Hot take: this, as some like Ars Technica have observed, stands a decent chance of being a real game changer.
Everything about this vehicle launch appears masterful, from its technology to its branding to the obvious care taken to ensure that in almost every respect it is so superior, and offers so many no-brainers, as to make anyone who can (both individuals and especially, fleet managers), buy these as fast they can.
This thing has more than one killer app.
The biggest by far IMO is its ability to power high voltage high draw tools at the jobsite.
If you have never worked on a jobsite, this is a BFD.
This is itself a game changer, it offers the ability to "disrupt" in a material way a whole class of project. Logistics just got 20% simpler and projects 30% cheaper.
Sure, it can go super fast; yes, you can lock your stuff in the truck...
But the other killer feature for fleet owners is that these are remotely manageable.
Your fleet now has detailed telemetry and its only going to get better.
And this is on launch.
We just got a RAV4 Prime and if I didn't live in SF proper, I might be seriously regretting not waiting for this thing. (I don't, and don't think this makes sense in the city.)
If we move to e.g. Sonoma and work remote? This would be that no brainer.
To be fair, some of these features are available on the recently released hybrid, as well.
What I would like to figure out is if it can actually backfeed the home with 240V split phase power. That would be a seriously big deal if it could, it's not a common generator feature as it is. I'm skeptical, but they did claim it could transition from charging to supplying the house and back to charging when the power returned. Probably some fine print there where they say "only with the 120V charger". Otherwise, that would just be killer. An automatic whole-house UPS that can easily support all your needs for hours or even a couple days in a pinch.
Backfeeding houses with generators is indeed a killer feature... but not in the way you mean. It can be done safety, but when done incorrectly (if the house isn't removed from the grid first) it can kill linemen. It's a good thing most generators a homeowner might causally buy at the hardware store don't have this feature. Unfortunately I've seen male-to-male extension cords sold online for this purpose. I think these are actually illegal, at least in some places.
The language on the site talks about requiring a whole house manual or automatic transfer switch. Plus the thing has a 240v outlet. (presumably split phase, 240v single phase is not common in US residential settings).
I wonder if the wiring is basically plug the 240v split phase into a special outlet in the house that feeds the transfer switch. The 80amp charger is then just a charger.
Could be completely wrong though. We'll know more at launch.
Äh I have to disagree. This is far, far, far less of a game changer compared to the Cybertruck.
It basically worse and more expensive at everything and its very unlikely Ford can build close to as many as the Cybertruck. Simply because of batteries alone and other production capacity as well (a lot is shared with the other F150s).
Its really slow charging considering the time it will come out. If you want to use this to transport anything its range is worse compared to the Cybertruck and its gone charge much slower.
This will likely sell well and they will likely sell as many as they can make. But that doesn't make it a game changer.
The features and specs feel mediocre compared to CyberTruck. The only thing that looked perhaps better was the frunk size and access but everything else CyberTruck is clearly better even price and most definitely on the most important spec of all, range.
The Cybertruck is coming from a leader with a history of hasty, half baked communication. If you think the Cybertruck will be out this year or exactly as pictured and specified... well I think that is extremely unlikely.
Ironically, the frunk on electric trucks is a game-changer. Complementing the bed with an enclosed, waterproof, secure place to carry things (and no mucking around with insecure bed covers) is a killer feature. No more springing for a crew cab just to carry groceries in the rear seats. In terms of practical carrying capacity this dominates an SUV.
Trucks are more dangerous to pedestrians because of the higher and flatter front--means people end up underneath rather than above if they are struck. I understand why they kept the look the same and why they used that space but in the future would prefer that they made changes to make it safer for everyone and not just the occupants. The high hoods make for poor visibility around the front.
Thank you. As a cyclist and pedestrian (who does own a normally-sized car), I was getting pretty frustrated by the lack of safety discussed in the comments.
Every single near-miss I've had while walking in Minneapolis has been due to the driver not paying attention. There wasn't a single time it was due to lack of visibility from inside the vehicle.
My yelling at one driver who was staring at her phone while driving out of a parking ramp and across the sidewalk where she nearly hit me, probably woke her up enough to avoid driving into traffic and being hit by a bus!
No, it's not the vehicles, it's the people driving them.
Pedestrians make up only a small minority of people killed in car crashes. (Like 6k of 40k per year.) So sure, it's good to make easy adjustments if they lead to big reductions in deaths, but it's not reasonable to care a ton about seriousness restricting the form factor yet think cars are fine in general. Best would be indexing car/truck sales tax to the size of the negative safety externalities, which would be a quite small fraction of the total car price, and letting people buy what they want to buy. It's clear consumers in the US value the large truck format and are willing to pay for it.
This is a true point, but it applies to SUV's as well as trucks. This is more an argument for moving to a sedan-dominated fleet than an argument against trucks... but good luck: in the USA, SUVs and trucks are two very hot market segments.
That's what I was most excited about, and agree it is a game changer. Hopefully we can get small e-pickups at some point - I have a 2004 Toyota Tacoma that I love, and it would be amazing with a frunk, but you can't really get small pickups that size anymore.
> I have a 2004 Toyota Tacoma that I love, and it would be amazing with a frunk, but you can't really get small pickups that size anymore
You're not kidding! I was in the market for a small pickup and checked out the Tacoma and Frontier, which I previously understood to be "small" trucks. They're massive these days, just like the F-150! I guess it's perceived that there's no market for that size any more.
A small electric pickup would be a super handy thing to have around, potentially appealing to urbanites too since they can toss their groceries in the frunk. There's really no reason the frunk needs to be so big on the F-150 Lightning - that part of the design is really a head scratcher.
>you can't really get small pickups that size anymore
Write your representative and tell them to thank the EPA and NHTSA for doing their jobs. The death of the small pickup is squarely the fault of the confluence of fuel economy and crash safety regulations.
The 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz [1] looks like it'll be much smaller than the current crop of trucks (though still larger than the compact trucks of 20 years ago).
The first thing that we need to change about the perception of these vehicles is we have to stop calling them e-pickups. Because e usually means economy. And economy means cheap and flimsy and no legroom. People who are buying Ford pickups don't want cheap and flimsy and no legroom.
Oh yeah, I'm totally into that. It's perfect for a grocery run and you don't need to do anything to keep it from rolling around the bed of the truck or get rained on.
Most of the gas F-150 sales are crew cab models, so it makes sense not to target that relatively small niche.
The long-bed was popular back when people owned a truck as an extra vehicle/work vehicle only, now many use their truck as their main vehicle and have need of carrying others.
If you look at the creature comforts of older bench seat trucks (bare-bones) and the trucks sold today, a truck today will have everything an SUV will have in terms of comfort and maybe more.
The vast majority of pickups these days are sold either for work or family, and both benefit from additional people capacity. It makes sense to go after this huge market first.
Yeah, this is a bummer for me. I don't really like crew cab (either how it looks, or how it compromises bed length vs. overall truck length), and this really doesn't need it.
Indeed; I was trying carefully to not imply that this was some unique advantage of the F-150, but rather an interesting property of the electric truck category in general.
I hope this displaces a lot of the adventure Sprinter vans out there. Obviously, the built-out vans for long-term living won't get replaced by a truck, but I live in Tahoe and could use an adventure ready vehicle for winter skiing and summer trail running and MTB excursions with the family.
The frunk makes a big difference for those kinds of things.
I gotta say, I am very impressed by what I've seen with the F-150. It's clear that a LOT of thought has gone into this product and Ford clearly understands their target audience extremely well. There are so many nice features that are so well tailored to folks who buy trucks. All the features to power job sites, etc is really sweet and I can totally see that being super handy. Heck, it would make it super easy to work on projects in my driveway without any worries.
Storage with the massive frunk is awesome. Lots of features around hitches and making it easier to use them and tow with them. Pretty good price point, good acceleration to appeal to the macho truck crowd who will hold their nose while making the plunge to electric so they can feel good about themselves when they floor the accelerator at stoplights and onramps.
There is something for everyone here. Yes, it plays it safe on the aesthetics side of things, but I don't see anything wrong with it. The "safer" aesthetics also make it more useful than the Cybertruck, what with the massive Frunk. Really glad to see some good competition in this space. The next 2 years are going to be really exciting in the EV space!
I could legitimately see every job site having at least one as a rolling power station.
That could be a very useful and popular niche, construction sites without power at early phases of construction aren't rare and power tool batteries are expensive.
I would be really interested in understanding the breakdown in F150's as sold by model number.
For a lot of truck owners, there's going to be some resistance because they love having a v8 engine etc. I don't see those people moving over quickly (although they might be swayed by the acceleration/speed). But if you're using one as a tradesperson, this seems like an absolute no-brainer. You're not driving enormous distances regularly and if you're able to run your entire job site for free, as well as have lower servicing costs... why wouldn't you?
Perhaps.. but we'll have to see how the battery holds up under extremely hot or cold conditions to really know if it will be used that way; and few people will want to be stuck at the job site after the end of the day.
The only gotcha with this, is that F150s are huge. I have an oversized garage and an F150 will barely fit. Many of my full-size truck driving neighbors opt to park in the driveway because they turn a modern two car garage into a 1.5 car garage unless designed specifically for giant vehicles.
I haven't seen consumer chargers that are designed to be installed outside. Most people have wall chargers in their garages, but I don't thing this is going to work for the majority of F150 home owners.
That being said, this is an otherwise incredible vehicle. The F150 is pretty much the ultimate vehicle for someone with enough space for one, and this improves upon it in nearly every way.
The Siemens US2 VersiCharge is a pretty popular consumer charger that's designed to be weatherproof. I have one in my garage, but I've seen them installed in parking lots for commercial use, too.
Ford has said they reused much of the same parts for the ICE F150 so it makes sense they look very similar. This will also help the model be profitable as well.
> good acceleration to appeal to the macho truck crowd who will hold their nose while making the plunge to electric so they can feel good about themselves when they floor the accelerator at stoplights and onramps.
I have a Mustang Mach e and can't emphasize this enough. It makes tooling around my suburban enclave a pleasure as I go from 0 to 30 mph in a blink.
I entered an on-ramp with a BMW behind me. Honestly, I wasn't trying to make a point, but the BMW swung around me as we entered the highway and it was on. Then it was done. Giggle.
I get to eat my hat somewhat. I hope it's tasty. Just a few days ago I made the comment that the Cybertruck's killer feature is it's $40K price tag, if and only if that price tag actually happens. I said that Ford could not make a decent EV F-150 at that price point unless they throw their dealerships under the bus. And here we are with a $40K EV F-150.
I'm glad I added the caveats though -- the $40K F150 is for commercial fleets, so will be missing crucial features for the passenger market and might bypass dealerships. Even so, $52K is still a competitive price for a SuperCrew with a few options.
I expect that a real advantage to an EV F150 over any Tesla truck (or car) will be repair costs, most particularly collision repairs.
Of course, they'll always cost more than the estimates, plus you get to throw in sales tax and the annual registration tithe to the state.
I'm always surprised that people are willing to spend so much on new vehicles but I guess it keeps the money moving through the economy. The spice must flow.
Ford also hasn't sold that many EVs (yet), so it's still eligible for the US $7500 federal tax rebate (unlike Tesla).
(BTW: It seems like such an arbitrary and ultimately bad decision to cap rebates by manufacturer. Rebate caps for expensive luxury cars? Sure. But penalize a manufacturer for making _too many_ of the thing you're incentivizing doesn't seem right).
You're not penalizing anybody, you're adding a temporary incentive to get the manufacturer up to speed. Once they're selling enough, they don't need to incentivize people to buy them.
Ford has already sold over 100,000 EV's, and if they can't sell 100,000 Mach-E's in the next 12 months then they're doing something wrong. So by the time the F-150 becomes available their credit should be in the wind-down phase.
Another likely scenario is that Biden gets his infrastructure bill through and the credit becomes available to all US-manufactured EV's.
I think the $40k price tag is deceptive if you look a bit closer. The extended range 300 mile battery is only available on the Platinum edition which starts at $60k IIRC, otherwise you're stuck with 230 miles which IMO going to make the truck feel hamstringed.
Yeah, the $40K version of the F150 Lightning is the "commercial use" one, which will presumably be utilitarian. I think they plan to reveal more about the commercial version on Monday.
If the $40K commercial use version is the right truck for a given consumer, great. But most consumers will want to step up from that for a personal vehicle. I think for most people, we will find $53K is the real starting price.
It feels as if the $40K commercial-use version was added in order to capture some headlines that group "$40K" alongside features of the more expensive trims such as "4.4 second 0 to 60," and I believe they have been successful in that.
I like Ford and have driven mustangs for 30 years with a short gap where I had a truck.
Just a preface to say I’m not hating on Ford in particular here, but the msrp is bogus. I can nearly guarantee that the actual base on a vehicle you can actually by will be $10k higher once a dealer is involved.
Edit: side comment, wow 800 plus comments on an F150 hacker news submission. Did not see that coming ;)
I'm really happy Ford and others are starting to actually deliver on EV's. I do however think there will be a long list of issues as they scale the roll out, given the newness and complexity of this product. Here are some concerns I think people should be aware of:
1. No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still. Using existing non-supercharging networks is not feasible for any long distance. You cannot do a roadtrip only charging 30~ mph. Thats 2 hours charging for every 1 hour driving.
2. Battery range for certain use cases. The base model is rated for 230 miles. If you've ever driven a Tesla on a highway you know you'll not get the full 230 at highspeeds. And so what happens when a truck is pulling a heavy load? You may end up literally getting half that range. This will be quite a shock for some users.
3. Software rollouts. Ford has been working on this but it is still not Solved. They've already bricked Mach-E's (1), and I expect there to be many more technical issues popping up.
4. No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users. As far as I know Ford is no where close to having a viable competitor.
Anyways, I'm sure these things will smooth out over the coming years and I wish them all the best with this amazing migration to electric vehicles.
I want an electric truck, but there’s no way in hell I’m trusting my life to Bay Area tech. I want to save money on gas and be more eco friendly. My truck driving for me is not a want until the tech is perfected.
You shouldn't trust driver assistance features, Bay Area tech or not. They're there to assist you and decrease the burden of constant throttle / steering wheel management; you should still be constantly monitoring and ensuring the driver assistance tech is doing what it should.
That leaves Korea and FCA? Japan has fallen behind in infotainment/software. Hyundai has a Santa Fe and the Ioniq coming out, so probably a combo of those two shortly after.
>4. No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users
Is it really? I'm looking at an EV for my next car, and not once have I considered Autopilots availability as a musthave feature. Then again, most people who get excited about Autopilot seem to think that driving is a chore that should be removed, while I love driving.
> No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still.
I agree- this is really going to be a big deal, especially with how large the F-150 EV battery is (150kWh). For comparison, the Chevrolet Bolt hatchback has a 66KWh battery with a similar range as the F-150, which makes sense, because the Bolt is much lighter and aerodynamic.
The vast majority of public charging stations in the US ("Level 2") max out at under 10kW; these are great for smaller cars used for commuting to-and-from the office or local shops or whatever. This isn't so bad for the Bolt, but the F-150 will recharge (from a range perspective) much more slowly.
There are very few Level 3 "fast" chargers around. These typically charge at 50kW until the battery is at 80% capacity, then slow down to 10kW or so. Public chargers often charge per minute ($.30 or so), so you get the best bang for the buck to get off the charger once you hit 80%. So, let's say your F-150 is down to 20% capacity, and you need to charge up to 80%. 60% of that 150kWh is battery is 90kWh- that will take nearly two hours ($36) on that fast charger.
This info seems a little out of date at this point. This is a map of 120 kW+ Electrify America charging stations from PlugShare: https://i.imgur.com/1dcM6UX.png. I agree we need more, but I don't know if it feels right to say there are "very few", when they line most of the major interstates.
> These typically charge at 50kW until the battery is at 80% capacity, then slow down to 10kW or so.
I'm not sure where you're getting this number, but according to this data [1] about the Mach-E, it charges at 150 kW until about 10%, then 100 kW until 35%, then 70 kW until 80%. This is much faster than what you are saying. They have a chart showing that depending on your starting SoC, you can get an average of up to 90 kW. If you start at a reasonable 10-15% state of charge, your average charge rate up to 80% will be 80 kW, not 50kW.
> So, let's say your F-150 is down to 20% capacity, and you need to charge up to 80%. 60% of that 150kWh is battery is 90kWh- that will take nearly two hours ($36) on that fast charger.
The F-150 has a larger battery than the Mach-E, but assuming the rates stay the same, it would take a bit over an hour to charge this much, not two hours.
The pricing varies on Electrify America, but looking at a few stations here [2], as long as you have a membership, it looks like this would cost somewhere from $10-30. Some stations charge by the minute, and others by the kWh.
> The vast majority of public charging stations in the US ("Level 2") max out at under 10kW; these are great for smaller cars used for commuting to-and-from the office or local shops or whatever. This isn't so bad for the Bolt, but the F-150 will recharge (from a range perspective) much more slowly.
This only matters for road trips. In general, L2 availability is the sticking point. Cars generally spend most of their time parked somewhere. All you need to do is to get back the miles you have spent getting to where you are currently charging. This is how I could survive my 25 mile commute every day with 110v power outlets. I didn't need to charge to full every time, just recover what was spent.
One thing that's impressing me is that Ford FINALLY took the "Tesla" route and made the car communicate with stations in the Electrify America network. No more fussing around with card readers that don't always work, or having to call a number with a bad cellphone connection. Just plug in, it works. That's easier than a conventional gas station.
Honestly, Electrify America has caught up to where Tesla was about 2-3 years ago. That really isn't a bad place to be for much of the country. The biggest issue will be that many of their sites are smaller. They are going to get crowded fast!
I agree with your issues 1 and 2. Batteries do not yet match the energy density of petrol. There are plenty of cases where the shorter range isn't a problem, but buyers need to know have a clear understanding up front.
I don't think issues 3 and 4 really need to have much to do with electric vehicles. Autopilot and electric are orthogonal properties. The only connection is that they're both pioneered by Tesla. Otherwise there's no particular reason you should expect one with the other. The same goes for over the air software updates.
Agree in theory but no one has built in a similar sensor suite to Tesla or added a powerful enough computer chip in their cars. This roots back to Tesla treating the whole car like a unified piece of software and having much better programmatic control over it. I only mentioned autopilot because the leading EV does have it as an included feature and so when weighing options people might question why it's not there on other models.
Agreed. I've been driving a Leaf since 2015 (two different generations by now) and the main reason that makes road trips unpalatable is NOT range. Not at all. Charging more often? Sure, whatever. Unless it's a business trip or a trip across the country it's fine. I've discovered some stuff I'd probably would never have otherwise, by routing via chargers in small towns.
No, the problem is how sparse some quickchargers are, and the fact that many don't even work - and the best you can do is check comments to see if people have complained about them recently. Some of them (specially Nissan owned!) are located in places that _close at night_. That's not acceptable, we can find 24/7 gas stations almost everywhere.
However, that only accounts for 0.1% of my trips. I've optimized for the most common use-case (city driving) and don't regret that one bit.
> If you've ever driven a Tesla on a highway you know you'll not get the full 230 at highspeeds.
Yeap. Same way you won't get good mileage on any car if you do that. Thankfully liquid fuels have a ridiculous amount of energy, so we can afford to waste 70% as heat plus drag and the only real consequence is the wallet (and filling up more often).
US highway speeds are crazy and it is indeed shocking when you see it the first time. It would also be quite shocking on ICE cars too, but they don't have accurate fuel gages, let alone accurate range estimates. At least most don't.
> I wish them all the best with this amazing migration to electric vehicles.
> Same way you won't get good mileage on any car if you do that
Er, no, traditional gas cars fuel economy is optimal in freeway driving, despite the fact that more delivered energy is required than at slower speeds. Hybrids and electric cars, which can be closer to peak delivery efficiency over a broader range of speeds, have peak economy at lower speeds.
The advisory speed limit on the Autobahn in Germany is 130 km/h = 80 mph. If you drive 55 mph (90 km/h) on an unrestricted or 130 km/h section during your driving test, you will fail.
Agreed with most of your points, just curious about:
> Same way you won't get good mileage on any car if you do that
What do you mean by that? Aren't ICE cars often more efficient at highway speeds? My car usually averages 45ish MPG on the highway and more like 30 in the city.. the sweet spot seems to be around 60-70 mph. Some US highways get up to 80 or 90, but that still (at least for the cars I've owned) ends up more efficient MPG-wise than city driving.
>> No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users.
Ford is targeting Truck Buyers, not "EV Users", and I can assure you Ford knows Truck Buyers, and i can also Assure you we do not care or even want Autopilot. We love to drive our trucks.
>>No comprehensive supercharger network.
I fully expect Ford to have this solved by the time the first Truck rolls off the line, I could be wrong but Ford has a ton of partnerships and pull. Hell even if the only chargers where at every dealership that would likely rival Telsa's network out of the box. However I fully expect deals to be made likely in concert with other Manufactures over the next 12 mos so I think this will end up being a non-issue
>>Software rollouts. Ford has been working on this but it is still not Solved.
I still not sure how I feel about this "feature", one of the reason I dislike Tesla is their belief they should be allowed to modify the car I supposedly bought from them anytime they want over the air. Treating the car like it was an Apple iPhone (which I also do not own)
Ford has a careful balancing act here. Ford owners want to OWN their truck, not rent it from Ford
> No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still.
I agree that this is important, but it is 99% psychological. In the entire time I owned my Tesla, I used the supercharger a half dozen times. Most people with an EV that has 200+ miles of range will rarely use DC fast chargers.
And I've used (checks file) 56 different superchargers in the last 4 years, some of them many times. It comes down to how many long road trips you make. Fast chargers are totally unnecessary for local-only driving if you have a slow charger at home, but critical for convenient road trips beyond your vehicle's range.
I think GP is pointing out that most people who own an ICE vehicle aren't used to having any limits on refueling their vehicle. If they need to take a long trip they just go. In the vast majority of the country there's a gas station at basically every interstate exit and refilling the tank takes 5 minutes.
All of a sudden with an EV you most likely need to plan your route around charging stations and allow for charging time. This isn't to say that EV's are bad or that they should be avoided - simply that most people don't think about these things in advance and may be surprised the first time they take a long trip with an EV.
I very, very rarely drive my car further than a hundred miles in a day; for my day-to-day work, a 200 mile range would be more than comfortable, and I'd be able to recharge to full overnight.
But every once in a while we drive about 200 miles to visit the in-laws, and I would be super nervous about attempting that in an EV. At best we'd be close to empty by the time we arrived, I don't know the state of the charger system on the highways we use, and we'd be stuck using a low-amp charger at their house, which would take forever.
I was 50/50 on buying an EV last year, but decided against it for this reason; I felt like we were still a couple of years away from EVs being practical for all of my use cases. I'm sure we'll get there soon, but right now they aren't a drop-in replacement for everyone's ICE.
Whether you ever take a roadtrip is not 99% psychological. Sure you more commonly stay within range but for instance I drive several hours to see my family regularly. No supercharging stations would prohibit that or 2-3x the time taken.
> software rollout
Nope, don’t want automatic over the air software update. I want it in the field when others have tried it, found issues and then I get it.
> autopilot
Again, don’t want a half baked marketing-speak technology. Driver assist with sensor driven safety features are all I want.
Don’t want extremely intrusive analytics and camera monitoring sure where after any accident the car company CEO would be testing how it was my fault.
Supercharger network is the only thing that will ever make me want to get a Tesla, hopefully other networks will soon be sufficient.
Yes, Ford dealerships and in fact all dealerships can be shady, but for other cars I generally don’t have to deal with them once the warranty is over. With Tesla I’ll have to deal with the company for the life of my car.
For the first one, are you considering the Electrify America network? I follow a guy on YouTube who takes road trips using the EA network. The issues he has are not so much that the stations don't exist, but that the charging is slower than optimal and buggy due to bad software. He's still able to roadtrip though, just with more hassle.
> No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users. As far as I know Ford is no where close to having a viable competitor.
Autopilot (as in ADAS Level 3) is and always will be vaporware on existing Teslas. Meanwhile my 2016 Civic has the same type of ADAS Level 2 driver assist. It's not quite as fancy as Tesla's version but it's 90% of what I need. I think for 90% of buyers, anything that does ADAS level 2 is fine.
>1. No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still.
Yes. I considered CarPlay a must-have feature, but no EVs out there matched the Supercharger network, which led to a Tesla purchase.
>4. No Autopilot.
Tesla is definitely overselling this. The only real time I've used Autopilot for an extended period of time was driving I-5 from SF to/from LA, and other ICE cars accomplish this too.
I don't think many people will be driving an EV Ford F-150 cross country.
Minivan...yes. SUV yes. Work truck, not likely.
If people have the occasional need to drive cross country, just rent a gas vehicle till the infrastructure is there. Till then it's just fear mongering causes a slower adoption of EV, which means a slower rollout of a national network.
One of the things I need a truck for is to tow a trailer with cows inside to (and back from) a facility that can extract eggs, implant embryos, etc. Unfortunately, that route doesn't follow any interstate highways and is about 180 miles each way. I'd absolutely LOVE to tow them with an electric truck and eliminate emissions from the picture. I've been eagerly awaiting something like the Cybertruck/Lightning, but until they get MUCH more mileage or hot-swap batteries I just can't make the switch. There is one fast-charge station in the middle, but none near the destination--and even if there was, I can't add charging stops with a trailered cow.
I agree that overselling the importance of uncommon use cases is a hindrance to EV adoption in general, but this is a pickup truck. The purpose of a pickup truck is to handle the uncommon use cases. It's fair to criticize this specific EV for not being good at the things that you must have a pickup truck to do.
Nissan did this and it sucks. Because dealers have to sell their vehicles too, so guess which vehicles get plugged in those stations? They are almost always busy.
Plus dealerships have business hours. I had a bad time once with an earlier Leaf generation trying to charge at night, in the cold. TWO quick chargers just a few miles away, both inaccessible.
Sure but it's not just about quantity. They need to be along the highways to be useful for roadtrips. And no one else even has the tech for supercharging at the moment, it's 72kwh supercharges vs 50kwh (rare) ( as far as I know ).
At least for my use cases, I think Ford actually has an edge over Autopilot. Any car with adaptive cruise control and autosteering is gonna behave identically to a Tesla with autopilot for 99% of the time behind the wheel. Ford doesn't do lane changes or summoning, but from what I've seen both of those features have some jank with Tesla and I wouldn't use them.
The big pro of Ford's system is that on some highways/freeways the cruise control is actually hands free. IIRC Teslas have torque sensors in the steering wheel to make sure that your hands don't wander.
"Any car with adaptive cruise control and autosteering is gonna behave identically to a Tesla with autopilot for 99% of the time behind the wheel."
This isn't even close to true. Most LKAS and ADAS systems will only last a few seconds before they require human intervention. It is not at all the same experience.
We owned a Ford plug-in hybrid. Amazing power, every creature comfort imaginable, great price-- what could go wrong? Sort answer: everything. It was an absolute nightmare. First and last Ford I'll ever buy.
By way of counterpoint: leased a C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid from Ford for 3 years; never needed any work doing to it. Was a disappointment when Ford announced they were walking away from the car market for trucks and coupes only.
Why are companies not putting out electric gas hybrids that use a tuned generator as a backup source of energy like the Chevy Volt did? (I suspect then the vehicle wouldn't qualify for subsidies)
It's crazy to me, as it adds maybe 300 lbs to the vehicle and provides all the benefits of electric, but with the potential range of gas.
I find electric vehicles as a technology highly appealing, but current offerings atrocious. I want a privacy (crazy I even have to say this) respecting electric vehicle with a backup gas charging generator.
This truck would be ideal to _me_ if it met those two criterion, but as is it's a no go. I may just have to build my own someday. :sigh:
The Volt was "hybrid done right". It was 90% an EV, it just had backup generation, which didn't even have to provide that much power. It can run at a constant (optimal) speed, with the variability absorbed by batteries. It doesn't take that much power to maintain speed in cruise, as opposed to accelerating.
No complicated drive train either. The Prius drivetrain is an engineering marvel, but looks complicated to me. It seems to be reliable, which is incredible.
Sure you need to carry the extra weight, but maintenance is (supposedly) much simpler.
The I3 is an even better example. It's marketed with the 'range extender' as an option. Only issue is that it had a teeny tiny fuel tank that only added a pitiful range(I suspect some incentives were in play), but it demonstrates the concept. Maybe this could even be optional.
The BMW i3 has a gas range extender option[1] (though it's not exactly a pickup truck...) I personally went with a Toyota Prius Prime[2], which has been a solid vehicle.
Ford also has a hands free driving mode called Blue Cruise. It relies on highly accurate mapped roads as well as on-board sensors so it probably mostly works on just major highways. Still though, major highways are about the only time I'd really trust technology like this at the moment.
This is what this transition should be all about. It's not just a more environmentally responsible truck, it's better truck in nearly every way. Contractors are going to love the secure storage and built-in power for use on the job site or a farm. It has more torque and will be better at towing. They could have charged a lot more for these but instead it will be cheaper than the existing fossil fuel versions if you consider the tax rebates.
Ford knows their market and are going to absolutely destroy the competition with this.
I hope the ability to use your EV battery to backup your house power becomes an expected capability in the future. Glad Ford included it. Too bad Tesla backed away from it, i’m guessing due to their powerwall business.
I'm interested to see if this leads to people living in places without power and using their truck as the sole source of electricity.
If you have a small cabin with no a/c, wood heat, and a propane stove - your house is going to use hardly any power compared to your truck. It would barely make a difference.
The power draw is probably fine, but the contention for the battery would be a problem. Think, "hey honey, can we put off the Costco trip until next week so we can leave the internet up, and lights on?"
Implementing a transfer switch and dummy load just to dump solar generation when your truck is being a truck would feel like a weird exercise.
I want to know if it is 240V split phase. A lot of houses use multiwire branch circuits so getting split phase power would be a Big Deal. If Ford puts a big gnarly inverter capable of this in the F150, then I'm going to be stoked.
But I need an HD truck, and it has to have enough range to tow, which means I'm not in the market for a Lightning. Dammit.
Depends on the size of the house's load and the size of the battery and the efficiency of the inverter.
Ford's promo site says 'up to 10 days with rationing power' asuming 30kWh use per day with extended-range battery. But it's not clear to me if 30kWH is normal use, and rationing would be less, or if that's the rationed use. A 300 kWH battery seems rather large to me, and i haven't seen an actual spec for the Ford.
Edit: reread their site after reading sibling posts, in a different blurb they say 3 days or 10 days with rationing with the same assumption about 30 kWH per day; so their rationing assumption must be getting down closer to 9 kWH per day. Either way, a nice feature to have that would eliminate a portable generator for me.
The average household electricity consumption per day is 28.9 kWh. For comparison, the Tesla Model X long range has a battery capacity of 100 kWh.
So in theory, a fully charged Model X could power the average home for 3 days. Really puts into perspective how much energy is needed to move a car at highway speeds.
Readit News
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=2
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=3
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27234039&p=4
(Posts like this will go away once we turn off pagination.)
There are also some previous related threads:
The Electric Ford F-150 Can Power Your House for Three Days on a Single Charge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27232576 - May 2021 (14 comments)
Ford unveils the F-150 Lightning, its all-electric pickup truck - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27218029 - May 2021 (88 comments)
How Ford Built an Electric F-150 That Can Do Real Work for $40K - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27217386 - May 2021 (7 comments)
Everything about this vehicle launch appears masterful, from its technology to its branding to the obvious care taken to ensure that in almost every respect it is so superior, and offers so many no-brainers, as to make anyone who can (both individuals and especially, fleet managers), buy these as fast they can.
This thing has more than one killer app.
The biggest by far IMO is its ability to power high voltage high draw tools at the jobsite.
If you have never worked on a jobsite, this is a BFD.
This is itself a game changer, it offers the ability to "disrupt" in a material way a whole class of project. Logistics just got 20% simpler and projects 30% cheaper.
Sure, it can go super fast; yes, you can lock your stuff in the truck...
But the other killer feature for fleet owners is that these are remotely manageable.
Your fleet now has detailed telemetry and its only going to get better.
And this is on launch.
We just got a RAV4 Prime and if I didn't live in SF proper, I might be seriously regretting not waiting for this thing. (I don't, and don't think this makes sense in the city.)
If we move to e.g. Sonoma and work remote? This would be that no brainer.
Hallelujah. Now, to invest in Ford...
I have a TIG welder and a solid state linear amplifier that I'd love to be able to power from my truck instead of from a generator.
Deleted Comment
What I would like to figure out is if it can actually backfeed the home with 240V split phase power. That would be a seriously big deal if it could, it's not a common generator feature as it is. I'm skeptical, but they did claim it could transition from charging to supplying the house and back to charging when the power returned. Probably some fine print there where they say "only with the 120V charger". Otherwise, that would just be killer. An automatic whole-house UPS that can easily support all your needs for hours or even a couple days in a pinch.
https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/elecgenerators.html
I wonder if the wiring is basically plug the 240v split phase into a special outlet in the house that feeds the transfer switch. The 80amp charger is then just a charger.
Could be completely wrong though. We'll know more at launch.
Dead Comment
Product launch is when something is released and you can buy it, not when someone published plans and best wishes.
It basically worse and more expensive at everything and its very unlikely Ford can build close to as many as the Cybertruck. Simply because of batteries alone and other production capacity as well (a lot is shared with the other F150s).
Its really slow charging considering the time it will come out. If you want to use this to transport anything its range is worse compared to the Cybertruck and its gone charge much slower.
This will likely sell well and they will likely sell as many as they can make. But that doesn't make it a game changer.
This will sell well but
The hybrid F-150 could already do that.
A production prototype doesn't even exist yet.
https://twitter.com/lloydalter/status/1395326192908218371?s=...
My yelling at one driver who was staring at her phone while driving out of a parking ramp and across the sidewalk where she nearly hit me, probably woke her up enough to avoid driving into traffic and being hit by a bus!
No, it's not the vehicles, it's the people driving them.
Because of high crash incompatibility, more overall damage and death occurs because of SUVs (and other similar vehicles).
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447?seq=1
You're not kidding! I was in the market for a small pickup and checked out the Tacoma and Frontier, which I previously understood to be "small" trucks. They're massive these days, just like the F-150! I guess it's perceived that there's no market for that size any more.
A small electric pickup would be a super handy thing to have around, potentially appealing to urbanites too since they can toss their groceries in the frunk. There's really no reason the frunk needs to be so big on the F-150 Lightning - that part of the design is really a head scratcher.
Write your representative and tell them to thank the EPA and NHTSA for doing their jobs. The death of the small pickup is squarely the fault of the confluence of fuel economy and crash safety regulations.
[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36125131/2022-hyundai-san...
Just call it a pickup.
The long-bed was popular back when people owned a truck as an extra vehicle/work vehicle only, now many use their truck as their main vehicle and have need of carrying others.
If you look at the creature comforts of older bench seat trucks (bare-bones) and the trucks sold today, a truck today will have everything an SUV will have in terms of comfort and maybe more.
The frunk makes a big difference for those kinds of things.
Storage with the massive frunk is awesome. Lots of features around hitches and making it easier to use them and tow with them. Pretty good price point, good acceleration to appeal to the macho truck crowd who will hold their nose while making the plunge to electric so they can feel good about themselves when they floor the accelerator at stoplights and onramps.
There is something for everyone here. Yes, it plays it safe on the aesthetics side of things, but I don't see anything wrong with it. The "safer" aesthetics also make it more useful than the Cybertruck, what with the massive Frunk. Really glad to see some good competition in this space. The next 2 years are going to be really exciting in the EV space!
That could be a very useful and popular niche, construction sites without power at early phases of construction aren't rare and power tool batteries are expensive.
For a lot of truck owners, there's going to be some resistance because they love having a v8 engine etc. I don't see those people moving over quickly (although they might be swayed by the acceleration/speed). But if you're using one as a tradesperson, this seems like an absolute no-brainer. You're not driving enormous distances regularly and if you're able to run your entire job site for free, as well as have lower servicing costs... why wouldn't you?
Perhaps.. but we'll have to see how the battery holds up under extremely hot or cold conditions to really know if it will be used that way; and few people will want to be stuck at the job site after the end of the day.
However, even better for that kind of stuff would be a hybrid with a smaller battery, but a generator in the frunk (sort of like the Volt).
I haven't seen consumer chargers that are designed to be installed outside. Most people have wall chargers in their garages, but I don't thing this is going to work for the majority of F150 home owners.
That being said, this is an otherwise incredible vehicle. The F150 is pretty much the ultimate vehicle for someone with enough space for one, and this improves upon it in nearly every way.
So outdoor charging should not be an issue.
Most can be installed outside, specially if they are hardwired. Not sure if there are any rated to be plugged in outdoor power outlets.
I have a Mustang Mach e and can't emphasize this enough. It makes tooling around my suburban enclave a pleasure as I go from 0 to 30 mph in a blink.
I entered an on-ramp with a BMW behind me. Honestly, I wasn't trying to make a point, but the BMW swung around me as we entered the highway and it was on. Then it was done. Giggle.
I'm glad I added the caveats though -- the $40K F150 is for commercial fleets, so will be missing crucial features for the passenger market and might bypass dealerships. Even so, $52K is still a competitive price for a SuperCrew with a few options.
Of course, they'll always cost more than the estimates, plus you get to throw in sales tax and the annual registration tithe to the state.
I'm always surprised that people are willing to spend so much on new vehicles but I guess it keeps the money moving through the economy. The spice must flow.
Dead Comment
(BTW: It seems like such an arbitrary and ultimately bad decision to cap rebates by manufacturer. Rebate caps for expensive luxury cars? Sure. But penalize a manufacturer for making _too many_ of the thing you're incentivizing doesn't seem right).
Another likely scenario is that Biden gets his infrastructure bill through and the credit becomes available to all US-manufactured EV's.
The $50k Cybertruck gets you 300 miles.
If the $40K commercial use version is the right truck for a given consumer, great. But most consumers will want to step up from that for a personal vehicle. I think for most people, we will find $53K is the real starting price.
It feels as if the $40K commercial-use version was added in order to capture some headlines that group "$40K" alongside features of the more expensive trims such as "4.4 second 0 to 60," and I believe they have been successful in that.
The Cybertruck gets you nothing. It doesn't exist.
(...in late 2022)
Just a preface to say I’m not hating on Ford in particular here, but the msrp is bogus. I can nearly guarantee that the actual base on a vehicle you can actually by will be $10k higher once a dealer is involved.
Edit: side comment, wow 800 plus comments on an F150 hacker news submission. Did not see that coming ;)
It is setting customer expectations and it is competition.
1. No comprehensive supercharger network. This is a real big deal still. Using existing non-supercharging networks is not feasible for any long distance. You cannot do a roadtrip only charging 30~ mph. Thats 2 hours charging for every 1 hour driving.
2. Battery range for certain use cases. The base model is rated for 230 miles. If you've ever driven a Tesla on a highway you know you'll not get the full 230 at highspeeds. And so what happens when a truck is pulling a heavy load? You may end up literally getting half that range. This will be quite a shock for some users.
3. Software rollouts. Ford has been working on this but it is still not Solved. They've already bricked Mach-E's (1), and I expect there to be many more technical issues popping up.
4. No Autopilot. This is a big sell for many EV users. As far as I know Ford is no where close to having a viable competitor.
Anyways, I'm sure these things will smooth out over the coming years and I wish them all the best with this amazing migration to electric vehicles.
(1) https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/8/22373903/mustang-mach-e-de...
I want an electric truck, but there’s no way in hell I’m trusting my life to Bay Area tech. I want to save money on gas and be more eco friendly. My truck driving for me is not a want until the tech is perfected.
Is it really? I'm looking at an EV for my next car, and not once have I considered Autopilots availability as a musthave feature. Then again, most people who get excited about Autopilot seem to think that driving is a chore that should be removed, while I love driving.
Ford has something similar, but it fails more unexpectedly and often. Although, Tesla AP still has major phantom braking issues... sigh.
I agree- this is really going to be a big deal, especially with how large the F-150 EV battery is (150kWh). For comparison, the Chevrolet Bolt hatchback has a 66KWh battery with a similar range as the F-150, which makes sense, because the Bolt is much lighter and aerodynamic.
The vast majority of public charging stations in the US ("Level 2") max out at under 10kW; these are great for smaller cars used for commuting to-and-from the office or local shops or whatever. This isn't so bad for the Bolt, but the F-150 will recharge (from a range perspective) much more slowly.
There are very few Level 3 "fast" chargers around. These typically charge at 50kW until the battery is at 80% capacity, then slow down to 10kW or so. Public chargers often charge per minute ($.30 or so), so you get the best bang for the buck to get off the charger once you hit 80%. So, let's say your F-150 is down to 20% capacity, and you need to charge up to 80%. 60% of that 150kWh is battery is 90kWh- that will take nearly two hours ($36) on that fast charger.
> These typically charge at 50kW until the battery is at 80% capacity, then slow down to 10kW or so.
I'm not sure where you're getting this number, but according to this data [1] about the Mach-E, it charges at 150 kW until about 10%, then 100 kW until 35%, then 70 kW until 80%. This is much faster than what you are saying. They have a chart showing that depending on your starting SoC, you can get an average of up to 90 kW. If you start at a reasonable 10-15% state of charge, your average charge rate up to 80% will be 80 kW, not 50kW.
> So, let's say your F-150 is down to 20% capacity, and you need to charge up to 80%. 60% of that 150kWh is battery is 90kWh- that will take nearly two hours ($36) on that fast charger.
The F-150 has a larger battery than the Mach-E, but assuming the rates stay the same, it would take a bit over an hour to charge this much, not two hours.
The pricing varies on Electrify America, but looking at a few stations here [2], as long as you have a membership, it looks like this would cost somewhere from $10-30. Some stations charge by the minute, and others by the kWh.
[1]: https://insideevs.com/news/492727/ford-mustang-mache-fast-ch...
[2]: https://www.electrifyamerica.com/pricing/
This only matters for road trips. In general, L2 availability is the sticking point. Cars generally spend most of their time parked somewhere. All you need to do is to get back the miles you have spent getting to where you are currently charging. This is how I could survive my 25 mile commute every day with 110v power outlets. I didn't need to charge to full every time, just recover what was spent.
One thing that's impressing me is that Ford FINALLY took the "Tesla" route and made the car communicate with stations in the Electrify America network. No more fussing around with card readers that don't always work, or having to call a number with a bad cellphone connection. Just plug in, it works. That's easier than a conventional gas station.
I don't think issues 3 and 4 really need to have much to do with electric vehicles. Autopilot and electric are orthogonal properties. The only connection is that they're both pioneered by Tesla. Otherwise there's no particular reason you should expect one with the other. The same goes for over the air software updates.
It just so happens that one of the most popular autopilot implementations is on Tesla, but it could have just as well been implemented on an ICE car.
Agreed. I've been driving a Leaf since 2015 (two different generations by now) and the main reason that makes road trips unpalatable is NOT range. Not at all. Charging more often? Sure, whatever. Unless it's a business trip or a trip across the country it's fine. I've discovered some stuff I'd probably would never have otherwise, by routing via chargers in small towns.
No, the problem is how sparse some quickchargers are, and the fact that many don't even work - and the best you can do is check comments to see if people have complained about them recently. Some of them (specially Nissan owned!) are located in places that _close at night_. That's not acceptable, we can find 24/7 gas stations almost everywhere.
However, that only accounts for 0.1% of my trips. I've optimized for the most common use-case (city driving) and don't regret that one bit.
> If you've ever driven a Tesla on a highway you know you'll not get the full 230 at highspeeds.
Yeap. Same way you won't get good mileage on any car if you do that. Thankfully liquid fuels have a ridiculous amount of energy, so we can afford to waste 70% as heat plus drag and the only real consequence is the wallet (and filling up more often).
US highway speeds are crazy and it is indeed shocking when you see it the first time. It would also be quite shocking on ICE cars too, but they don't have accurate fuel gages, let alone accurate range estimates. At least most don't.
> I wish them all the best with this amazing migration to electric vehicles.
Me too!
Crazy as in high or low?
I-5 between San Francisco and LA is about ~70mph limit. That's ~113km/h.
A lot of highways in Europe are often at 130km/h sometimes going up to 140km/h limit.
P.S. And if you think those limits are even remotely observed, try a road trip in Italy or Bulgaria :P
Er, no, traditional gas cars fuel economy is optimal in freeway driving, despite the fact that more delivered energy is required than at slower speeds. Hybrids and electric cars, which can be closer to peak delivery efficiency over a broader range of speeds, have peak economy at lower speeds.
> Same way you won't get good mileage on any car if you do that
What do you mean by that? Aren't ICE cars often more efficient at highway speeds? My car usually averages 45ish MPG on the highway and more like 30 in the city.. the sweet spot seems to be around 60-70 mph. Some US highways get up to 80 or 90, but that still (at least for the cars I've owned) ends up more efficient MPG-wise than city driving.
Ford is targeting Truck Buyers, not "EV Users", and I can assure you Ford knows Truck Buyers, and i can also Assure you we do not care or even want Autopilot. We love to drive our trucks.
>>No comprehensive supercharger network.
I fully expect Ford to have this solved by the time the first Truck rolls off the line, I could be wrong but Ford has a ton of partnerships and pull. Hell even if the only chargers where at every dealership that would likely rival Telsa's network out of the box. However I fully expect deals to be made likely in concert with other Manufactures over the next 12 mos so I think this will end up being a non-issue
>>Software rollouts. Ford has been working on this but it is still not Solved.
I still not sure how I feel about this "feature", one of the reason I dislike Tesla is their belief they should be allowed to modify the car I supposedly bought from them anytime they want over the air. Treating the car like it was an Apple iPhone (which I also do not own)
Ford has a careful balancing act here. Ford owners want to OWN their truck, not rent it from Ford
I agree that this is important, but it is 99% psychological. In the entire time I owned my Tesla, I used the supercharger a half dozen times. Most people with an EV that has 200+ miles of range will rarely use DC fast chargers.
All of a sudden with an EV you most likely need to plan your route around charging stations and allow for charging time. This isn't to say that EV's are bad or that they should be avoided - simply that most people don't think about these things in advance and may be surprised the first time they take a long trip with an EV.
But every once in a while we drive about 200 miles to visit the in-laws, and I would be super nervous about attempting that in an EV. At best we'd be close to empty by the time we arrived, I don't know the state of the charger system on the highways we use, and we'd be stuck using a low-amp charger at their house, which would take forever.
I was 50/50 on buying an EV last year, but decided against it for this reason; I felt like we were still a couple of years away from EVs being practical for all of my use cases. I'm sure we'll get there soon, but right now they aren't a drop-in replacement for everyone's ICE.
But in an area like New Mexico, there are lots of people doing jobs where they will drive 150+ miles per day without even thinking about.
> autopilot Again, don’t want a half baked marketing-speak technology. Driver assist with sensor driven safety features are all I want. Don’t want extremely intrusive analytics and camera monitoring sure where after any accident the car company CEO would be testing how it was my fault.
Supercharger network is the only thing that will ever make me want to get a Tesla, hopefully other networks will soon be sufficient.
Yes, Ford dealerships and in fact all dealerships can be shady, but for other cars I generally don’t have to deal with them once the warranty is over. With Tesla I’ll have to deal with the company for the life of my car.
Autopilot (as in ADAS Level 3) is and always will be vaporware on existing Teslas. Meanwhile my 2016 Civic has the same type of ADAS Level 2 driver assist. It's not quite as fancy as Tesla's version but it's 90% of what I need. I think for 90% of buyers, anything that does ADAS level 2 is fine.
Yes. I considered CarPlay a must-have feature, but no EVs out there matched the Supercharger network, which led to a Tesla purchase.
>4. No Autopilot.
Tesla is definitely overselling this. The only real time I've used Autopilot for an extended period of time was driving I-5 from SF to/from LA, and other ICE cars accomplish this too.
Minivan...yes. SUV yes. Work truck, not likely.
If people have the occasional need to drive cross country, just rent a gas vehicle till the infrastructure is there. Till then it's just fear mongering causes a slower adoption of EV, which means a slower rollout of a national network.
I agree that overselling the importance of uncommon use cases is a hindrance to EV adoption in general, but this is a pickup truck. The purpose of a pickup truck is to handle the uncommon use cases. It's fair to criticize this specific EV for not being good at the things that you must have a pickup truck to do.
Plus dealerships have business hours. I had a bad time once with an earlier Leaf generation trying to charge at night, in the cold. TWO quick chargers just a few miles away, both inaccessible.
The big pro of Ford's system is that on some highways/freeways the cruise control is actually hands free. IIRC Teslas have torque sensors in the steering wheel to make sure that your hands don't wander.
This isn't even close to true. Most LKAS and ADAS systems will only last a few seconds before they require human intervention. It is not at all the same experience.
Why are companies not putting out electric gas hybrids that use a tuned generator as a backup source of energy like the Chevy Volt did? (I suspect then the vehicle wouldn't qualify for subsidies)
It's crazy to me, as it adds maybe 300 lbs to the vehicle and provides all the benefits of electric, but with the potential range of gas.
I find electric vehicles as a technology highly appealing, but current offerings atrocious. I want a privacy (crazy I even have to say this) respecting electric vehicle with a backup gas charging generator.
This truck would be ideal to _me_ if it met those two criterion, but as is it's a no go. I may just have to build my own someday. :sigh:
No complicated drive train either. The Prius drivetrain is an engineering marvel, but looks complicated to me. It seems to be reliable, which is incredible.
Sure you need to carry the extra weight, but maintenance is (supposedly) much simpler.
The I3 is an even better example. It's marketed with the 'range extender' as an option. Only issue is that it had a teeny tiny fuel tank that only added a pitiful range(I suspect some incentives were in play), but it demonstrates the concept. Maybe this could even be optional.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_i3#Range_extender_option
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_Plug-in_Hybrid#Dr...
That's Autopilot like anyone else has, it's just not marketed as autopilot.
Anyway, I don't care about Effonefittys, I want an 8 passenger Autopilot vehicle that I can buy used.
https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2021...
Ford knows their market and are going to absolutely destroy the competition with this.
If you have a small cabin with no a/c, wood heat, and a propane stove - your house is going to use hardly any power compared to your truck. It would barely make a difference.
The power draw is probably fine, but the contention for the battery would be a problem. Think, "hey honey, can we put off the Costco trip until next week so we can leave the internet up, and lights on?"
Implementing a transfer switch and dummy load just to dump solar generation when your truck is being a truck would feel like a weird exercise.
But I need an HD truck, and it has to have enough range to tow, which means I'm not in the market for a Lightning. Dammit.
Ford's promo site says 'up to 10 days with rationing power' asuming 30kWh use per day with extended-range battery. But it's not clear to me if 30kWH is normal use, and rationing would be less, or if that's the rationed use. A 300 kWH battery seems rather large to me, and i haven't seen an actual spec for the Ford.
Edit: reread their site after reading sibling posts, in a different blurb they say 3 days or 10 days with rationing with the same assumption about 30 kWH per day; so their rationing assumption must be getting down closer to 9 kWH per day. Either way, a nice feature to have that would eliminate a portable generator for me.
So in theory, a fully charged Model X could power the average home for 3 days. Really puts into perspective how much energy is needed to move a car at highway speeds.
The F150 Lighting has up to a 150kWH battery, so somewhere in the 1-2 week range, depending on use.