MotorTrend: The One-Year Check-In: Ford F-150 Lightning Lariat

Good fair review, we need more range or faster charging…..

F150ROD said:

Good fair review, we need more range or faster charging…..

Click to expand...

I'm biased, but I agree with you.

I Agee with the issues for sure are charging available on road trips and speed. I'd sure like bump in holding longer at higher speed, especially since the Tesla V3 and V4 are faster then we can use.

Yep, seems reasonable. I'm 15,000 miles in, with an overall average of 2.2 mi/kWh. My overall cost has been about $0.08/mi driven largely by shockingly low EV-specific time-of-use rates and charging at home for something like 3/4ths of all of my mileage.

I agree that the biggest issue with the Lightning is the DC fast charging rate on road trips. Under ideal conditions, my truck matches or exceeds Ford's 41-minute specification for 15% to 80% charging, but that's still a long time to wait. While SuperCharger access may allow us to utilize more range between charges (due to better charger placement), and spend our wait in places that are nicer than WalMart, it won't change the charge speed.

Part of this is an unavoidable side-effect of a big 400V battery. I'm getting a short 5- to 10-minute peak around 170kW and overall a 130kW average charge rate. It would take an average charge rate over 175kW to get the 15% to 80% charge time under a half-hour ... and I'm not aware of any 400V EV that can do that (the 400V EQS450+ averages 167kW).

I'm sincerely hoping that the 2nd generation and/or T3 will move Ford's EVs to an 800V architecture. This will make a huge difference for road-trip charging: it shouldn't be difficult to get to average charge rates in the 200kW to 250kW range (the 800V EV6 gets 203kW, and the Taycan gets 227kW). Assuming the same-size battery, this would put a future Lightning's 15% to 80% charge time in the 20- to 25-minute range.

I thought Ford might do a charge curve update by now but we’re getting close to 2 years from initial delivery so maybe it isn’t in the cards. Holding 150kW+ average speed even from 20-70 would be a nice improvement. Like other have said my avg rate for longer DCFC sessions is 125-130kw in the absolute perfect conditions but often only 110-120kw.

LightningShow said:

I thought Ford might do a charge curve update by now but we’re getting close to 2 years from initial delivery so maybe it isn’t in the cards. Holding 150kW+ average speed even from 20-70 would be a nice improvement. Like other have said my avg rate for longer DCFC sessions is 125-130kw in the absolute perfect conditions but often only 110-120kw.

Click to expand...

Yeah, we pretty much haven't had any GREAT updates in the last 2 years. I was hoping for either more range or faster charging. Soon we will be the Nissan Leaf of the EV Truck segment

1’m 16.6K in with a daily 90 mi commute. Consistently average 3 mi\% of charge so right at 300 miles of daily range estimate in winter (Pacific) NW Coast and 315+ in summer. I enjoy the weird mental thought of hauling 12+ power walls around.

Daily commute means I see a lot of working PU trucks and typically lifted 3/4 ton- 1-tons rolling requiste aggressive tread w/bed racks. And driven by self-employed: loggers, fishermen, contractors, farmers, ranchers, jobbers, etc. Some are towing double & triple axle trailers, hauling round bales, Gilnet boats, bay crabbers, crab pots, 80+ hp tractors, skid steer loaders, concrete forms, construction material etc., welders, etc.

And in my line of work means I talk to them and they are intrigued because their $/mile is high. W/diesel prices stuck at $5/gallon they know my equivalent mileage is 4X-5X theirs (13-15 mpg if they are lucky and I can break 60 mpge w/ease). Their trucks are hard working.

I tell them this: If your daily drive-work radius is 50-70 miles and you charge nightly at your shop-home and plan ahead for those out of area sorties, you can probably make it work and save on fuel & maintenance. Can pull say a Bobcat Skid Steer loader, smaller ag tractors up to say 5,000- 6,000 lbs or so but not a JD 4020. Not rated more than 10,000 on the hitch (and I don’t believe a 5th wheel is an option?) so pulling the heavier equipment is out.

And range will suck if your banging on 65-70 mph + all the time.

The value proposition is missing and where MT missed the boat is CyberTruck image crap. But then L.A.

My one regret so far after a year of ownership is not getting an Atlas Blue one. Rapid Red and Atlas Blue were right next to each other on the same lot. Same features, minus a sprayed in liner on the blue. I went with red because the truck I was staring at was the EXACT configuration I had saved on ford.com.

WHY DID THEY CANCEL ATLAS BLUE!?

Nothing new here. Everyone knew before buying these shortcoming and if you didn’t it’s on you. I bought lightning know all this and for a very specific around town use. I’ve 0 regrets

Howard_Scott_Warshaw said:

My one regret so far after a year of ownership is not getting an Atlas Blue one. Rapid Red and Atlas Blue were right next to each other on the same lot. Same features, minus a sprayed in liner on the blue. I went with red because the truck I was staring at was the EXACT configuration I had saved on ford.com.

WHY DID THEY CANCEL ATLAS BLUE!?

Click to expand...

cuz it wasn’t grey or black AB is a beautiful color.