Can't wait for cheap wrecked lightning drivetrains on copart!
Can't wait for cheap wrecked lightning drivetrains on copart!
I've already paid Ford my deposit on a right to order . . .
Ive got a reservation in but not sure if Id be going through with it. Im probably in the 50-100k range on the reservation list.
Basically looking at replacing my 2016 Silverado work trim and 2014 Cruze (currently down) which combined only get about 15k a year on them now. They are both pushing 200k miles. It would also keep miles off my wifes VW which is the go to vehicle.
I would be looking at the base "Pro" model possibly with the towing package. Im perfectly happy with the base trim in the Silverado so Id expect it would be fine in the Ford especially given the $10k upgrade to the next trim level. Unfortunately Ford has announced that the extended range Pro wont be available to the general public as I would have been interested in that upgrade.
SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:yupididit said:In reply to 03Panther :
My ecoboost has 90k on it. I put 25k on it in the 10 months I've owned it
Power all day long. Super reliable but I can tell it's due for some plugs. I do get oil changes every 5-7k miles.
Mine too. I've put 100K on it in 14 months, and tow anything I feel like.
The fact that other people don't want to tow with a turbo, or don't trust the "modern tech", or think a V8 is better are all the reasons this truck will continue to be a bargain.
These folks are welcome to their opinions. I'll keep enjoying driving mine!
(although I will agree with what was noted earlier... an F150 chassis will never be as capable a towing machine as a 3/4 ton. But it's a compromise I am will to make because I won't be towing 12K very often, or very far)
Now, back to Lightnings...
Tell me something. Would you take a 1940 3/4 ton pick up over a modern 1/2 ton?
OK how about a 1950,? 1960? At what point would you admit newer is better?
I'm glad you got an echoboost I'm stupid old school and bought a V8. Not that I questioned the advantages of a modern Turbo but I'm just enough of an antique that I was convinced that V8's would soon be too expensive to keep running and it might have some resale value when they read my will.
I'd say go for it, but then I'm 100% sold on electric cars now.
When I replaced my used Mazda5 with a new lease on a Nissan Leaf all the way back in 2013 I did the math to campare total cost of ownership between the two, and it was a wash.
At the end of the experience I actually ended up saving thousands and got to drive a much nicer car for years to boot. The savings from gas, maintenance, and repairs on an older car end up being substantial. It's not clear that gas prices will stay as high as they are today, but if they do you'll likely break even in costs, if not better.
The real trick with EVs is to pair them with a rooftop solar installation. It's like pre-paying for the next 25 years of gas, locked in at $0.50 a gallon.
In reply to Erich :
Great points about cost of ownership of EV's
Compare the number of parts in an electric motor and the typical ICE and transmission. What 7 to 1000?
Typical trip for any vehicle is probably 50 miles or less yet everyone wants a 1000 miles range?
Then totally ignore the cost savings over the life of the vehicle. Wheeee I got so much extra money I don't care how I spend it!!! Oops. That ICE isn't as fast as an EV And it costs me a lot more to own but at least I can fill the tank faster.
In reply to frenchyd :
to me the biggest quality of life change in owning an EV? Never stopping for gas again and always having a full charge in the morning. You don't realize how smelly and dirty gas stations are, and what a time suck, until you've spent years away from them.
Yes, charging on a road trip might take a little longer (though not much longer anymore), but in your daily life you just plug in when you get home and don't worry about recharging.
Erich said:In reply to frenchyd :
to me the biggest quality of life change in owning an EV? Never stopping for gas again and always having a full charge in the morning. You don't realize how smelly and dirty gas stations are, and what a time suck, until you've spent years away from them.
This is the #1 reason I want an EV - simply for the convenience factor. Although that has been significantly reduced since WFH started and I'm not buying gas at least once a week.
I see the new Lighning as a toy for people who "want" a truck, but don't actually "need" one.
Unless someone else is footing the bill, I would avoid it. Let someone else try to depend on this science experiment.
Modern cars already have too many electronic issues and over complicated overhead can engines (with a few exceptions). Going EV is just a bunch more 1's and 0's begging to leave you stranded currently.
frenchyd said:SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:yupididit said:In reply to 03Panther :
My ecoboost has 90k on it. I put 25k on it in the 10 months I've owned it
Power all day long. Super reliable but I can tell it's due for some plugs. I do get oil changes every 5-7k miles.
Mine too. I've put 100K on it in 14 months, and tow anything I feel like.
The fact that other people don't want to tow with a turbo, or don't trust the "modern tech", or think a V8 is better are all the reasons this truck will continue to be a bargain.
These folks are welcome to their opinions. I'll keep enjoying driving mine!
(although I will agree with what was noted earlier... an F150 chassis will never be as capable a towing machine as a 3/4 ton. But it's a compromise I am will to make because I won't be towing 12K very often, or very far)
Now, back to Lightnings...
Tell me something. Would you take a 1940 3/4 ton pick up over a modern 1/2 ton?
OK how about a 1950,? 1960? At what point would you admit newer is better?
I'm glad you got an echoboost I'm stupid old school and bought a V8. Not that I questioned the advantages of a modern Turbo but I'm just enough of an antique that I was convinced that V8's would soon be too expensive to keep running and it might have some resale value when they read my will.
I'll be honest, I prefer as modern truck as possible. I went from a 1991 s10 to 1984 c10 to a 2006 loaded f250 diesel to a 2000 diesel excursion to a 2015 expedition. I just sat in a new f150 and gmc sierra as well as their 3/4 ton counterparts. Ugh they're getting easier to drive, more capable, comfortable and more efficient. If only I could choose to afford a $80k truck.
The hardest part about owning my 3.5 ecoboost expedition is knowing the I could add downpipes, garrett turbos, better intercooler and a tune and be near 450whp.
In reply to Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) :
Your DVD player giving you hell and your flip phone hasn't left you for dead yet right?
In reply to Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) :
I mean... I daily drove an EV for nearly 4 years. Most reliable, convenient, easiest car I've ever owned.
Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:Erich said:In reply to frenchyd :
to me the biggest quality of life change in owning an EV? Never stopping for gas again and always having a full charge in the morning. You don't realize how smelly and dirty gas stations are, and what a time suck, until you've spent years away from them.
This is the #1 reason I want an EV - simply for the convenience factor. Although that has been significantly reduced since WFH started and I'm not buying gas at least once a week.
I've posted this before, but here's my anecdote:
I bought my Element, drove it for a week or so, then it was out of gas. Three days in a row, I got in it, said "crap why is this still on Empty?!" Then drove around and parked it at home. Then the next day I'd get in and again say "crap this didn't charge! Right, I'll get gas" and then didn't get gas. It's a pretty major change for your car to not fill itself up for free every morning without you doing anything.
Would love to see how this works out. I need a truck for towing but will need another daily in 1-2yr and having something new/nice that can do those few big tows a year would be great. Right now I have a 2500hd and a Jetta but could easily see replacing both if the daily use cost penalty goes down.
I think the biggest hurdle would be trailered charging (or how big a PITA factor is unhooking the trailer to charge) in the shorter term.
Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said:I see the new Lighning as a toy for people who "want" a truck, but don't actually "need" one.
I've always been curious what percentage of folks who buy trucks "want" but don't "need" one. Anecdotally, it seems quite high - I personally work with a number of folks who have never towed anything, never put anything in the bed, who nevertheless own and drive full size 4wd trucks. The Lightning would work for most of those people 100x better than a gas powered truck.
Tom is obviously not in that camp, however, and it would be much more interesting to see how it worked for him.
Erich said:The real trick with EVs is to pair them with a rooftop solar installation. It's like pre-paying for the next 25 years of gas, locked in at $0.50 a gallon.
I think it would need to be integrated from the factory to work well. Slapping something on the top of the car has a dramatic affect on drag/mpg, and noise as well.
I suspect Erich was referring to the roof of the garage, not the car :) There's not enough room on the roof of the car to have any significant effect.
The 100W panel I have on the roof of my Vanagon would provide about 1 mile of Model 3 range for every 3 hours of charging, and that's assuming 100% efficiency. You can scale those numbers up somewhat (say, assume a 4x increase in power output and room for another three panels) but you are still a long, long way from anything you can use.
Meanwhile, the new array I'm putting on my shop will generate that mile of range in a minute.
I'm probably doing my power math wrong, watts volts and amps. But the car reports power usage in Wh/m so that's what I'm using here.
In reply to z31maniac :
Uhh, I assume Erich meant rooftop .. of your house.
@Gearheadotaku: Why on earth would the fuel type dictate whether or not someone "needed" a truck? This electric truck is going to be just as capable as a gas one, just take longer to refuel from a different type of fuel station. There's absolutely nothing that disqualifies it as a "real truck" based on that. You're deep in the "my ad-hoc definition of truck is the only true definition of truck" territory there. By that reasoning, someone driving a diesel truck could say that gas trucks are only for people that want a toy and don't need a truck. Then people driving a F450 could say that anyone driving those ridiculous 3/4 ton trucks are only playing with toys. A 400-500hp truck that tows 10,000 pounds is in no way a toy and is definitely a "real truck."
Tom Suddard said:Cost of ownership vs. my V10: I put 15,000 miles or so per year on my truck, and it barely moves unless hooked to a trailer. At 8 mpg and $3/gallon, that's $468/month in fuel alone.
Woah holy moly. Thats a lot of miles and really terrible economy. Perfect storm. So the numbers might actually work out in your favor.
I still want to see math though. Charging is certainly not free, even though it may feel free compared with 8mpg.
Haha yeah, solar on the rooftop of your home. I suspect the average Lightning user would get enough solar energy from a ~4kW array to fully offset their driving electricity usage. That array should last at least 25 years and pay itself off quickly, depending on your local electricity rates and net metering policies. Our rates in southeast Michigan have gone up a lot over the last few years.
Pretty easy to figure out charging costs. The 240v home chargers are in the 90% range for efficiency. Take your average EV power use and divide by 0.9, then check your electric bill for your electricity costs.
Apparently the high speed chargers are very efficient, so almost every bit of power you pay for makes it into the battery. Prices for those vary depending on the network and the state (there are varying requirements that determine how you have to charge for electricity, most of which are set up to deal with actual power generating utilities) but the Tesla network averages about 26c/kWh.
At $3/gallon (AAA says the current national average is $3.40 for regular), you can get 11.5 kWh at a Supercharger for the price of that gallon of gas. That'll send our Model 3 44 miles, so we can say it's equivalent to 44 mpg in terms of fuel costs. At our home rates, we're closer to 100 mpg equivalent cost.
Now we just need to figure what the expected efficiency while towing is. Here's one data point: a Model Y owner towed a 3000 lb boat on a 100 mile trip. It was a speedboat with cockpit covers on it. That's probably pretty close to a Miata-sized car on an open trailer for weight and aero. The car reported 530 Wh/m efficiency, about half of what it usually gets. At Supercharger costs, that's the equivalent of over 21 mpg assuming $3/gallon fuel.
According to electricitylocal.com, power costs in the Daytona Beach area are about 12c per kWh - so basically it would cost Tom half as much to charge at home as it would on the road.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Is there a trailer hitch available from the factory for a model Y? How much does it cost?
My wife wants a model Y and the MGuar should weigh less than 1800 pounds. With the trailer around 5-600 pounds.
Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) said:Would love to see how this works out. I need a truck for towing but will need another daily in 1-2yr and having something new/nice that can do those few big tows a year would be great. Right now I have a 2500hd and a Jetta but could easily see replacing both if the daily use cost penalty goes down.
I think the biggest hurdle would be trailered charging (or how big a PITA factor is unhooking the trailer to charge) in the shorter term.
Paul; thinking out of the box a bit here but don't those chargers generate a profit?
Most truck stops have figured out how to pull a truck in and refuel it. Why wouldn't they like a captive audience for say 1/2 hour while the truck and trailer are charging? I mean selling them a meal , have them wandering around looking at the stuff to buy?
Most truck stops seem to be in pretty windy locations. Hmmm a wind generator?
There is a hitch available for the Y. Tesla offers a tow package for $1000 that includes a 2" receiver, 7-pin connector and "tow mode software package". It's rated for 3500 lbs. I don't know anything about the software details, although I have seen the fingerprints of it in the CAN network.
You can retrofit it for $1200, which probably includes the hardware and software installation cost.
https://shop.tesla.com/product/model-y-tow-package
You can also buy hitches from the usual aftermarket folks for usual aftermarket prices, without whatever the software does.
Erich said:Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said:I see the new Lighning as a toy for people who "want" a truck, but don't actually "need" one.
I've always been curious what percentage of folks who buy trucks "want" but don't "need" one. Anecdotally, it seems quite high - I personally work with a number of folks who have never towed anything, never put anything in the bed, who nevertheless own and drive full size 4wd trucks. The Lightning would work for most of those people 100x better than a gas powered truck.
Tom is obviously not in that camp, however, and it would be much more interesting to see how it worked for him.
"Want" vs "Need"...
Honestly, this seems like kind of an elitist argument.
I know a lot of people who never use their back seat, yet nobody seems to argue "THAT car is more than you need! You should be driving a 2 seater!"
I drive what I want to.
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