Recent content by djwildstar

I've had mostly-positive reactions. I enjoy when I'm using the frunk and make people do a double-take. Some of my favorites: A woman walks by as I'm loading groceries into the frunk at the store. As she goes past, she mutters "I never knew pickup trucks had a trunk in the front ..." Checking...

The two systems operate rather differently. Ford's system uses the truck's CCS DC pins for power export only. In a power failure scenario, the Home Integration System's interconnect isolates the home from the power company feed automatically. The interconnect, inverter, and charge station pro...

The parking space for my Lightning is about 50 feet from my panel (and HIS), and I originally had it installed on a 100A circuit to support 19.2kW charging. So that install was $1250. The HIS install (including moving circuits to a critical loads panel) was just under $3000.

Generally speaking, "Job 1" refers to the initial production run for the model year. In many cases, Ford will make minor tweaks to the vehicle design (such as adding or removing features, updating software, etc.) during a model year. So "Job 2" refers to the later production run that...

Here are some interesting data points on the Honda Insight: The 2000 Insight was originally rated at 65 MPG combined (61 city, 70 highway). It is now rated at 53 MPG combined (49 city, 61 highway) under the new 2017 system. 2022 was the final year for the Insight, and rated 52 MPG combined (55...

Yes -- by and large, most buyers don't plug in their plug-in hybrids. Ever. Up until last fall, most dealers sold plug-in hybrids as a hybrid with a bigger tax rebate. At the end of the day, an EREV is just one possible architecture for a plug-in hybrid. We don't have any reason to believe...

With J1772 vehicles (like the Lightning), negotiation isn't a thing. The wall connector sends a very simple square wave signal that indicates the charging current available. The vehicle is responsible for monitoring this signal and ensuring that its current draw stays under the limit. That's it...

Just a point of clarification -- the adapter situation isn't about selling more adapters, it's about engineering issues. The problem being that Tesla's NACS is a single standard that uses the same two pins to supply both AC and DC charging power, while non-Tesla uses two different standards...

I have some reservations about all this. Google suggests that DTC C0630:00:xx indicates that the active air dam is stuck or inoperative. Similarly, Google suggests DTC C0604:00:xx originates with the active air dam actuators. The normal approach would be to troubleshoot the air dam and replace...

Yes -- Tesla vehicles do get excellent safety ratings. However, in late 2024 iSeeCars used data from the US Fatality Analysis Reporting System to compute fatalities per billion vehicle-miles. At that time the most-recent data covered through the end of 2022. Looking at carmakers, Tesla had the...

This is an AC charger with a NACS plug. Odds are that it is 208V system, since this is a commercial property and likley has three-phase power. That puts it at 80A, because 208V x 80A = 16.64kW. The Stellar or Stellar Pro NACS-to-J1772 plug is the correct plug for AC charging. You have a 2025...

Brian -- thanks for the update! I'm always interested to see what Ford is doing with BEV technology. I will almost certainly go take a look at the new UEV mid-size BEV pickup when it arrives at my local dealership. That said, I'm unlikely to buy one. I'm pretty sure that my needs are best-met...

You are right! That's sooner than I expected!

I'm sorry you're having this experience. The Ford 25C69 recall (NHTSA 25V863) is that the vehicle may fail to lock into the park position when you shift into Park. This affects the Lightning, Mach-E, and Maverick Hybrid. The fix for the Maverick involves loading new SOBDMC (secondary on-board...

Yes, the 2024 and 2025 Lightnings (all trims) have heat pumps, while the 2022 and 2023 trucks have resistive heat only. From all reports, the resistive heat delivers warmer air faster than the heat pump, while the heat pump system uses less energy. From all reports, heat pumps do not make a...