including a 50kW charger that I stopped at because it was near a park. I have many 2000+ mile trips in the Lightning from the Canadian border to California, so for this coast I know what I am talking about I think.

 

[Karlos]

LER Lightning trips between DFW and Kerrville Tx cost $30 one way, 310 miles. Fill up 100% at ranch/home for $12 and typically 10 minute, $18 stop at Tesla SC's for just enuf to get to other end. One trip in our new Mach-e was $20 dollars with a 4-5 minute, $5 stop at Tesla SC's. This is driving 70-75 on IH35 and 60's on the back roads. 6 hour trips.

My recent attempts to use the Public Charging feature on the truck had Tesla SC's showing up if you were close to them. Trick I found was to tag them as "Favorites" and then they'd show up in the Ford Nav system & going direct to one would/will hopefully start the preconditioning process. It was too cold to see that on this last trip.

 

[evowner]

Um, are you talking about the Ford here? I have never sat for “a couple of hours” charging unless you count when it is at home. I think 40 minutes is the max on any of my 2000+ mile road trips, and this is a particularly slow EV for charging. My Kia’s fast charging sessions are so quick that there is hardly time to reach the bathroom (which is sometimes quite distant from the charger, to be fair)

When I got my first tesla, it took about 1 hr 47 mins to get 40 miles of additional range. This was my experience over 8 years ago. I know charging has changed and become more reliable. Even 45 minutes is too long for me, so that is why I limit my trips to less than the range on the EVs. That range varies according to the weather conditions. This covers about 99% of my travels by car or truck. I prefer to charge at home or my shop. To each his own.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Well, it's been 33 hours since the thread was opened and 25 hours since OP checked on the comments, I hope the journey is progressing well and no further problems have occured with his 2024 Lightning Platinum.

@Rip Please check in when you get to your destination, we would like to hear the "rest of the story"

 

[CavRider]

I guess the frustration from the other users here is with this type of post. “My Lightning ran out of charge, I’m currently walking 50 miles in the snow, my wife divorced me, the dog froze to death in the back seat and my kids were taken from me by CPS because the Lightning just sucks, sucks sucks.“ - with no information about what happened or where they were, what model of truck, or what went wrong.

I have learned long, long ago that the universal solution to literally ALL problems of this nature is to simply stop listening to country music*. Might even get his job back!



* I realize there exist some cultural deserts where this is the only option on the AM radio. But, Sirius XM to the rescue!

Sponsored