EREV - A Horsepower Math Problem?

[Jseis]

Wait, what??? Doesn't the non max tow Lightning do like 7200?

As I vaguely recall, yes. My 4.6 Sport Trac Adrenalin was a body on frame truck about Maverick sized and it would tow 7500 with an equalizing hitch. I liked the size of the smaller truck.

If Ford won’t produce a full sized BEV, maybe a smaller one? A Maverick sized BEV would be sweet. One that could tow a 20’-22’ boat, 18’-20’ 20 travel trailer.

Might be 10 years before we see a full sized truck BEV (F150 sized).

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[chriserx]

As I vaguely recall, yes. My 4.6 Sport Trac Adrenalin was a body on frame truck about Maverick sized and it would tow 7500 with an equalizing hitch. I liked the size of the smaller truck.

If Ford won’t produce a full sized BEV, maybe a smaller one? A Maverick sized BEV would be sweet. One that could tow a 20’-22’ boat, 18’-20’ 20 travel trailer.

Might be 10 years before we see a full sized truck BEV (F150 sized).

It's apparently 5-10k depending on equipment, I couldn't remember what thread I posted in. I definitely would've considered, and likely chose a Maverick and/or older Ranger sized BEV had one been available.

 

[Cvh8601]

Keep in mind that an EREV F-150 will have access to the route planner (read: elevation, weather data, etc).

it should be trivial for the future truck to plan to run the generator at a sufficient clip to keep sufficient battery through whatever the route plan is. Or, telling you if your route plan is not doable with the inputted variables.

that’s an advantage prior EREVs wouldn’t have had one would imagine.

 

[Landscaper]

Wow. Someone who doesn't own an EV says stuff like that.

OK

 

[sysop1]

Keep in mind that an EREV F-150 will have access to the route planner (read: elevation, weather data, etc).

Tell me you don’t actually own a Lightning without telling me you don’t own a Lightning.

The current nav absolutely does not do that, and honestly I don’t have much faith Ford could pull it off even if they wanted to. They still haven’t managed to bring back basic stuff the phone app had back in 2022, like zone lighting. Hard to believe advanced route planning is suddenly around the corner when they can’t even restore features they already shipped.

 

[ZeusDriver]

Once the battery is depleted the EREV will not continue to propel the vehicle. You will need to stop and let it charge for TBD minutes.

There are edge cases (such as needing to tow 14,000 lb over a long distance) and then crazy edge cases (such as hooking up a trailer and having no idea at all where you are going, and failing to check if you have any charge.)

Thinking back to my ultra simple EREV prototype from 15 years ago: It took about 5 seconds at the start of any trip to decide whether to start up the engine or just use the battery alone. While driving, I'd spend about 2 seconds every 5 or 10 minutes deciding whether or not to start up the engine. Even without any automation at all (other than auto-shutdown of the engine if charging reached too high a level) making sure that I did not get to the base of a mountain with a too-low charge, took essentially zero brain power. There was never the case "Once the battery is depleted..."

This would be the equivalent of driving an ICE vehicle, and seeing that fuel is low, with the readout telling you that you have 30 miles range left, and then saying, "it's only 50 miles to home, I'll just drive on without filling up".

Neither of these trucks (the RAM or the Ford) will allow the battery to become "depleted", unless the driver takes aggressive steps to mismanage things.

When I had my Volt, I could loan it to anyone, without every mentioning anything about how it works. They knew, without my having to say a word, that when the gas gauge was low, get gas. The wife of the owner of the dealership was a long term driver of my Volt before I bought it. She never charged it... she just ran it on gas. The 120 v portable charger that came with the car was never used, despite the fact that it could be plugged in anywhere.

 

[Cvh8601]

Tell me you don’t actually own a Lightning without telling me you don’t own a Lightning.

The current nav absolutely does not do that, and honestly I don’t have much faith Ford could pull it off even if they wanted to. They still haven’t managed to bring back basic stuff the phone app had back in 2022, like zone lighting. Hard to believe advanced route planning is suddenly around the corner when they can’t even restore features they already shipped.

No one would disagree that ford nav leaves something to be desired. Doesn’t change the fact that an EREV could greatly benefit from route planner integration to address many of the issues raised in this thread.

 

[ZeusDriver]

Even now with my truck, I wonder if it disables trailer brakes downhill so that regen is maximized. The YouTube towing videos don't seem to address that.

I certainly hope not. The last thing I would want Ford software doing is deciding when to re-enable the trailer brakes in an emergency. BTW: I have not had this happen with the Ford, yet, but my Tesla would have disconcertingly weak regen if the battery was topped off (and especially if the temperature was low) It felt like brake failure, and the friction brakes would come into play on even moderate decel. This could add a .1 delay in breaking performance: 9' at 60mph, potentially putting my Tesla 9' into the car in front of me, if they did a panic stop.

Towing brake controllers will modulate the trailer brakes according to the deceleration rate, so in the gentle decel of maintaining speed on a decline, they are not, generally, operating, but if you need them, they kick in instantly. In my controller all this stuff is adjustable -- I don't have the built-in Ford controller.

 

[ZeusDriver]

No one would disagree that ford nav leaves something to be desired. Doesn’t change the fact that an EREV could greatly benefit from route planner integration to address many of the issues raised in this thread.

I agree, although it seems like a said state of affairs. How many drivers leave from Kansas city for San Francisco without knowing anything about the topology? Granted, something like a majority of high school graduates cannot find Chicago on a map.

 

[ZeusDriver]

Keep in mind that an EREV F-150 will have access to the route planner (read: elevation, weather data, etc).

it should be trivial for the future truck to plan to run the generator at a sufficient clip to keep sufficient battery through whatever the route plan is. Or, telling you if your route plan is not doable with the inputted variables.

that’s an advantage prior EREVs wouldn’t have had one would imagine.

I agree, although with my primitive little EREV, turning the charger on at appropriate times was incredible easy. Ditto for my Volt's Mountain mode.

Perhaps they cracked the code on resolving that

The code: Huge battery (90kWH in the RAM). Huge engine (3.6 liter). Huge weight. Mediocre fuel consumption. Astronomical Price. Huge profit. Happy oil companies.

If you go onto the RAM site and look at how they are positioning the RAM Rev, there are loads of luxury features illustrated. Not an everyman's truck at all. Ford would not do that, right? Just think about how easy it was to get the advertised 39,995 Pro Lightning. Every dealership had 20 on the lot with highly-trained sales people, all offering to sell at a steep discounts just to get the trucks out there to be seen!

 

[mr.Magoo]

To get the range & power Ford indicates (700 miles & say 12K-13K towing, probably uphill at 70 mph )

Except that they don't indicate it as being combined, or maybe you were being facetious and I missed it ?

 

[Jseis]

Except that they don't indicate it as being combined, or maybe you were being facetious and I missed it ?

Well. You got me on the uphill at 70. My read is that the hybrid will probably be a turbo V6 in the 4 liter range integrated with a variable speed motor drawing off battery & generator to give 600+ peak hp and 800? ft pounds torque. Or something like that. F1 uses some exotic power management systems integrating engine & motor-battery systems.

 

[mr.Magoo]

Well. You got me on the uphill at 70. My read is that the hybrid will probably be a turbo V6 in the 4 liter range integrated with a variable speed motor drawing off battery & generator to give 600+ peak hp and 800? ft pounds torque. Or something like that. F1 uses some exotic power management systems integrating engine & motor-battery systems.

I suppose my command of the English language and reading comprehension have been criticized before, but the way I read their statement (and usually how marketing/specs are written) is that it's all isolated circumstances.

The current Lightning ER have a 320mile range during an synthetic EPA cycle.

They're not changing their measuring stick to include much higher speeds and towing a giant trailer.

If we're still talking about the NG Lightning, it's an EREV, not a Hybrid.
The engine won't have any mechanical connection to the wheels (some will argue that cables are mechanical, just because this is the internet, but I mean driveshaft, etc.).

It'll be interesting to see what they end up with, I don’t think there's any facts on the matter just yet (the thing is 2-3 years out).
But personally I see a 60-75kWh battery and ~50kW generator coupled with a 1-1.5l 3-cylinder, purpose built, engine and say a 20 gallon full tank, personally I'd pick diesel, but I don't think that'll happen in the US market.
With this the generator would be able to keep up with highway speeds (not towing) at around 35-40kW, and get a reasonable runtime of, say 4hrs plus battery, so all in all around 400 miles at highway speeds, higher if you go slower (EPA cycle).

But again, this is all a shot in the dark for everyone since there isn't any official information out there.

 

[hturnerfamily]

let's think about this supposed '700 miles of range', in a rational calculation:

and let's assume the battery pack is rated at an EPA 350 miles range(just as an example)

- this means that the Generator(the engine output) will be able to create the ADDITIONAL 350 miles of range, on it's own... meaning that it is producing the SAME amount of KW of power back into the battery pack to meet that same EPA rating, AS YOU ARE DRIVING, before it runs out of fuel.
We don't know exactly how they arrived at that EPA standard rating, such as the SPEED of the vehicle, or the TERRAIN, or the TEMPS, or the WIND, but it most likely certainly would NOT include TOWING of any sort, or any additional weight in the truck, such as 5 passengers, etc.


ADD YOUR ANSWERS:
- if we assume that the battery usage for the EPA rating is, for example, 2.5mi/kwh, then the calculations are: 350 miles / 2.5 miles = 140 kWh battery pack.
- if you drive conservatively at the EPA 55mph for that WHOLE range, you will drive for 6.37 hours.
- if the Generator engine needs to then produce that same kWh of power, over that same 6.37 hours, it will need to output 240v @ ________ the WHOLE time.

obviously we can all admit that 350 miles range ain't gonna happen, not if the idea of the EREV is to use some of the battery pack space for an area for the generator's fuel tank, and to lighten the load and lower the cost.

let's use a more REAL WORLD example:
- a 100kwh battery pack
- now, averaging that EPA 2.5mi/kWh, we can assume the battery might get us 250 miles, downhill, on a good day... but we also know that a 100kwh battery pack does not give us 100kwh of USABLE power, but more likely 95. That's then a 'range' of 237.5 miles, very similar to the EPA rating of my '22 PRO SR, with 240.
- if the Generator engine needs to then produce that same kWh of power, over that same 6.37 hours, it will need to output 240v @ ________ the WHOLE time.


While it's unlikely that ANY owner, especially us EV owners, would want a generator/engine to be running the WHOLE TIME we are driving, these are also just EPA estimates of what COULD BE POSSIBLE, at best, in those 'average' conditions. It probably bears little meaning in the 'real world'.

Most of us would probably assume that an EREV would only need the generator in 'critical' conditions... such as when you only need that 'few' extra miles of range, and when you might then simply turn the generator ON near the end of the journey.

It sounds like that's more of a pie-in-the-sky idea, and more of a real 'turn the generator ON as soon as you first start'...

this reminds me of my wife's '22 KIA Sorento PHEV... she could certainly drive in EV ONLY mode, for up to the first 30 or so miles, but, of course, the engine would start up then for the rest of the trip. OR, you could start the engine from the GET GO, and save the battery miles until the END of the trip, or maybe to use in inner-city stop-n-go driving, etc. It was always a toss-up, because you don't really know 'when' to turn the engine off, unless you know EXACTLY how many miles are left to drive, etc... it's mental gymnastics, and something that most folks don't want to deal with.
I'm sure software will provide a much better option, but, even then, you will have to CONSTANTLY be cognizant of when to stop for FUEL, or when to stop for POWER, or both... we EV owners might be understanding of that, but I'll doubt new owners will understand the constant calculations and planning required... or they'll stop only at gast stations, just like they always have.

On another note: even if the generator ENGINE output can provide power DIRECTLY to the motors, as some have suggested, this still uses FUEL, and therefore is going to essentially drain the engine's fuel tank at a similar rate - the range would not change.

 

[mr.Magoo]

let's think about this supposed '700 miles of range', in a rational calculation:

I would refrain from using volts in your calculations/assumptions as we can pretty much guarantee that the onboard generator will not be 240V. It'll most likely be matched to the pack voltage, or at least 400V if they end up with a 800V pack (higher voltage would create insulation challenges, so I'm not sure how far they'd take it), to minimize conversion losses and also reduce cable size (cost/weight) - that plus the fact that a kW is a kW regardless if you have 1V or a 1000V.

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