Food for thought: towing a 10,000lb load will shorten the range to well under 100 miles. Then you need to recharge it. This doesn’t sound useful in the slightest. Maybe very specific missions will benefit but far from the norm of a f150.
Personally I will not spend $75k (fully loaded at $90k) just for the possibility to charge my house if the power goes out or to use power tools at a work site, there are lower cost options for both. Def wouldn’t tow a boat 300mi to the beach so this model really seems like a toy but maybe I’m missing something? Anyone else seriously consider this truck?
The question isn't really would you buy this truck only because it has the power features. It's would you pay a little extra for a truck that also has the power features. Personally, I doubt I'll buy an electric truck anytime soon, but if I were replacing my truck anyway, and it could also replace my portable generator, that'd be nice; my generator is only for my well, but I've got to run it for 30 minutes a month to keep it in order, it'd be a lot nicer if that was just included in my use.
OTOH, my current truck is a 2003 s-10 single cab; nobody makes small trucks like that anymore, and I don't want a big truck, so I'll just keep the truck and the generator that I already have. Maybe a future car that appeals to me will be able to power my well.
Do you think that everyone who buys a pickup truck regularly uses the truck bed? Or do they more likely have it "just in case"? There's a lot to be said about certain "aspirational" purchases.
I already have a 3500 watt propane powered generator we keep in the bed of our truck for our rv, so I've been wondering what barriers there were to charging while driving and then I came across the above article.
I've owned a F-150 for 15 years, drove it until the wheels fell off, much of it towing our RV trailer around the Southwest US and California coast.
When it finally was time, we upgraded to an F-250 (but kept the same trailer, which is at thr top end of the towing capability of F-150's but much more fun to tow with an F-250).
We also live in SOMA in San Francisco, park our truck in an underground garage, and pay some of the highest fuel prices around.
I would argue I'm the exact target customer. If they can satisfy my needs (desires really) with an electric truck, they've won the battle.
They haven't cracked it quite yet, but with something like this I think they can:
I hear you! Sounds like an awesome way to use your truck. But what I'm getting at is the question of if lots of/most F-150 owners tow anything at all? Or tow regularly enough to care like you care? Is this really for the folks who just want a truck rather than the folks who actually use it?
My point was that a contractor or construction worker probably wouldn’t be driving an f150 lightning as it’s not really practical but it sure is fun (see the F150 SVT with its single digit city mileage as a previous example)
COrrect. The SVT raptor puts out 500+ ponies. No construction worker needed that, but it did pave the way for more efficient ecoboost engines (mustang has a lovely 2.5L EB engine) which power the entire ford lineup
A common towing use case is a camper... with water tanks you can easily hit 5000-8000 lbs on a dual axle. It'd be super nice to be able to tow a camper 400miles then have energy left over to power it's lights / AC. We just don't have these power densities with battery-electric... and fuel cells still haven't landed.
Last time I looked, the price of an electric F-150 was actually a good chunk cheaper than a Tesla car + Tesla power wall setup of an equivalent size. A $70k truck* doesn't seem so expensive when you line it up against a $40k car and $60k of batteries.
*After tax rebates, which might not be available any more?
After going on a number of long road trips in different electric vehicles, the bigger thing to beat is Tesla supercharger network. Electrify America locations just aren't as well spaced out and about every other charging station seems to have a broken charger. While it wasn't a problem for me, they also don't have enough chargers at each station.
> After going on a number of long road trips in different electric vehicles, the bigger thing to beat is Tesla supercharger network. Electrify America locations just aren't as well spaced out and about every other charging station seems to have a broken charger. While it wasn't a problem for me, they also don't have enough chargers at each station.
I've only driven Teslas in CA where super chargers are rather common, my favorite being the one next the SpaceX factory in Hawthorne.
And I keep telling people the same thing you said, this is why I think Tesla is more an energy company that makes cars to use it's network rather than the other way around.
I'm glad they have competition, as EV was always going to be more than a one horse race if it were to succeed and while Nissan had 1st mover advantage they have fallen way behind with the Leaf project: luckily a post Ghosn era will see most of their lineup going EV and they're spending $18 Billion to offer more EV models in the next 5 years [0].
And Buick is re-branding as an EV only company [1], I'm actually interested in what they could deliver if they go for moonshots as classic Buicks were actually quite stunning in the 30-70s eras. They never got the same recognition as a Cadillac but they were on par style wise in my opinion. They could just emulate Lexus styles (that Wildcat screams of LC) with Electric motors and it would probably be a solid platform if they market themselves better and takes hints at why it works in China. Maybe if they stick with wagons as the Roadmaster still has a lot of cache and no one has offered a EV wagon yet?
The hard part is probably being able to support something around 1 MW peaks when charging a few cars at once with fast charging on a small lot zoned for light commercial. I believe Tesla is storing energy on-site so they don't have to load the local grid with those kinds of peaks. That kind of grid energy storage is kinda expensive, if you don't build it yourself.
That’s the point, Tesla has experience in not making it a local problem, by using their own technology. Other car makers don’t have an energy company to lean on.
Great! I look forward to it. Let’s fucking go. Show me the plans. Show me the permits. Show me the map with the pins that tell me when they’re planning to catch up.
Tesla has been firing on all cylinders on this front for years. There’s a new forum thread started for every single charging site that is planned. I want to see this for electrify America stations.
Part of the reason for the Ford Model T's success was its versatility. It was popular among farmers and third parties sold numerous conversion kits to make it into a tractor, snowmobile, plow, generator, etc. In many ways the Lightning seems destined to fill this role today by acting as a mobile power station for jobsites and remote areas
You can connect a 1000W inverter to a Prius and it'll happily run for days until the tank is empty. You probably aren't going to see those at a job site though.
Apparently Ford's got a patent: https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1132920_ford-patents-cha...
On what pretty much amounts to reversing the polarity.