Norma66-Brent said:Hey Tom. My lightning had the same failure. In the shop for 45 days. Been flawless since module replacement.
Interesting--I'm hoping I'll have mine back sooner.
My rep went from returning emails within 15 minutes to no reply in three days after I asked for a status update, so I fear this dealership might be one of the victims of that cyber attack. Hopefully I'll find out more on Monday.
In the meantime, I've been making good use of the loaner truck:
In reply to Tom Suddard :
My hold up was getting the module out of Dearborn. Nobody likes to ship high voltage batteries. And once they got the battery they didn't have the glue to glue the covers back on. Make sure they have that on order
When was yours replaced? My dealer said they'd done a few of these recently, so I'm hoping they're a little more efficient now.
In reply to Tom Suddard :
About two months ago
Tom Suddard said:It's almost always free...
Well, kinda...
Its never actually free. It costs the hotel quite a bit. And it's paid for by ALL the hotel guests that stay there in their room rates.
SV reX said:Tom Suddard said:It's almost always free...Well, kinda...
Its never actually free. It costs the hotel quite a bit. And it's paid for by ALL the hotel guests that stay there in their room rates.
Sure, same as the wifi, the pool, and your water usage aren't "free", even when not listed as a separate fee. Seems difference without a distinction.
Yep, exactly. I like to call it "prepaid" but the difference is pointless. As I've discussed before, hotels with charging don't seem to be more expensive than equivalent hotels without, and I usually stay in Hampton Inns or equivalent no matter what I'm driving.
dculberson said:Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Tom Suddard :
I know the feeling... I need to make an appointment with one of the local Dodge dealers to get new key fobs for my minivan.
Too bad you're not closer; I have a key programming machine and can easily add fobs to a Caravan.
<- (ponders driving time from Philly to Columbus...)
But in all seriousness, PM heading your way momentarily.
Last weekend I got to experience a Lightning first hand as one of my mtn bike club teammates has one. He drove it from his home near DC to Davis WV. He said the range was pretty good until he hit the mountains (Davis is at about 3200 elevation) and range started going down quickly at that point and he arrived with about 20% of charge left.
Fortunately, we were at a campground with a few sites with full RV hook-ups including 50A and 30A receptacles. My group had two of those sites, so he parked the truck at one of the sites and plugged it in periodically during our stay. We also used his truck for occasional shuttles and I rode in the back seat - which is limo-like in leg-room.
If he has one complaint, it's how the truck won't retain tailgate settings in memory. He has a 6x vertical bike rack on the back of the truck, and the fancy tailgate has to be in "manual mode" or something in order to be opened because the proximity sensors don't like the bike rack there. However it resets every time he shuts the truck off so he has to dig through the menus on the screen to set it back to manual in order to open the tail gate. Not a huge thing, but just kinda of an annoying thing that probably didn't occur to Ford engineers. My guess is it's something that could probably be "fixed" with a future software update.
Now that's a bike rack
Tom Suddard said:Spearfishin said:Tom Suddard said:OHSCrifle said:How many times has the hotel charger been occupied when you get there?
It's happened once or twice on roadtrips, but not usually. Most hotels with charging seem to have 2-4 chargers, while I've found one with a dozen of them. When they've all been full, I just eat breakfast at a local fast charger before getting back on the highway. Chain restaurants, chain hotels and fast chargers tend to be at the same exits, as they're all there to support road trips.
Thought of this thread when I was in Tampa for work. My hotel window looked down on the 4 EV charging sports they had. Every day an employee parked in one, in their 04ish Nissan Murano. But at most I saw 2 EVs, leaving a spot free, including the jackass hotel employee's vehicle clogging one up.
Do you pay for that charging when you book the room? Is it metered and billed to your room?
It's almost always free, but when it is paid then you pay at the charger like any other station.
I recently stayed at a holiday inn express for a baseball tournament and was pleasantly surprised to see 6 Tesla destination chargers (level 2, not superchargers) out front of the hotel. I was surprised to look at the Tesla app later and see a charge for the... err... charge. It wasn't cheap and I was happy to have the car charger while I slept.
I view hotel chargers like WiFi was 15 years ago. Some places are trying to make it a profit center, others realize that it gets them more business so they don't charge. And like WiFi, I expect it will eventually be ubiquitous and no extra charge except for business hotels where everyone's on an expense account anyhoe.
I asked the Ford dealership if they had any updates:
Good morning, Tom
Yeah, I do. We received that last remaining part this morning that we have been waiting for. My tech is planning to have it back in the shop and finished up by the weekend. I will keep you posted. Once parts are installed, he will retest to make sure all is operating perfectly.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
maybe they'll really do the hotel wifi model and limit you to extra-slow charging unless you pay for premium or have gold status
In reply to gixxeropa :
That's quite plausible, because (unlike wifi) it actually costs more to offer higher speed charging. There are also times when you might actually want faster charging. But as long as you're not rocking a Silverado with a ludicrously sized battery, chances are that even the throttled charging speed would get you a full battery overnight.
Yeah, that's probably where it will end up. For now, though, it's truly the wild west and hotels don't seem to have any idea what to do with it.
Case in point: A few weeks ago I was towing home from AMP, and stopped for the evening in Atlanta. My hotel, a Tru by Hilton, had a bank of 10kw Tesla Destination chargers, as well as a few free 7kw Clipper Creek J1772 chargers. They totaled maybe 6 or 8 chargers, and they were all free.
And of course, there were a few chargers in use, a few blocked by ICE vehicles, and the remaining ones in a bad spot to squeeze a trailer next to. I could have figured something out, but it was midnight and I was ready to go to sleep.
So I drove to the other side of the parking lot, where I was technically in Homewood Suites by Hilton territory. Same company's sister hotel. They had a bank of Chargepoint 6kw chargers that all charged a normal rate per kWh (I don't remember it, but it was a few bucks for the overnight charge). Same company, same parking lot, 50' away from each other.
Have your truck back?
We finally got a babysitter (grandparents, obviously) and met after work Friday at semi-local large-by-big Ford dealer so wife could drive a Lightning. They had 87 ICE F-150's in stock. 1 Lightning, which they couldn't find. Apparently the dealer software hack is still messing with their operations. It's a leftover 23 Lariat standard range. Finally found it (on the chargers beside the main show room). Were informed that they don't get many calls for Lightnings and can order whatever we want, 12-16 week production lead.
We ask to test drive the single available example so my wife can see if she's even interested and after some more wild goose chasing around this huge dealership we learn it's "in the middle of a deal" and they'd rather us not test drive it.
Neat. Thanks for the 45 minute goat rodeo so that we could peak at the inside of a truck that largely looks identical to the '21 F-150 I've put 105k miles on. Glaring difference being giant vertical screen for a center stack. Went to Hyundai and Chevy after that. I want to want the Ioniq 5, but it's not any bigger than her current whip. Blazer EV was intriguing, but we got there 15 minutes before closing and didn't want to hold them up setting up a test drive.
Overall, I'm just not a fan of the "dealership experience".
In reply to Spearfishin :
Come down to Walterboro, SC. The owner of the Ford dealership goes to church with my parents. He ordered 12 Lightenings when they first came out. Last I heard he still has 11 on the lot. He can't sell them for cost. Rural SC apparently doesn't have any use for an electric truck.
I finally got my truck back this afternoon--been a busy busy week with family stuff, but I'm thrilled to be back in my smooth, quiet, fast truck instead of the loaner. Over the life of the loan, I averaged 16.3 mpg with the loaner, using it exactly like I'd normally use my truck, though no towing because it didn't have a brake controller.
I'll write more about the Lightning later, but figured I should post that it's back. Supposedly it took an extra week+ because the only EV tech was out sick.
The Lightning rolled over 30,000 miles yesterday, and the odometer is currently sitting at 30,186.
How'd I add 3,000 miles in a week? With a road trip, of course! I drove the truck to Watkins Glen, NY, then led our Empire State Tour through the finger lakes before driving home via NYC and DC to visit family. Thanks to the Tesla network, I didn't encounter a single broken charger, wait, or really any uncertainty at all: This trip really, really was a non-issue.
I also set a new record for my trip from Alexandria, VA to home in Daytona Beach yesterday. It took us 14 hours, and could have shaved 30 minutes or so if we'd been willing to pee in bottles and skip lunch, and probably another 15-30 minutes with perfect traffic. Without any stops or traffic, Google says that's 11 hours of driving.
Proof I made it all the way to (and onto!) the Glen:
Toyman! said:In reply to Spearfishin :
Come down to Walterboro, SC. The owner of the Ford dealership goes to church with my parents. He ordered 12 Lightenings when they first came out. Last I heard he still has 11 on the lot. He can't sell them for cost. Rural SC apparently doesn't have any use for an electric truck.
Looks like he has 4 left, and even with the discount they're $67k. Ouch!
In reply to dculberson :
So I wasn't the only one to check the inventory. Their data is going to be skewed for clicks on the EV trucks after today.
Im guessing the price is different for a real inquiry, since the online price included all available discounts (first responders, college grad, etc)
We found/drove a used '23 Lariat extended range last night. Liked it. Not sure if I like the price, and comp's are fairly thin. Also doesn't have the max tow's additional battery cooling, which I'd really like.
In the meanwhile, continuing to watch your ownership experience.
Tom - I thought you would enjoy this article! Admittedly, one would be hard pressed to call this even a proof of concept at this early stage, but it's an interesting future to ponder.
In a first, electric Ford F-150 trucks are powering homes in Baltimore
Plenty of utilities are talking about using EV batteries as grid assets. Baltimore Gas & Electric is actually doing it.
Brian Foreman of Howard County, Maryland, became the first person in the country to earn money from his utility by running his home on energy from his F-150 Lightning during summer evening hours. (Dylan Slagle/BGE)
For the first time ever, electric Ford F-150 drivers are getting paid to run their homes from their pickup truck batteries during peak hours to help meet grid demand. And the pathbreaking program is happening in Baltimore, a city better known for the creation of Old Bay seasoning and “The Star-Spangled Banner” than transformative grid policies.
When it rolled out the F-150 Lightning in 2021, Ford made a splash by designing a backup power mode: If the owner’s house loses power from the grid, the capacious truck battery can run the house instead. That’s a clean and quiet alternative to a fossil-fueled generator, but it hinted at something far more potent: What if you could put that battery to work all the time, for the benefit of not just the driver but the entire electricity system?
A lot of utilities are talking about this. California’s PG&E, for instance, is looking to enroll up to 1,000 customers in a similar residential pilot program, which it describes as 0 percent subscribed at this time. Other utilities have started programs internally, for employees or their families.
But Baltimore Gas and Electric, the local subsidiary of mega-utility Exelon, appears to be the first provider to actually enroll and pay customers for sending their EV batteries’ stored energy into their homes.
BGE launched its pilot program in June with Ford and solar and battery company Sunrun. EV owners simply plug in their trucks, and they automatically discharge to cover home energy usage between 5:00 and 9:00 p.m. on summer weeknights, when the electricity system is stretched thin cooling homes. Then the trucks automatically recharge overnight, when demand is lower and supply is more available.
If this concept — known to wonks as vehicle-to-home (V2H), or vehicle-to-grid (V2G) when the power flows beyond the household — grows from its current footprint in Baltimore, it could galvanize the broader transition to low-carbon electric driving. First, it could provide compensation that defrays the cost of owning an electric vehicle, which largely remains a luxury purchase in the U.S. Second, intelligent use of these batteries can turn the arrival of masses of electric vehicles from a grid problem into a grid resource.
If millions of EV drivers plug in to charge at the exact times when the grid is most taxed, that could cause serious issues for power supply and reliability. But if EVs can be managed in a way that encourages charging at times when electricity is cheap and overabundant, and then programs like BGE’s shift some of that power to peak hours, the growing EV fleet could help avoid grid instability, said Kristy Fleischmann Groncki, senior manager of smart grid and innovation at BGE.
“As EV adoption continues in our state, we really need a plan for that increased load on our system,” Fleischmann Groncki told Canary Media. “If we’re able to bring that peak down by utilizing customer EVs to offset their houses from grid demand, that will help smooth this out overall.”
It wouldn’t take much to make a real impact this way. Sunrun’s Head of Grid Services Chris Rauscher pointed out that the U.S. has nearly 4 million EVs on the road today. If they all were configured to discharge an easy 5 kilowatts to the grid for a given period, that would add 20 million kilowatts onto the wires, or 20,000 megawatts. That’s roughly twice the capacity of all the grid batteries California built over the last decade. That kind of a swing resource could put an end to blackouts from electricity shortfalls during extreme heat waves, like California experienced in 2020.
“The impact of this resource is going to be enormous,” Rauscher said. “You’ll see this become ubiquitous.”
Unlocking vehicle-to-home electricity exchange
Nobody could accuse vehicle-to-grid functionality of ubiquity today, and the Baltimore program illuminates the practical challenges of turning EVs into grid assets.
First, Ford and Sunrun needed a utility willing to sign up. Utilities aren’t known for jumping onto novel technologies, but BGE already had grant funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for advanced EV-charging programs and opted to put some of that toward the Lightning trial.
“They were totally open to trying something innovative and doing it quickly,” Rauscher said.
It took BGE a year to secure approval from state regulators for the program. Then, Sunrun, Ford, and BGE sought out every F-150 Lightning owner in the utility territory who had installed the advanced two-way charger needed for the backup power mode. They found and enrolled three households — which Rauscher gamely described as “100 percent enrollment of eligible customers.”
They had to work with the electric F-150, because it was the first mass-produced electric vehicle in the U.S. with built-in power discharge capabilities that were allowed under the warranty. A few more models are joining Ford in this — for instance, GM says its new 2024 Chevy Silverado EV pickup can power a home, but the photo on its website carries a disclaimer — “Simulated charger shown” — that suggests a working product is not yet available. Nissan allowed Leaf owners to discharge power in 2022, but at the time it was available only for commercial configurations, not residences.
The BGE pilot program’s three-truck turnout reflects the fact that not many people currently own a Ford electric pickup. The company sold a little more than 24,000 last year, while it sold 761,455 F-Series trucks; Ford reduced production of the Lightning earlier this year in response to soft sales numbers.
Even fewer people have installed the necessary two-way charger, which costs around $9,000 (that’s expensive, but Sunrun prefers to compare it with the cost of a fossil-fueled backup generator, which doesn’t provide additional benefits beyond a power outage).
When the technical work began, Ford and Sunrun pushed out firmware updates virtually, so no site visits were necessary. But it took some fine-tuning of the Wi-Fi, cellular, and Bluetooth communications that all the devices need to talk to each other to get the trucks sending power into the house during the right hours.
IT professional and EV enthusiast Brian Foreman of Howard County became the first adopter of the program, and he was able to put his technical mindset to good use. His truck needed some troubleshooting to get all the necessary systems in line, but since June 21 it has run seamlessly, he said.
“It’s amazing how well it works; it’ll just switch over and start running the house,” he told Canary Media. The electronic appliances don’t flicker, and the clock on the coffee maker doesn’t skip a beat. He’s been “stressing it out some” to test the system — even using the Ford battery to charge his Tesla Model 3. So far, he hasn’t hit any technical limits, even amid record heat.
Next steps: Customer compensation, expand to new utilities
Longer term, the success of vehicle-to-home depends on convincing more utilities to design programs, and that entails finding compensation structures that make sense for EV owners and utilities alike.
Clean energy advocates talk up virtual power plants like they’re a no-brainer: People are already spending their own money on solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles; if utilities paid them a little bit to use those devices in ways that solve grid problems, the whole utility customer base could save money compared with business as usual, which might otherwise default to expensive substation upgrades or fossil-gas peaker-plant expansion.
In practice, it’s been harder to nail down a price point for customer energy programs that utilities and regulators think is fair to the overall customer base, but that is sufficiently attractive to engage participants. Baltimore offers a starting point for negotiation in the vehicle-to-home category.
The pilot’s three participants get paid $200 per kilowatt-month for however much home consumption they meet with the truck batteries. So if they average a mere 2 kilowatts during the peak hours, they take home $400 per month (just by plugging in at night). If they push to 5 kilowatts, roughly half of the Lightning’s peak discharge capacity, that translates to $1,000 a month. That’s enough to help with a car payment or the cost of the charger.
That generous level of compensation is for the pilot, because the early adopters are putting in more work to help calibrate the program, Fleischmann Groncki said. If this transitions into a permanent, full-scale program, the payment will likely be lower to ensure cost-effectiveness, she added.
More of these advanced EV programs are on the way. Maryland recently passed the DRIVE Act, which creates opportunities for utilities to incentivize the purchase of smart-charging equipment for customers who enroll in grid programs. BGE is working on a full-scale plan for vehicle-to-grid operations by July 2025 and already has proposed a managed charging program. Currently, BGE customers are not allowed to discharge from an EV battery into the grid, so they’re limited to supplying their own household usage; the new law could change that, opening up the chance for EV owners to export more power and make more money.
Sunrun is hopeful that more communities around the country will pursue similar programs, now that BGE has established the technical feasibility.
“It should give much, much higher confidence to other utilities around the country that this can and should be done today,” Rauscher said. “The barriers may only be perceived barriers, and we can move faster, as Baltimore Gas and Electric has shown.
That's very cool. I've always been a bit skeptical of V2G for this sort of load balancing because vehicles tend to leave their home base during the day, so it's difficult to recharge them using solar. But if you're trying to deal with the duck curve, it makes sense. Solar production falls off just as everyone gets home from work and loads up the grid with cooking/lights/AC/TV/etc. What Baltimore is trying to do is use the stored energy in EVs to flatten out this peak, just like utilities are doing with batteries on a utility scale.
This is the duck curve - the net load on the grid drops during the day as solar is pumping away, then rapidly spikes before falling off. It actually gets worse as renewables (basically, solar) become a larger part of generation. The goal here is to deal with the spike.
It assumes the EV still has some energy available to discharge, of course, and it does require the hardware on the house side. Obviously a vehicle could "opt out" on a given day if it doesn't have enough power available or if the owner unplugs to leave. Keep in mind that they're talking about a 4 hour period, so the "easy 5 kW" means 20 kWh. That's about 20% of a normal Lightning, but 50% of a 2024 Leaf. That sort of discharge will likely have some effect on the lifespan of the battery, just like idling a gas truck for 4 hours a day will have an effect on a number of its systems as well. But it's a good way for all those batteries on wheels to be put to use when they're not driving around.
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