Adventures of our 2023 Carbonized Gray Metallic Lariat Lightning ER

[SpaceEVDriver]

But... Driving more faster is more funner and more faster?

?

I get it .. Or I did. I misspent a lot of my youth going moar faster. Had a [ЯƎVO ƎVOM] front license plate, tickets, etc, etc, etc.

But 80 vs 70? With today's vehicles? I don't feel any difference. The truck's not on the edge. It's not a motorcycle. It's just cruising.

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[SpaceEVDriver]

A map and elevation profile of our trip.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Year-end summary of our EV driving.

We had the 2023 Lightning Lariat ER delivered to us from down in the valley on 12 April, 2024. We now have 11,748 miles on it. We've chosen the Lightning over the Mustang Mach-E (2022, 43,791 miles) for most of our long-distance driving since purchasing it. The Lightning is just so much more comfortable.

This map shows all the places that I can remember we've taken one or the other of our EVs since late February 2022.

• Would I buy another EV? Yes, without question. We won't go back to gas.
• Would I buy another Ford EV. Yes. We're not brand loyalists. The Lightning was the only truck option that we could afford when we bought it. The Mustang was the best SUV option when we bought it. When the Mustang reaches 100k-150k miles, we'll probably retire it and get something else. What brand we buy will depend on what is being offered.
• Any regrets?
  • I would have preferred a Lightning Pro with the extended range battery, but that wasn't available to us. We got the Lariat at a too-high, but reasonable price for an EV.
  • I wish we'd had the Lightning at least a few months earlier than we got it. We would have been able to put Arkansas on the map too.
• What could be better?
  • Lots of things.
  • The prices could be better.
  • The Mustang has too harsh a ride, even with low pressure tires. It's better than most cars we'd had before it, but nowhere near as nice as the Lightning
  • The Lightning is bigger than I'd prefer--I would prefer a Maverick- or Tacoma-sized electric truck.
  • I'd like a simple way to tell the battery to warm up or cool down before I drive.
  • I'd like to have a little more efficient heater for the cabin.
  • I wish BlueCruise was more reliable and dependable. It's too aggressive with its slow-downs at curves and it doesn't give me enough information when it turns itself off.
  • I'd like a faster interface in the tablet. I would remove all the entertainment apps, games, karaoke, and Alexa--perhaps that would speed up the interface a bit.
  • The stock tires that came with the Lightning are pretty soft and allow too much body roll. The soft ride is nice, but the tires aren't conducive to a reliable working truck. I have to baby it when I'm towing or hauling because of the soft sidewalls.
  • The dealership experience is unpleasant at best.
  • Probably a few other things.
• Major problems?
  • None.
  • The Mustang had the HVBJB recall, which I finally acquiesced to have done. It was mostly painless. It didn't change my willingness to take the car anywhere, just put to rest the nagging from Ford. The first dealer we went to failed to even try to replace the hardware, so we went to another dealer an hour and a half away. They completed the job as expected.
  • Got a flat in the Lightning. No problems.
  • Had a slight shudder in the Lightning while accelerating between about 45 mph and 55 mph. Rotated and balanced the tires myself and the shudder is gone.
  • Got a flat in the Mustang. It's probably time to get my repair job fixed--I think we're losing a small amount of air over a few weeks.

Overall, we are incredibly happy with both of our EVs.

 

[Rip]

I especially like the solar panels. I am thinking of boondocking a bit with our teardrop trailer. The solar panels do give some range recapture security on rougher, more remote trails.

Couldn't think of adding solar panels like this when I had the Mach E.

Interesting...what led you to ask about solar panels? I don't see them discussed in this thread, but I'd love to hear about them...

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I'm experimenting with a few panel configurations on the rack. We like to boondock as well. The 200 W setup I had in the photos was great for running the fridge and a few other things, but as it was, I didn't have an inverter powerful enough to run the L1 charger. I'm rearranging stuff now and will be testing it live on our next camping trip.

The new setup will be 400 W on the rack and maybe another 400-800 W that can be laid out. These panels will feed a 5 kWh portable power station with a TT-30 plug. That will power the L1 charger. The power station acts as an auxiliary battery because 400 or 800 W isn't enough to power the charger directly.

We'll change the aux at home and whenever we stop for DCFC. When we get to our destination, we'll put out the solar and plug in the L1 charger. The fridge and the truck will be receiving power during the day. When the battery is down to 10% or so, we'll turn off the L1 charger. With a 400 W panel, we'll get about 4-6 kWh into the truck (10-20 miles, more if it's an emergency and we drive slowly).

The next day we'll allow the aux battery to charge up close to 100%, before we start the L1 charger again. Again, it'll put 4-6 kWh into the truck.

We mostly camp in the US Southwest, where we get 12 hours of good sunlight during camping season.

In ideal conditions, with 1200 W, we can recharge the aux battery in about 4 hours, charge the truck while maintaining the aux battery for another 8 hours (8 kWh into the truck), then after dark discharge the aux into the truck for another 4 kWh, for a total of ~12 kWh (25-36 miles) each day. I'm planning on 5 kWh (10-20 miles) a day. 1200 W of panels is a lot to mess around with.

 

[21st Century Truck]

Interesting...what led you to ask about solar panels? I don't see them discussed in this thread, but I'd love to hear about them...

SpaceEVDriver's setup as it evolves will give me the security to range farther with our Off-Road TimberLeaf Pika teardrop camper.

The Pika already has a great LightLeaf solar panel which is enough to keep the trailer's Dakota Lithium battery charged up, pretty much indefinitely, and that in turn gives us cabin and and galley power, and power to manage the cabin's propane heater. So the only boondocking terrain limit for us was the Lightning's range and its dependence on AC power.

This evolving solar setup provides that safety, akin to the 5-gallon gas can on a gasoline truck.

I hope I've adequately answered Your question.

 

[Rip]

SpaceEVDriver's setup as it evolves will give me the security to range farther with our Off-Road TimberLeaf Pika teardrop camper.

The Pika already has a great LightLeaf solar panel which is enough to keep the trailer's Dakota Lithium battery charged up, pretty much indefinitely, and that in turn gives us cabin and and galley power, and power to manage the cabin's propane heater. So the only boondocking terrain limit for us was the Lightning's range and its dependence on AC power.

This evolving solar setup provides that safety, akin to the 5-gallon gas can on a gasoline truck.

I hope I've adequately answered Your question.

Yes! Very interesting, thank you!

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Been busy with life. The Lightning has a 13,200 miles of mostly road trips on it now.

I got a snow plow just before we traded in the Tacoma for the Lightning. But it's been a dry winter (we're about 50 inches below normal) and we haven't had a need for it yet. Last night I finished setting it up for the Lighting's rear tow hitch. We got a few inches, maybe 3-5, of snow last night, so I had the opportunity to try it out. It works wonderfully. Previously I would plow the quarter mile driveway with the tractor and it would take a couple of hours and I'd damage the gravel road no matter how careful I was. Today it took about 20 minutes and I still don't have it perfectly dialed in.

If you have experience backing up trailers, this is pretty easy. It's not as easy as plowing with a front-facing plow, but whatever. Live life for the adventure.

I had to get a drop hitch for it. And I had to cut about a half inch off the plow's hitch mount attachment to fit that cheap drop hitch. Not really an issue. I still have some dialing in on the standoffs and I will probably mount a PVC pipe to the plow blade so I don't tear up the gravel road too much when I get the height wrong. But overall, this works wonderfully.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I haven’t done an update for quite some time.

We’re at just over 20k miles on the Lightning and just over 50k on the Mustang.



Recently we took another road trip for the weekend. Total round trip distance was 588 miles, 294 each way.

Started in the Flagstaff, AZ at 99%. I had to run a quick errand before we left and didn’t bother to recharge.

We started at ~7000 ft as usual. For one way travel, we climbed a total of 15,207 feet and lost 16,006 feet, for an elevation loss of 799 feet. But some of those climbs were pretty steep.

According to Google, the drive is about 5 hours. We did it in 5.5 hours.

We stopped for lunch in Kanab for 30 minutes and plugged into a 50 kW (relatively slow) DCFC in the center of town. That gave us 24 kWh, bringing us from 48% to 67%. We didn’t need the charge, but the phrase, “always be charging” is a good one to toss into your lexicon. If you have the opportunity, it’s not blocking someone else from an emergency charge, and it’s worth the cost, always plug in to charge.

To get to Kanab, we used 99%-48% = 51%, or ~66 kWh. For the ~202 miles, that’s ~3 miles/kWh. The highway, 89 and 89A, is 65 mph speed limit highway, with some slower sections; the total drive time was 3 hours (traffic sometimes demands a bit higher speeds than the limit). It’s also a lot of elevation loss and gain. Lower drag due to lower speeds beats out elevation gain.

Going to a bit north of Cedar City involved a climb over the mountains, hitting about 9900 feet elevation. That 92 mile drive required about 24% of the battery (31 kWh), for an efficiency of ~3 miles/kWh. It’s amazing how going slow saves a ton of energy. The speed limit on most of that road was, again, 65 mph, with several sections much slower. The total time it took to drive this section was 2 hours.

Total efficiency was (294 miles / 97 kWh) ~= 3 miles/kWh.

The drive back was the same drive run the opposite direction. We had more wind going back, my partner drove because I was ill, and she likes to drive a bit faster, and our total elevation change was positive rather than negative. On the way back, we used almost exactly 100% of the battery, 130 kWh. That gave us an overall efficiency of 2.2 miles/kWh.

For the total drive of 588 miles, we used 223 kWh for 2.6 miles/kWh average. That’s a fair amount over the EPA estimated range of 320 miles on a full battery. At 2.6 miles/kWh, we get about 346 miles range.

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