Adventures of our 2023 Carbonized Gray Metallic Lariat Lightning ER

[SpaceEVDriver]

Did a quick, 800 mile road trip to ABQ to visit with the Spawn, relax in the nearby hot springs, and back the next morning.

There are so many more fast chargers on the I-40 than the least year, it's fantastic. It's almost as embarrassment of riches.

The day before our trip, we charged to 100% while the sun was shining.

After 200 miles and 63% of the battery drawn down, we needed to stop, use the restroom, and take a quick walk. We stopped at a GM/EVGo charging station colocated with a Flying J truck stop. The charger is expensive, but the restrooms are clean. And the charge rate is great. After 21 minutes, we were ready to go, the truck was at 69%, which was plenty to get us to ABQ

Next we stopped at a Walmart in ABQ to get a quick restroom break and a quick charge.

We picked up the kids and headed to the Jemez hot springs for the rest of the afternoon.

After dinner, we dropped them off and went to our hotel. There was no L2 charger--ABQ doesn't have very many lodging choices with L2 charging, which is annoying.

Next day we grabbed breakfast that happened to be next to an L2 charger, so we plugged in and got a small charge while eating. It wasn't much, but it was more than 0%. We left town with 45%.

We headed out on the highway. Our first stop was at the EA charger at Walmart in Grants to get a charge and make a restroom stop. We ended up doing some shopping as well. Left at 80%, which was more than I'd intended, but whatever.

The final charge stop was to try a new Rivian charger in Holbrook. Fast charger, gross restrooms, high price. Probably won't stop there again. Left with 51%, which was, again, more than necessary.

Got home with 15%.


Charging to 100% on solar: $0.00
Flying J / EVGo: $41.18
EA Plan+: $7.00
EA at Walmart in ABQ: $31.23
ChargePoint L2 in ABQ: $2.46
EA at Walmart in Grants: $47.07
Rivian: $23.46

Total for ~800 miles: $152.40
Total energy use: 258 kWh
Average efficiency: 3.1 miles/kWh
Elevation change (max - min): 7271 - 4844 = 2427 ft.
Total elevation change: 8993 ft
Max slope: 4.4%

We set our cruise speed to 72-75 mph on the freeway, but were also doing in-town driving and mountain/canyon twisty road driving.

In our Tacoma, this would have been about: $3.40/gallon * 800 miles / 16 mpg = $173.61

A couple years ago, the price for driving the Lightning would have been closer to $0.32/kWh * 258 kWh = $82.56.
If we had used only the cheaper EA chargers on this trip, it would have been $0.42*258=$108.36.

We chose the more expensive chargers to see where they are, how they work, how clean are the restrooms, etc. The Flying J is at a nearly-perfect distance between our home and ABQ, and the restrooms are clean, so we’ll probably stop there more often. The Rivian Adventure Network is in an awkward location, next to a Pizza Hut and Taco Bell with gross, gross restrooms, and is very expensive, so we will only use that if we really need a charge.

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[SpaceEVDriver]

In 2025, we did at least 23 road trips of more than 300 miles, most 1200 miles or longer.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Took a 2508 mile road trip from northern Arizona to northern California (with a side trip to the Los Angeles Valley on the way up).

Stats:
Total miles: 2508
Total energy use: 1201 kWh
Average efficiency: 2.1 miles/kWh
Total elevation gain: 42,681 feet
Total elevation loss: 42,681 feet
Minimum elevation: 0 feet
Maximum elevation: 7364 feet
Maximum wind gusts: 65 mph crosswinds
Minimum temperature while driving: 37 ℉
Minimum temperature recorded: 27 ℉
Total cost: $376.58
Cost per mile: $0.15/mile
Total DCFC charging stops (while on the freeway—we charged at a couple DCFCs when at our hotels because of cost or because the L2 chargers nearby weren’t working): 11

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Year-end Review:

2025:
We drove approximately 15,000 miles in 2025. The truck’s average efficiency is 2.4 miles/kWh. That’s about 6,250 kWh of energy.

In 2025, we did more than 23 road trips that required DCFC charging. A large fraction of those trips were more than 1200 miles round trip. This includes trips in the Mustang Mach-E, but the vast majority of our trips were in the Lightning because it’s far more comfortable.

Lifetime:
Total miles:
Lightning: 26,281 miles
Mustang: 53,245 miles
Total BEV driving since Feb 2022: 79,526 miles.

DCFC Sessions:
We recorded 152 DCFC sessions at EA, 51 at brand-T; 33 at ChargePoint; a dozen or so at EVGo; and a dozen or so combined at the smaller networks. We have more charging sessions at the top three networks that weren’t recorded. All-told, I would say we’ve charged around 300 times at DCFC chargers.

Home charging sessions: Too many to count. Just on the ChargePoint (Mustang), we have over 1000. I don’t have good records for the Lightning.

Road trip L2 charging sessions: At least 100.

Here’s a map of all of our road trips (since Feb. 2022); this also includes trips we took in the Mustang. Many of the routes shown here were driven multiple times.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I’m heading back to Moab, Canyonlands, Arches, etc., to lead a geology and photography field trip. It’ll be about 1000 to 1500 miles round trip. The group is small enough to fit into the Lightning, so we’ll just take it. We’ll charge overnight at hotels and only use DCFC if necessary.

Here’s a bit of a preview of the trip, though not everything is fully confirmed.

The elevation profile. The total elevation gain will be about 73,582 feet, total elevation loss will be about 73,954 feet.

This map shows several different bits of information.
The orange polygons are census tracts with population density as the color; higher densities are darker. The light blue hash layer are 50 mile driving distance to a DCFC. The red lines are the driving routes we may take. where there’s aerial photos are where there’s no DCFC within 50 miles driving distance and there are fewer than 1 person per square km according to the 2020 census.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Spent a week leading a photography + geology trip to Canyonlands, Arches, Natural Bridges, Monument Valley, and etc.,

Some brief statistics:
Total miles Driven: 1277 miles
Total energy used: 450 kWh
Average efficiency: 2.8 miles/kWh
Average range on a full battery: 367 miles (2.8 * 131)
Maximum speed limit: 65 mph
Total cost for energy: $83.04, including one-month charger network subscription
Cost per mile driven: $0.07/mile
Off-road miles driven: 102 miles
Number of photos taken: Thousands
Number of photos processed: 0

Here’s a cellphone photo of one of us pulling a camera out of a bag stored in the frunk. And also the magnificent Monument Valley.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Just went over 30,000 miles on the truck.

On the way to that, I was driving from central northern Arizona to the Los Angeles valley via interstate 40. On the drive out, I was feeling good so didn’t feel the need to stop at the first charging stop. Nor the backup for the first stop, which was about 40 miles farther along the road. So I ended up going an “extra” 77 miles farther along I-40 to Essex, CA.

There, I encountered a situation that’s fairly common on I-40 in the middle of nowhere desert: Broken refueling pumps. No, not the Electrify America charging posts. Those were in great condition with four usable of the four available.

Most of the fuel pumps were out of order.
One pump had been removed—it looked and smelled like it had been burned.
Two other pumps were wrapped in caution tape.
Of the eight nozzles usually available, only two were usable. And because of the price, people were only buying a few gallons just to make it to the next stop.

The cost for fuel?

$8.20 to $8.70 per gallon.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Beginning tomorrow, we’ll be at two years of ownership of the Lightning.
tl;dr:
It’s been the best vehicle we’ve ever owned.

But we still have no plans to buy another Ford. This is because we’re all BEV and will stay all BEV and I don’t believe I can trust Ford’s C-Suite to lead their engineers in the right direction.

We have approximately 32,000 miles on the Lightning (31,458 to be exact, but I’ll be driving about 300 miles today).

Here’s my two-year review:

First, the problems with the Lightning:

• Every very hot day, we would get a powertrain error and DTC. This is because of the idiotic motorized shifter. I finally got around to replacing it with a dial shifter and a printed mount. I never did take it in to the dealer to replace the shifter.
• The local dealer is anti-EV, unreliable, and untrustworthy. They claimed to do some recall work on our Mustang Mach-E but never actually did. We had to take the Mustang to another dealer two hours away to get that recall work done.
• I wish the Lightning were the size of the Ranger instead.
• That’s it with problems with the Lightning.

The Lightning's lifetime average efficiency is just over 2.5 miles/kWh. It would be higher if we stayed home more often, but we do a LOT of road trips in the Lightning. We’ve done about 28,000 miles of road trips, or about 88% of the miles are road tripping. This map shows most of our road trips, including both the Mustang Mach-E and the Lightning. I do an ~monthly NAZ to LA trip that’s about 1100-1200 miles round trip. We also like to go camping in remote areas of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Nevada. If the trip is 12 hours or less of driving, it’s likely we’ll drive instead of fly.

Here are some photos from some of our adventures:

Playing with the drone and 4x4 performance of the Lightning.

Giving a friend’s EV6 some “roadside” charging in the cold winter.

Sneaking into Arches National Park via the “secret entrance.” We have a yearly pass to the National Parks, and we checked in when we left through the main entrance. They still got to count us as a visitor.

Camping at Kodachrome Basin State Park.

Playing with the installation of a 270 degree awning. I don’t like the placement, but to move it forward, I have to raise it a bit so it doesn’t hit the cab.

Visiting Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. Yes, those are solar panels on the bed cap. Yes, they were useful for our 10-day trip. We were able to charge a little bit every day while going out to do photography. We were also able to keep the fridge and freezer running without using the Pro Power plugs.

The funk is a fantastic camera equipment secure storage space.

Practicing a little with the snow plow. If we ever get more snow, I’ll probably add a front-mounted hitch and use it in the front.

 

[21st Century Truck]

Agree on the Ford Ranger comment... that would have given a lot of people a lot more choice. Including me.

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