Upgrading F-150 Lightning Battery Pack [VIDEO]

[MountainAlive]

@ajbessinger awesome video and step by step guide! Also great to hear you’re headed to the east coast. How in the world did you get that giant pack off the pallet on the floor onto that rolling cart?

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[MBM]

Howdy folks! Alex from the video here, happy to answer any questions. I see that Thomas has already chimed in here, haha.

But yeah, about 3 hours of labor for a typical swap (assuming the connectors aren't damaged as they were in this case). Cost of the pack itself is going to vary a bit depending on availability, but I would expect to pay $8-10k for a low mileage pack, and that includes a one year warranty that I provide.

I'm happy to do installs with customer provided packs (as I did for Thomas), but of course, no warranties on customer provided parts...

Alex, thanks for sharing the video. I’m going to watch it again in its entirety when I get a chance. Just asking, have you done any or had any inquiries about customers wanting to swap SR to ER simply for the added range, not necessarily someone who had battery issues? If you were able to support the customer with reselling the old SR pack and as more ER batteries become available, I could see a lot of people wanting to upgrade if the net cost was down to $3000-$4000.

 

[El Duderino]

Sounds like Kyle got Alex to move a lot closer

Happy to see you're posting on the forum. I enjoy watching your videos on YouTube.

 

[ajbessinger]

@ajbessinger awesome video and step by step guide! Also great to hear you’re headed to the east coast. How in the world did you get that giant pack off the pallet on the floor onto that rolling cart?

Best tool in the shop, forklift!

 

[ajbessinger]

That may be the best news I've heard in a long time. Guessing you'll be close to the track? I'm about 90min from there.

My new shop space will be at the track facility!

 

[ZSC100]

Hey, Zach here, the EE working on EverDrive.
Addressing 2 things: Balancing, and Upgrading.

The balancing being talked about here is being misunderstood. There are 2 completely different concepts of balancing. What Alex was alluding to in the video is balancing of cell capacity (life/SoH) If you put a module with 99% SoH into a pack with an overall (average) 90% SoH, that would be bad, but not as bad as putting an old module in a newer pack; and would the BMS care either way, who knows, FMC isn't telling and likely won't ever, but the community will play around more and more as the trucks age out of warranty and we learn more every day.

The 2nd type of balancing is SoC matching the module to the pack SoC, this is more important to the immediate situation, but again: where is the threshold that the BMS cares to gripe and where is the threshold that the BMS can't go ahead and just balance it itself even if it's off. This is how the the BMS detects bad modules actually, it tries to balance the cells over time and if it can't then it gripes with DTC's and imposes software limits on power and SoC. The balancing wires in the pack are tiny, like too tiny IMO, probably like 20 or 22AWG. So, there just isn't that much power the balancing system has to wield, regardless of the type of balancing being used. You don't need a fancy expensive tool to balance batteries, DIYers have been using halogen bulbs and cheap benchtop power supplies to do it for years, but the fancy tools are nice if you are a legit mechanic doing production work where time is $$$.

My SR pack had a module replaced under warranty at 50kmi,, then again at 90kmi. I bitched a fit to the service advisor and to the BEV team to give me data on what they were putting in my truck and what records they were keeping about modules and such,, crickets..... It's unclear if any of my bitching actually made it to an engineer or a battery person, but in hindsight, these truck batteries are aging so well it really doesn't matter, especially in the eyes of the warranter. My Truck had 98.5% SoH when it rolled over 100,000mi so even if they put brand new modules in at 50kmi and 90kmi who cares, the health of all the modules is within a few % and you are actually limited by your lowest capacity module anyway.

I have 135kmi now and my SoH is 95%, but bounces around 1% from time to time as I do full charges.


Lastly, on Upgrading: I have the entire BECM CAN database mapped out fairly well and if Donut Labs batteries were real (99% sure they are not) I could retrofit the Lightning's pack with those batteries and theoretically double the energy capacity in the same pack/enclosure. The cost would be an upfront engineering cost of probably 100hrs or so in programming and testing, then about $500/pack in hardware to basically replace the BMS with a custom one to mimic all the CAN signals the truck needs. Ohhh, and plus the 200+kWh of actual batteries with a density around 400. I can tell you with near 100% confidence, by the time a entrepreneur or DIYer can order 200kWh of raw solid state batteries of any kind, they will already be in vehicles all over the world, so even if Donut Lab battery BS is 100% real, us Lightning owners probably won't be able to obtain them at any reasonable price for upgrading for 5+yrs. The Lightning batteries are somewhere around 180Wh/kg so like everything in life it becomes an economics issue, what Wh/Kg and cost would make a retrofit economical. I think we'll find, like most other similar situations, it's not worth touching until there is a real problem with your truck. Once there is a problem you make an economical decision in that moment and time. For the foreseeable future taking salvage packs from totaled trucks is the only economical solution. You can get SR packs all day long for under $5k, This is crazy, 100kWh of usable battery for 5K, that's like 1/20th the price of a Tesla Powerwall. ER packs are harder to find and will be closer to $10k. I expect this pricing to be VERY stable and increase if anything. It is and will still be cheaper to replace just the bad modules. Once a mechanic is good at it, should be like Alex said for the whole pack, around 3hrs total, but to my knowledge no one has asked to purchase a module from Ford out of warranty, I'd expect it to be around $5k for an SR module, maybe $6k for an ER. Then half those prices for salvage modules.

Alex should go ahead and list the good SR modules on eBay for like $2k each, then just remove them as they sell.

And NO, it is in no way economical to use two full SR or ER packs for many reasons.

 

[DNap4]

Hey, Zach here, the EE working on EverDrive.
Addressing 2 things: Balancing, and Upgrading.

The balancing being talked about here is being misunderstood. There are 2 completely different concepts of balancing. What Alex was alluding to in the video is balancing of cell capacity (life/SoH) If you put a module with 99% SoH into a pack with an overall (average) 90% SoH, that would be bad, but not as bad as putting an old module in a newer pack; and would the BMS care either way, who knows, FMC isn't telling and likely won't ever, but the community will play around more and more as the trucks age out of warranty and we learn more every day.

The 2nd type of balancing is SoC matching the module to the pack SoC, this is more important to the immediate situation, but again: where is the threshold that the BMS cares to gripe and where is the threshold that the BMS can't go ahead and just balance it itself even if it's off. This is how the the BMS detects bad modules actually, it tries to balance the cells over time and if it can't then it gripes with DTC's and imposes software limits on power and SoC. The balancing wires in the pack are tiny, like too tiny IMO, probably like 20 or 22AWG. So, there just isn't that much power the balancing system has to wield, regardless of the type of balancing being used. You don't need a fancy expensive tool to balance batteries, DIYers have been using halogen bulbs and cheap benchtop power supplies to do it for years, but the fancy tools are nice if you are a legit mechanic doing production work where time is $$$.

My SR pack had a module replaced under warranty at 50kmi,, then again at 90kmi. I bitched a fit to the service advisor and to the BEV team to give me data on what they were putting in my truck and what records they were keeping about modules and such,, crickets..... It's unclear if any of my bitching actually made it to an engineer or a battery person, but in hindsight, these truck batteries are aging so well it really doesn't matter, especially in the eyes of the warranter. My Truck had 98.5% SoH when it rolled over 100,000mi so even if they put brand new modules in at 50kmi and 90kmi who cares, the health of all the modules is within a few % and you are actually limited by your lowest capacity module anyway.

I have 135kmi now and my SoH is 95%, but bounces around 1% from time to time as I do full charges.


Lastly, on Upgrading: I have the entire BECM CAN database mapped out fairly well and if Donut Labs batteries were real (99% sure they are not) I could retrofit the Lightning's pack with those batteries and theoretically double the energy capacity in the same pack/enclosure. The cost would be an upfront engineering cost of probably 100hrs or so in programming and testing, then about $500/pack in hardware to basically replace the BMS with a custom one to mimic all the CAN signals the truck needs. Ohhh, and plus the 200+kWh of actual batteries with a density around 400. I can tell you with near 100% confidence, by the time a entrepreneur or DIYer can order 200kWh of raw solid state batteries of any kind, they will already be in vehicles all over the world, so even if Donut Lab battery BS is 100% real, us Lightning owners probably won't be able to obtain them at any reasonable price for upgrading for 5+yrs. The Lightning batteries are somewhere around 180Wh/kg so like everything in life it becomes an economics issue, what Wh/Kg and cost would make a retrofit economical. I think we'll find, like most other similar situations, it's not worth touching until there is a real problem with your truck. Once there is a problem you make an economical decision in that moment and time. For the foreseeable future taking salvage packs from totaled trucks is the only economical solution. You can get SR packs all day long for under $5k, This is crazy, 100kWh of usable battery for 5K, that's like 1/20th the price of a Tesla Powerwall. ER packs are harder to find and will be closer to $10k. I expect this pricing to be VERY stable and increase if anything. It is and will still be cheaper to replace just the bad modules. Once a mechanic is good at it, should be like Alex said for the whole pack, around 3hrs total, but to my knowledge no one has asked to purchase a module from Ford out of warranty, I'd expect it to be around $5k for an SR module, maybe $6k for an ER. Then half those prices for salvage modules.

Alex should go ahead and list the good SR modules on eBay for like $2k each, then just remove them as they sell.

And NO, it is in no way economical to use two full SR or ER packs for many reasons.

Good info!

Purchasing batteries directly from Ford and Modules are expensive if doing it out of warranty. Here are the part numbers.

Battery:
NL3Z10B759E (Extended Range Battery) - $47,000
NL3Z-10B759-H (Standard Range Battery) - $31,000

Cells:
NL3Z-10D672-F (Extended Range, Front Cell) - $2,500
NL3Z-10D672-E (Extendard Range, Rear Cell) - $3,000
NL3Z-10D672-H (Standard Range, Front Cell) - $2,500
NL3Z-10D672-G (Standard Range, Rear Cell) - $2,500

It's a whole lot more economical to go the salvage route, but you never know what you're going to get. And even a salvage battery may still have module problems later on

 

[PJnc284]

My new shop space will be at the track facility!

Nice. Shoot me a message if yall need any help getting things set up. Been looking for an excuse to head up that way. Hopefully it'll be a bit warmer then and not have an ice-pocalypse on the way.

 

[jdmackes]

This is crazy, 100kWh of usable battery for 5K, that's like 1/20th the price of a Tesla Powerwall. ER packs are harder to find and will be closer to $10k.

So, is there a way to use the battery packs for home backup power? I know people have done it with old Leaf batteries and stuff, but how realistic is it for the SR batteries?

 

[ajbessinger]

So, is there a way to use the battery packs for home backup power? I know people have done it with old Leaf batteries and stuff, but how realistic is it for the SR batteries?

Each module is 10S (or 37v nominal), and 11.95kWh gross (probably closer to ~10.5-11kWh usable). You could stack as many as you want in series or parallel depending on your inverter's input voltage. Of course, you'd have to set up a BMS to keep the cells in balance, and prevent them from being overcharged or over discharged.

If you wanted to use a complete/intact pack, it maybe doable, but you'd have to decode and spoof the CAN signals to the BECM (factory BMS) using a CAN bridge in order to get it operating. There is an open source project for doing these types of systems and integrating them with different inverters, but the Lightning pack is not yet supported (Mach-E is though). https://github.com/dalathegreat/Battery-Emulator

If anyone here want's a cheap SR pack to play around with the good modules, I'm still trying to sell the old pack from the truck I upgraded in the video (8/9 modules are still good). If I don't find a buyer in the next month or so, then it's going to have to go to the recycler, as I don't intend to haul it to NC with all my other stuff, haha. I also have several older Model S packs in similar condition that need to find homes.

 

[fhteagle]

If anyone here want's a cheap SR pack to play around with the good modules, I'm still trying to sell the old pack from the truck I upgraded in the video (8/9 modules are still good). If I don't find a buyer in the next month or so, then it's going to have to go to the recycler, as I don't intend to haul it to NC with all my other stuff, haha. I also have several older Model S packs in similar condition that need to find homes.

Definitely don't send those packs to the recycler! If you can't find another local buyer and it's getting close to when you need to start the move, let me know.

 

[tearitupsports]

Each module is 10S (or 37v nominal), and 11.95kWh gross (probably closer to ~10.5-11kWh usable). You could stack as many as you want in series or parallel depending on your inverter's input voltage. Of course, you'd have to set up a BMS to keep the cells in balance, and prevent them from being overcharged or over discharged.

If you wanted to use a complete/intact pack, it maybe doable, but you'd have to decode and spoof the CAN signals to the BECM (factory BMS) using a CAN bridge in order to get it operating. There is an open source project for doing these types of systems and integrating them with different inverters, but the Lightning pack is not yet supported (Mach-E is though). https://github.com/dalathegreat/Battery-Emulator

If anyone here want's a cheap SR pack to play around with the good modules, I'm still trying to sell the old pack from the truck I upgraded in the video (8/9 modules are still good). If I don't find a buyer in the next month or so, then it's going to have to go to the recycler, as I don't intend to haul it to NC with all my other stuff, haha. I also have several older Model S packs in similar condition that need to find homes.

With the bad module removed, would it still be possible to operate? Possibly as a home storage unit? How hard would it be to have the charge port operational, so it could work with a V2X bidirectional charger? Same question for both ford or Tesla packs.

 

[Bill-EV]

Great video, Alex, really interesting to see and encouraging that our truck’s were designed for simple servicing of battery packs. I’ve only had my ‘25 for two months so, touch wood, I won’t need to test out my local deal any time soon but I am feeling better about when I reach the end of my warranty down the road.
And thanks to the OP for putting it here for us.

 

[hturnerfamily]

so, let's see if this is the 'minimum' wrenching required to swap:

- disconnect 12v battery
- lift truck
- support battery pack*

- remove ground from rear of battery pack
- remove 3 bolts above battery pack HV connections
- remove 2 battery pack coolant lines
- remove 4 HV/Motors battery pack connections
(*or, support the battery pack, now)
- remove 8 battery pack support bolts

- lower and remove battery pack


do all over, in reverse, with new battery pack**

**of course, as Alex had to do, you may have to transfer HV Connection(s), if needed.

 

[ctuan13]

That’s probably true about the warranty but in this case the truck was at 143k miles and well out of warranty anyways. It’s amazing this pack is so plug and play. Huge bonus points to Ford engineers on this one. And what a cool step by step video.

This highly serviceable design and now ease of swapping major components is what gives me a lot of hope for a robust cottage industry of aftermarket battery packs and modding as these truck age and become more and more accessible to modders and project builders.

In a lot of ways, the Lightning feels like a modern day Crown Vic of EVs with how easy it is to work on in comparison to basically every other competitor in the segment.

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