The truth about towing with the Ford F-150 Lightning

In reply to Cactus :

They're starting to show up on new builds.

Nice article.  It also confirms other reports I've seen. The tech is impressive, however I am still anxiously awaiting the leap in battery tech that will put it all together.  Signs are it may be close too,

Call me an old curmudgeon, but I don't see how the US's ancient, decrepit electrical grid will support the massive amount of EVs coming down the pipe from all the manufactures. We have rolling brown outs in the West every summer now, imagine that system weighed down with 60-70% of the cars charging daily. And when I take a trip, usually 400-600 miles long, I don't want to sit at a charging station for 45 minutes to an hour at a Walmart or mall. I want to get to where I'm going as quickly as I can.

In reply to STM317 :

Also, with PHEVs, you don't care if you use your entire battery before you get home.  The vehicle will then automatically convert to regular hybrid operation. 

With a pure EV, you have to make sure you have enough juice to get you there and back, plus the all-highway premium, plus the cold-weather premium, plus whatever variable you forgot to account for. 

By figuratively dipping my toes in the water with a PHEV, I've been able to calculate that I need a rated EV range of 200 miles to reliably complete my 80 mile highway commute.

Keith Tanner said:

STM317 said:

maschinenbau said:

PHEV trucks probably make way more sense for towing. Imagine a battery 1/3 the weight, cost, and range, with the torquey EV motor for acceleration and regen, but also a little turbo engine to keep the highway MPG's up. Oh wait, Ford makes a F-150 hybrid... though with only a 1.5 kWhr battery vs the Lightning's 98, it falls short in EV-only usage like commuting.

I think in general there should be more plug-in hybrids with just enough battery for a typical commute (50 miles or so). If the engine is only used for longer trips or towing vs 95% of the time when it's EV-only for in-town errands, isn't that a good enough solution? We are in this stupid race to build bigger, heavier, more monstrous EV batteries, spending that 80% to solve the remaining 20% of the problem. PHEV's are the low hanging fruit, but we aren't satisfied with good enough.

PHEVs are also a great way to get more total EV miles driven because you're splitting up rare battery materials into more vehicles rather than sequestering them in a single huge battery that rarely uses all of it's capacity.

Lower environmental footprint in production, more miles converted from ICE to EV, and no range anxiety to dissuade people from purchasing.

Do you really think the environmental footprint in production is smaller? After all, you're having to build a complete second drivetrain.

I think it's quite possible. It depends on battery chemistry, size, sourcing, and how clean the energy is that's used to produce/assemble it. And I suppose the ICE powertrain design matters too. Something like a Toyota/Ford eCVT transmission is just two motors in a case like a similar EV might have. So the comparison could be as simple as manufacturing of the ICE, fuel tank, exhaust, and a bit of the cooling system vs production of say 60kwh of extra battery capacity. Something like the Jeep 4Xe stuff uses the electric motor in place of a torque converter with a conventional automatic, transfer case, driveshafts, etc which will obviously be more carbon intensive than the Prius style. But EVs are already coming with their own multi-speed gearboxes, etc too which increases their manufacturing footprint and complexity. So just like ICEs, there are efficient and inefficient EVs. But I'd say if you're trying to compare vehicles that are as similar as possible (efficient PHEV midsize sedan vs efficient EV mdsize sedan, or PHEV half ton truck vs EV half ton truck), the PHEV is likely cleaner than comparable EV production.

MIT estimates that an 80kwh Model 3 battery is responsible for 2400kg to 16,000kg of CO2 depending on how clean the energy used to produce it is, and where it's sourced from.

And the EPA says that battery production and end of life represent a combined 35% of EV lifecycle CO2, while an ICE production and end of life represents 9%

I need to do some digging into their data set and play with their estimator a bit to see what assumptions they're using for the "300 mile EV" here. I'm guessing their estimate is based on an efficient EV rather than an electron guzzler. For example, I bet their estimate above is similar to a 310 mile Model 3 which uses an 82kwh battery and will have far lower emissions than a 310 mile Hummer with a 200kwh battery pack. But the point is that battery production is really carbon intensive. Reducing battery capacity makes a significant reduction in manufacturing  footprint. So I'd expect a PHEV with say 20kwh of battery capacity to have production footprint lower than the 80kwh EV, even after the ICE stuff is accounted for.

For many of the recreational towers, even if you could get from A to B in one charge, campgrounds will need to update their infrastructure so that vehicles can charge overnight.  Campgrounds are a far, far, far superior place to recharge than a Walmart- you are there for most likely 8 hours or more. Let alone it being your destination- so there's no hour break waiting on the way there.

There are a few motorhome makers that are working on EVs.  And they, too, will need on site charging.  

Time to send letters to your state reps to get them working on the state park campgrounds.

In reply to STM317 :

Using percentages for those lifetime CO2 emissions is inappropriate, given the radical difference in the total. Looking at that graph and squinting, the battery roughly doubles the production CO2 output compared to an ICE. Maybe slightly less. So yes, from that I could see how there's a crossover point on the PHEV where production creates more CO2. Interesting, thanks. 
 

Alfa, campgrounds are already able to charge cars pretty handily since many of them are wired for RV hookups. And state parks around here are installing chargers. That's an evolution that's already underway. 

This whole thing is going to happen slowly, simply because it takes a long, long time for the fleet to change over. So there's lots of time to work on infrastructure. We don't need to invent new tech or build a new distribution network from scratch, it's just incremental work. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

That's assuming that having multiple RV's charging at the same time is possible.  From what I understand, many of the systems are not designed for too many people to pull their rated amount at the same time.  50A service should be ok, since that's also 240V- but the 30A service is a 3600W charger if you are pulling at full blast.

Maybe for private campgrounds that commonly have 50A service, but here in Michigan, 50A isn't that common at state parks.  It's there- just not quite as much.

And there has to be a splitting system to power the camper as well as the truck.

edit- looked up that the F150 has a 98 kW-hr battery.  Half fill of that would take 15 hours on the 30A service if nothing else is drawing.  4 hours for the 50A if you can pull 50A at 240V.  

But my other point is that for your state parks, you need the DNR to make sure the campgrounds are capable for your state.

In reply to Adam Grabowski :

No way is gasoline not going to be sold anymore in 10-20 years.  You honestly think everyone will be driving an electric car in 10-20 years?  Not a chance!  It'll always be available to the public.

docwyte said:

No way is gasoline not going to be sold anymore in 10-20 years.  You honestly think everyone will be driving an electric car in 10-20 years?  Not a chance!  It'll always be available to the public.

"always" is a long time, but yeah, at a minimum it would be 20+ years beyond point where gas-powered cars cease being sold.  The *average* age of the vehicle fleet is 12.3 years, and many of the people with the oldest cars are the ones who can least afford to buy a shiny new EV.

When was this design finalized?

And what will change in Gen 2 ?

is there a much better battery pack  or motor design  coming , 
 

will 800v  be a standard like Porsche is using ?

Since pick ups , SUVs etc are the profit center  there is going to be some neat designs coming !

Hah, I just did the same test over the weekend for Out Motorsports. Haven't put all my thoughts together yet but it is good to see very similar results despite our routes and terrain being different.

FWIW I have had 90% or more positive experiences with public charging stations while testing EVs over the past few years. Outright failures/out-of-service seem rare though I've had some that promise X charge speed and only deliver Y. That is frustrating as it adds to your travel time. Biggest complaint while towing is that exactly zero stations I've ever visted have been set up to allow trailers, and that is a huge miss.

An article on industrial ev's and regen braking

https://jalopnik.com/these-electric-trains-never-need-recharging-thanks-to-r-1848975204

Brake_L8 (Forum Supporter) said:

Hah, I just did the same test over the weekend for Out Motorsports. Haven't put all my thoughts together yet but it is good to see very similar results despite our routes and terrain being different.

FWIW I have had 90% or more positive experiences with public charging stations while testing EVs over the past few years. Outright failures/out-of-service seem rare though I've had some that promise X charge speed and only deliver Y. That is frustrating as it adds to your travel time. Biggest complaint while towing is that exactly zero stations I've ever visted have been set up to allow trailers, and that is a huge miss.

 

Yeah I'll be curious to see your results in an area with some gentle terrain. I'm guessing the additional energy expended on the uphills was mostly offset be the additional regeneration on the downhills, so now the trick is to find a route to the track that's downhill both ways.

Did you do most of your towing in one-pedal or with the regular brake mode? I LOVE one-pedal for towing. Well, for everything, but particularly for towing.

I'm curious, has anyone run a Lightning to empty to see what the actual mileage is?  I'm sure the gauge on the dash is really accurate, but how much fudge factor is built into it?  MPG gauges, while better, aren't perfect and can be fooled by driving styles.  Granted, going to "no charge" would mean you'd need a tow truck to get you to a charging station as opposed to grabbing a fuel jug like in an ICE, but it would still be interesting to know. Is 10% charge left really only 10 miles or is it really 10 miles plus a fudge factor of another 30?

I really like the Lightning for what it offers, especially if I was buying one for weekend warrior home improvement runs and daily driving. Which would probably be what 90% or more of most of them would be used for.  It just seems like for long hauls and towing, they're not quite there yet.  Both as a result of battery density and, potentially, high level charging sites.  I figure, however, that will be less and less the case over the next couple of years.  Especially in the charging site aspect. 

EV's are still in a bit of a tough situation, but one they can, and are, getting through.  It's the chicken and the egg scenario.  More EV's will create more places offering charging stations and more charging stations will make people more likely to move to EV's.  I think we're on the cusp of it and if EV prices continue to drop, you'll start seeing an exponential growth in EV sales. 

-Rob

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

No, it'll *always* be available.  People will *always* have gas powered cars.  They might not be daily drivers anymore, but people will have classics or race cars or something that uses gasoline to power it.

so... a BEV truck could do what most people need day-in-day out.

every once in a while, though, they need to tow a load a long ways away.  So... why not add range capacity by adding additional battery storage in the trailer you're towing?

also solves some of the issue of "splitting" the recharging power delivery.  and then, hey, you've got a house back-up battery / load-leveler for when you're not towing.

now I just need to figure out how to sell the sleepywife on this idea.

docwyte said:

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

No, it'll *always* be available.  People will *always* have gas powered cars.  They might not be daily drivers anymore, but people will have classics or race cars or something that uses gasoline to power it.

A thousand years from now?  Ten thousand?  "always" is a long time, and I'm not going to try to predict that far ahead. :)

rob_lewis said:

I'm curious, has anyone run a Lightning to empty to see what the actual mileage is?  I'm sure the gauge on the dash is really accurate, but how much fudge factor is built into it?  MPG gauges, while better, aren't perfect and can be fooled by driving styles.  Granted, going to "no charge" would mean you'd need a tow truck to get you to a charging station as opposed to grabbing a fuel jug like in an ICE, but it would still be interesting to know. Is 10% charge left really only 10 miles or is it really 10 miles plus a fudge factor of another 30?

-Rob

EV range depends on a ton of factors (weather, HVAC usage, terrain, speed, etc) so it's difficult to get a true apples to apples comparison. That being said, Edmunds does their range tests in a consistent manner and I like how they show both EPA rated range and their test results:

In reply to STM317 :

Interesting how many vehicles are actually beating the EPA estimates. And no one is really that far off in either direction. 

I also noticed the extended range F150 Lightning (#9) has less range than the normal one (#5)? Gotta be a typo in the names right? 

As for charging rates, they are all over the place: 

Chart source

Charge rates also vary by battery state of charge and temp. If you roll up to a fast charger with a nearly full, cold battery, it'll charge slowly. Show up with 5% charge and a preconditioned battery and it'll rock and roll. 

Our car is bang on the EPA rated numbers over three years of varied use, which tells me they're pretty accurate. 

JG Pasterjak said:

Brake_L8 (Forum Supporter) said:

Hah, I just did the same test over the weekend for Out Motorsports. Haven't put all my thoughts together yet but it is good to see very similar results despite our routes and terrain being different.

FWIW I have had 90% or more positive experiences with public charging stations while testing EVs over the past few years. Outright failures/out-of-service seem rare though I've had some that promise X charge speed and only deliver Y. That is frustrating as it adds to your travel time. Biggest complaint while towing is that exactly zero stations I've ever visted have been set up to allow trailers, and that is a huge miss.

Yeah I'll be curious to see your results in an area with some gentle terrain. I'm guessing the additional energy expended on the uphills was mostly offset be the additional regeneration on the downhills, so now the trick is to find a route to the track that's downhill both ways.

Did you do most of your towing in one-pedal or with the regular brake mode? I LOVE one-pedal for towing. Well, for everything, but particularly for towing.

I put it in Tow mode at first, which disabled the 1-Pedal mode in favor of a "blended" braking setup that requires you to use the pedal. Didn't love that so I popped it back to Normal and towed with the 1-Pedal driving. Much more "EVish" and I love 1-pedal driving in general. My favorite game to play with EV loans is how little I can touch the actual brake pedal in a week of driving.

thatsnowinnebago said:

In reply to STM317 :

Interesting how many vehicles are actually beating the EPA estimates. And no one is really that far off in either direction. 

I also noticed the extended range F150 Lightning (#9) has less range than the normal one (#5)? Gotta be a typo in the names right? 

It's not clearly labeled in the graphic, but the Lightning ranked #5 and the Lightning ranked #9 both have the big, "extended range" battery. The difference is that the "Platinum" trim level is heavier and has bigger wheels with more rolling resistance. Notice that not only are the real world ranges different, but so are the EPA rated ranges.

The "Pro" series Lightning (ranked #36) has the standard battery pack and shorter range. It's my understanding that there is, or will eventually be a "Pro" trim level with the big battery as well but Edmunds hasn't tested one, and they're rated the same as the Lariat with Extended Range Battery.