180 Mile Real World Winter Range - Lariat ER

[AdmiralYamo]

We had about -5f here in Chicago the day before and I saw my range shoot down. Yesterday it was about 5f and 50% charge had only 90 miles left (full tank would be 180).

Still performed great so can't complain

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[Fryballin]

Woahhhh coming off hot here. Did not mean to offend you or anyone, just rather share the data from one trip.

I did not mean for this post to be negative; I don't think I said anything negative here, just my experience. This experience should not be taken as a rule. As you said, there are many variables. I posted it to inform others what I am seeing to give a data point.

That being said, I do not appreciate being attacked and told I drive inappropriately? No reason for character assassination for someone posting their experience.

I have a very informed experience with EVs. The lightning is our 3rd full EV (we also had a Plug-In). Our Model 3 has about 100k miles on it, and our primary charging was SuperChargers (about 60% of charging) until we got L2 home charging when the Lightning arrived. I have many experiences both locally and on many road trips calculating charges (MANY times rolling in with 0-3% range and never being stranded). I am very well versed in calculating range, which is why I shared calculations for people who may not be. This drive was expected to have poor performance and no issues arose as I had plenty of buffer.

Regarding this trip, only variable I can think of not mentioned earlier is a net elevation change of 458 feet, which is not huge. As I stated, and provided pictures of, average speed was 65-70. As I mentioned, from looking up weather, highest wind I saw on our route was a 12 mph max.

I hope you have a wonderful Holiday Weekend.

Did you precondition the truck prior to departure? I expect my lightning ER would do well to get 1.5mi/kWh in those temps and speeds so this just confirms what I was thinking. I’ve noticed in the colder temps in my garage and possibly from the most recent update, the truck FORD pass app will now say “Preparing for Drive” about 45 minutes from when I want to leave if I set a departure time. This is heating the battery and then about 15 minutes prior to departure it changes to “pre-conditioning the cabin”. Wondering if you did this prior to leaving on your trip?

 

[wgatkinson]

The explanation of your experience doesn't give a real picture of anything. Just using the basic temperature rule of thumb of 1% range loss for every 4 degrees F indicates that you should have only lost 10% range with the temperature at 30 degrees F. To get such poor performance I suspect that there are contributing factors that you failed to mention like excessive speeding, driving uphill for long periods of time and/or driving against a strong headwind.

Estimating the range of an EV is now a pretty exact science and is pretty easy to calculate for anyone that wants to take the time to do so. If you don't want to do your homework and just throw caution into the wind when driving an EV, then you should always expect poor performance. But please don't bad mouth EVs just because you want to drive irresponsibly.

The estimates in this response are not accurate, I have actually had the same experience as the original poster. In warmer temperatures I get closer to 100% (320 miles) in my extended range Lariat. In the recent cold spell in the US, I have gotten only close to 50% of estimated miles. Yesterday, I took a trip that was 87 miles and I lost almost 150 miles of range - with no crazy driving, no excessive speed or acceleration, etc. I have been researching this and it seems like I need to try pre-conditioning the truck before driving in the cold. I have not been doing that.

 

[Nate977p]

Did you precondition the truck prior to departure? I expect my lightning ER would do well to get 1.5mi/kWh in those temps and speeds so this just confirms what I was thinking. I’ve noticed in the colder temps in my garage and possibly from the most recent update, the truck FORD pass app will now say “Preparing for Drive” about 45 minutes from when I want to leave if I set a departure time. This is heating the battery and then about 15 minutes prior to departure it changes to “pre-conditioning the cabin”. Wondering if you did this prior to leaving on your trip?

Nope, I did not. Vehicle also sits outside. For sure a negative impact on range having a cold soaked battery.

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