My Lightning burned to the ground

[21st Century Truck]

Nearly 100,000 Lightnings,...two confirmed fires.
Is this correct?

I read somewhere in an authoritative source (no memory of it now) that Ford produced a total of just over 100 thousand Lightnings.

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[chriserx]

Nearly 100,000 Lightnings,...two confirmed fires.
Is this correct?

It's at least 3.
OP
Costco
House on charge

 

[mr.Magoo]

It's at least 3.
OP
Costco
House on charge

What about this one ?
https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/lightning-on-fire.24126/

Plus the one that burned in the Ford holding lot.

 

[Maxx]

So here's the weird thing. I also have a 2023 Lariat ER that I am the original owner of and took possession of it in Nov. 2022. My truck has had all of those same issues with the beeps sounding different and the remote climate control and departure times not working. I did send a message to the EAP folks at Ford a couple of days ago asking if they could look into whether any recent updates could have been causing my issues, but now I'm wondering if I need to worry about my truck going up in flames. I have not replaced my 12v, though.

Yeah, concerningly, I have a '23 ER as well and was the OP of the "weird sounding beeps" that the OP here posted in.

what is your latest update?

Nearly 100,000 Lightnings,...two confirmed fires.
Is this correct?

if it is, this means in the past few days we have had 200% increase in the risk of our trucks committing suicide. Numbers tell a different story to the pessimist than it does to optimist.

 

[chl]

Remember, he reported that the first indication that something was wrong was he heard a loud pop under his feet. That would tend to implicated the HVB, not the 12VB.

If it was the HVB, I think a 'pop' sound would be a HVB fuse opening, which would be a protective step to cause a shut down taking the HVB off-line, in order to prevent a fire.

If it was a HVB fuse, it could be it was too late to prevent a fire. The fuses should pop in time to prevent a fire which is a fundamental part of their purpose, but anything can go wrong.

Also, the BMS should have caused alerts about HVB battery issues before a fire occurred to warn the driver - he said there were none.

However, we know there were some serious flaws in some of the batteries, like the misaligned electrodes, that presented a fire risk.

If it hadn't been for the OP's earlier posts that suggested an issue with the 12v system, and the several reports of issues with the Ohmmu replacement battery he had in his truck, I don't think I would have suspected the 12v battery as the culprit.

EV battery fires are rather rare events, 12v battery related fires seem to be more common, another thing that weighs in favor of the Ohmmu.

If it WAS the HVB, and there was no early warning of trouble, then we all have something new and serious to worry about.

 

[chriserx]

What about this one ?
https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/lightning-on-fire.24126/

Plus the one that burned in the Ford holding lot.

Hadn't even heard about the one on video, I wasn't sure about adding those not released to the wild and wasn't even sure how many it was. I lean towards not counting them but it certainly did happen.

 

[chl]

So here's the weird thing. I also have a 2023 Lariat ER that I am the original owner of and took possession of it in Nov. 2022. My truck has had all of those same issues with the beeps sounding different and the remote climate control and departure times not working. I did send a message to the EAP folks at Ford a couple of days ago asking if they could look into whether any recent updates could have been causing my issues, but now I'm wondering if I need to worry about my truck going up in flames. I have not replaced my 12v, though.

If it was the 12v battery, I think it is specifically an Ohmmu replacement battery issue.

None of the Lightning owners who had to replace their OEM battery because it got too weak had fires to the best of my knowledge.

Putting a 12v OEM AGM battery we have in our trucks on a low current (1A) maintainer with an AGM mode should not be dangerous (care should be taken of course when connecting to avoid sparks and shorts).

I have had my 2012 Nissan Leaf 12v AGM on a maintainer when not in use since 2012 with no issues. Same was true of my 2001 Ford Ranger before I passed it on to my grandson, replaced that battery after 17 years or so.

If it was the HVB, then we all have something to worry about. I charge mine in the driveway but it is close enough to my house that it would be a problem if there were a fire.

My 2012 Nissan Leaf is in the garage, but it has a pathetically low charge rate (3.3kW on-board AC charger - so under 14A).

I generally set the limit for the truck HVB to 80% and limit the current to 40A with the FCSP set up app.

We don't know much about the charge history of the OP's HV battery - I haven't gone back to read the whole thread yet so maybe we do know more.

If he said he had just fast DC charged to 100% several times on a long trip for example, then that would be a factor I would consider relevant.

 

[Basis0439]

what is your latest update?

Battery passed its inspection. Weird beeps persist, even if the LVB is >12v. No other unusual activity. 12v battery is on my list to replace and I will likely do so soon with a AGM from a local battery shop.

 

[chl]

No one should ever try to charge any lithium chemistry battery that has one cell at one volt. That cell is shot, and is well below the lowest voltage to attempt a normal recharge. The Ohmmu BMS should have prevented any current from going in or out of the battery, no matter what chargers or chargers were connected.

The owner of that battery (not the same as the owner of the truck that caught fire, BTW) should have known better ... somewhere in the Ohmmu manual it would have mentioned the danger of trying to charge a battery with one or more dead cells. If Ohmmu failed to put that in the manual, then shame on them. If the BMS allowed charging under that condition, again, shame on them.

Personally, I would not dream of using any replacement battery for the Ford that is not of identical chemistry and construction to the original, or if not, that has explicit endorsement by Ford as being safe.

That guy mentions in his Reddit post he had the Ohmmu app.

I think if the Ohmmu wants to claim it is drop in compatible with the Lightning due to its on-board BMS, then it ought to be designed to handle the way the Lightning BMS mangles batteries without causing a fire.

The fire in the Reddit post happened when the LIGHTNING was charging the battery, not the trickle charger - it had been removed as soon as the truck started according to the Reddit post anyway.

 

[astrand1]

I just needed to replace my LVB and was considering one of these but canceled my order last week and got the OEM one from my dealer. Just charged it up, installed it, and reset BMS this morning. Reading this thread, I am so glad I didn’t go with OHMMU. Also I can rest a little easier knowing it was likely not a Ford pack fault that caused this.

Same! I just replaced my 12v battery as well. I got the oem battery from rock auto. Was $139 plus the core of $18. It had a 1/26 date on it so pretty fresh. Way better price than the local dealers. They all were $200ish.

 

[chl]

Battery passed its inspection. Weird beeps persist, even if the LVB is >12v. No other unusual activity. 12v battery is on my list to replace and I will likely do so soon with a AGM from a local battery shop.

The terminal voltage is not the whole story.
And 12v for an AGM is not 100% if that was what you measured.

Depending on how long old your OEM battery is, it may be too late, but putting it on a maintainer (hooked up correctly with the negative downstream of the BMS sensor, or to the jump post or body ground) in AGM mode might help.

If it has gone to long with the Lightning Battery Manglement System, it may have permanent sulfates on plates due to deep discharge without topping off and/or a dehydrated electrolyte due to excessively high charging currents, and just need to be replaced.

Just NOT with a certain Chinese brand, to be on the cautious side.

 

[CoolViper777]

The thing I like about the F150 Lightning, is that the inner door handles are normal door handles. Not electronic door handles like the Tesla cars. When seconds count to open the car door, it may take you a minute in the Tesla if the electronics fail.

 

[CoolViper777]

I would be very hesitant to park an EV indoors while charging, especially below a bedroom. Not matter how remote, at best an EV fire pretty guarantees that your house will burn down if parked inside house garage.

I think an EV not charging is safe enough inside

Yeah, I think this is a situation where I am maybe a little less anxious about the situation due to the fact that my garage is detached from my house and my truck can't fit inside the garage anyway, so I have to charge it outside the garage (though a fully engulfed truck while charging would certainly take my garage (and the Mach-E parked inside the garage) along with it if it did happen to ever catch fire while charging (acknowledging that the Lightning catching fire is not something that any of us should generally worry about due to it being an extreme rarity).

 

[bellyer]

what is your latest update?




if it is, this means in the past few days we have had 200% increase in the risk of our trucks committing suicide. Numbers tell a different story to the pessimist than it does to optimist.

My latest update is one that I actually received this morning while sitting in my truck parked for 2 hours at my son's baseball practice. I got Sync-25. 2.1.6.5.2. Before that one, I had received PT-25.8.5 back on January 8th.

 

[TaxmanHog]

It's at least 3.
OP
Costco
House on charge

Early in the roll out, a Lightning in California caught fire in the owners driveway IIRC.
The one in Canada mentioned earlier, there have been a few but still rare by comparison, those were all HVB issues, not the suspicious LVB issue this thread is leaning toward.

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