If the Ramcharger were available when you bought your lightning...

[ZeusDriver]

Honestly looking at the Ram Charger I feel like all the specs are just bizarre.

70+kWh battery? Why? If you're going to give it an EREV why not give it a 30kWH battery for around town or daily driver? Seems VERY costly.

"Can power your house for 30 days at 10kWH / day".

Again kind of a bizarre number. If you go 30 days without power you have a bigger problem in your community than electricity. And 10kwH/Day is a laughably low metric.


It just seems to me they are building a tool that is overly engineered in a lot of ways. And I'm not even counting EREV as overengineering it. The specs just seem all wrong. I suppose it has to do with keeping the towing in line.


I think this thing is going to be very expensive, and even more of a niche use case than Truck BEV's which is already proving to be more niche than automakers hoped.

I pretty much agree, word for word.

I imagine that 70kWh may be the lowest value that provides the desired HP without straining the battery. They probably want 500 HP because it sounds good to marketing people. So, say 400 kW, allowing for inefficiencies. That would be a 5.7C discharge rate, which some battery chemistries would have a hard time producing reliably. (Many drop-in LiFePO4 batteries are BMS-limited to 1C discharge, in the interests of battery life.)

The house powering thing is probably marketing department driven, to show that having an engine allows you to run your house longer than if you "only" have 130-200 kWH or so. Thirty days with you engine running? I live in hurricane alley, and have never even had to plug in to my Lightning for backup power for ten minutes, let alone a month!!!???

I would not be surprised that the extension of the reliability testing had to do with finding that sustained power from the generator is inadequate for heavy duty towing. Electronics are pretty efficient these days, but the losses of the generator itself (and the inverter) makes less hp available at the wheels than a standard transmission.

The Volt had "mountain" mode, which would charge the battery in preparation for long climbs, so that the total HP available would be the combination of the ICE and the electric motor. Never used it in my Volt, but I was aware that my little microcar (which was an EREV) would have to slow down in long pulls even with just the driver on board. (Never ran into that situation, but I lived and tested the car in the east. )

I wonder how the Ranger PHEV is doing in Australia.

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[Aminorjourney]

There's a lot of toxicity I associate with RAM - and since working in the industry (nearly 20 years) I've seen very little to assuage that impression.

The latest TV ads from the brand are a total turn off, so no, I wouldn't.

Also, from a practical point of view, RAM and Chevy have gone too far into the monster-sized battery packs for them to feel like regular trucks. The lightning is the perfect balance for me between range and price and capabilities. Sure, some larger battery packs - and plug-in hybrid options - might give more range, but my bladder is limited to no more than 3 hours of solid driving before I'm ready to stop.

 

[TechnoSwiss]

My bladder could use a stop every 3 hours as well, however when towing or driving with a headwind in the gorge the Lightning has to stop and recharge every 1-1.25 hour. Also, the bathroom options at most of those charging stops leaves a lot to be desired. The Tesla Supercharger in Boardman being a prime example. If you're there when the SAGE Center is open, the bathrooms are really nice. If it's not open, and you're traveling on a 105 degree summer day, that single Honey Bucket leaves a LOT to be desired I look forward to more of the Superchargers being compatible with the Lightning, because on road trips they've provided the best, most consistent charge experience. Which comes back a lot to available infrastructure being geared toward ICE and not BEV.

 

[Robocop]

No.

Stellantis makes nothing worth buying.

 

[JMD359]

I wouldn’t but it but not for the reasons most wouldn’t . It’s for a steel body and bed that rust quickly and it’s a stellantis product and they are known for the poorest quality electronics and batteries so no thank you.

 

[22legit2quit]

Here we go again.. right @Firn ?

 

[minnstang]

I had a dodge once. Sold it after the warranty ran out and I got sick of working on it.
You haven’t experienced range anxiety until you’ve driven a dodge. Never knew when it was going to break down.

 

[JRT]

I still have my reservation, I'll wait to see what it is when it shows up. I loved my 2014 RAM 1500 that I traded for my Lightning after trying EV life with a 21 Mach-e. My RAM was flawless for 120k miles and never left me stranded.


In most cases the Lightning is perfect, but in trips it is not and I've been renting gas vehicles when I don't want to pr have the time to deal with EV road tripping.

 

[Maineiac12]

Like it or not, here comes the EREV Lightning.

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...of-f-150-lightning-erev-next-gen-model.33426/

 

[Mal106]

I was sure the PHEV/EREV was the way to go. EV around town and high mileage hybred on a road trip. It's logical. 2 PHEVs and a hybred F150 later and I saw the light.

I can't possibly see an advantage in adding an engine and generator and integrating it into an EV. Long range towing often or no home charging favors ICE. Otherwise.... pure EV.

Interesting that Ford is following Stellantis down that rabbit hole. I'm sure the dealers had a lot to do with it as they don't know how to sell EVs and make a fortune maintaining non EVs.

IMHO, too bad Tesla over did the Cybertruck. Also too bad the charging infrastructure is so bad. Invisable, fraught with unreliability in both chargers and apps, no competetion, expensive and slow.

I think the Lightning and the Cybertruck are the next Volt. Well ahead of their time; so much so that they couldn't sell and at least the Lightning was discontinued.

 

[Maineiac12]

The EREV is an EV, just with a gas generator to charge the battery. No transmission, the engine isn’t hooked to the wheels… much less complicated.

 

[K6CCC]

I had a dodge once. Sold it after the warranty ran out and I got sick of working on it.
You haven’t experienced range anxiety until you’ve driven a dodge. Never knew when it was going to break down.

My last pickup was a 2003 Dodge Ram 2500 4x4. I put almost 300K miles on it, and it never stranded me. The only semi-major engine issue was still under warranty. Even up to shortly before I traded it in for my Lightning, I would not have hesitated to drive it across the country if the need came up (other than gas cost would have killed me).

 

[ZeusDriver]

Well.

Funny timing of this thread. So Ford is going EREV, like RAM. I assume the $30,000* smaller EV is still in the pipeline. I hope so. I'd be very happy with one of those with 375 mile range. (Also happy without a lot of the software present on my Lightning. Ford Connect has no value for me... Android auto just seems to work better. I'd love to see open source, but won't hold my breath.)

Thinking back to a car that delighted me. I think it was the first car that I bought brand new, a 1976 Honda Accord. It was so fairly priced that most dealers loaded them up with crap and charged more than retail. It did everything well, was far better in fit and finish that any American car, and it was completely reliable. Well-equipped with the basics, without being loaded with "packages" to get any additional things one might need. I wish Ford could do something similar.

I think that the maintenance issues of an ICE are overstated, when the ICE is in a a PHEV like the Volt, or a EREV. I changed the oil in my Volt once a year. The air filter never, because it never got dirty. The Volt is considerably more complicated that an EREV pickup will be, so I would be unconcerned about maintenance. Thinking back, over the last ten or fifteen ICE vehicles I've had, the annoying maintenance issues were related to electrics and electronics and brakes, not the basic engine parts.

Since the Volt, I've had two years of fast charging on trips, and feel that 75% of the time the experience has been fine. 5% has been close to awful. 20% a little iffy. It would have been nice to be able to rely on a tank of gas to just avoid having to drive around at midnight trying to find a working charger.

* Weird, and sad that pickups have become luxury vehicles. What is a working guy supposed to do? I read somewhere that the price of a Camry has gone up about with the overall inflation rate, but the price of pickups has gone up far faster. (Just checked: 2000 Camry: $20,000. 2025 Camry $28,000. 2000 F150: $16,000 2025: $44K. ) 40% increase vs 175% increase.

 

[PJnc284]

I assume the $30,000* smaller EV is still in the pipeline. I hope so. I'd be very happy with one of those with 375 mile range.

I wouldn't get my hopes up. Given the tiny battery they're putting in it, it would require lucid level efficiency.

 

[Mal106]

The EREV is an EV, just with a gas generator to charge the battery. No transmission, the engine isn’t hooked to the wheels… much less complicated.

Less but not much less. Maybe even more complicated, particularly for Ford. They have to add a big generator and a way to start the ICE along with the electronics and mechinisms to hook it all together all of which is new to Ford. Obviously the biggest complication is the ICE itself. It will really be an ICE with the added complications of a big battery and a big generator. The transmission being replaced by motors and a generator. It's really not much more than a hybred with a big battery.

Finally, batteries are improving at a far greater rate than the internal combustion engine. They might go with the Atkinson cycle engine for a little efficiency but the ICE is improving slowly.

Unless the battery is a whole lot smaller, I'm betting it will be as or more expensive than Lightning. How much battery is an ICE worth?

I think the EREV is a mistake but I totally understand...

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