I'm out after 6 months

[davehu]

I’m really getting sick of reading the cry babies’ posts on this thread. I drive from Texas to Colorado and back in my Lightning every two months in the worst of weather and I make it every time. It’s all about planning, patience and knowing your truck.

great if your traveling on an interstate. there are lots of charging deserts. ... we have a long way to go

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[moder8tor]

Page 465 of the 2023 owner's manual:

WARNING: Under-inflation
is the most common cause of
tire failures and may result in
severe tire cracking, tread
separation or blowout, with
unexpected loss of vehicle
control and increased risk of
injury. Under-inflation increases
sidewall flexing and rolling
resistance, resulting in heat
buildup and internal damage to
the tire. It also may result in
unnecessary tire stress, irregular
wear, loss of vehicle control and
accidents. A tire can lose up to
half of its air pressure and not
appear to be flat!

But at the same time we air down tires when when going off road to avoid punctures. I live a mile and a half down a dirt road with jagged rocks. I have already had a puncture with my last lightning. There are always compromises to be made. All my other other tires are load range E, F, or G with a high resistance to puncture, These appear to be the opposite. We will get them up. BTW, I carry a hydraulic jack and some wood blocks because the flimsy jack that comes with is is not cut out for the job.

 

[Jim Lewis]

The difference there might be that for true off-road, you're probably not driving more than 15 to 20 mph if even that. I forget where I read it, but, IIRC, Ford recommends keeping tires inflated to within 1 to 2 psi of the recommended pressure for on-road driving. We're driving 3 1/4 ton beasts, even without passengers and load.

 

[Refactoringdr]

I will second the suggestion for using ABRP. It is very, very good for range estimates. Occasionally, it off-interstate routing leaves a bit to be desired, but I have other programs for that.

 

[mr.Magoo]

If memory serves me, ORD has EV charging in the short term parking decks. Range anxiety alone would make me charge just to be safe

If it's anything like DTW it means that there's like 10 of them, all in spaces made for Chevy bolts so door dings and scratches are guaranteed if you park there.
Out of the 10, 3 are broken, 5 are iced, and the rest are occupied by non charging EVs.
I travel on a fairly regular basis and would never use the chargers at the airport for these reasons.

 

[wighty]

Has been kind of a shocker for me as well. I'm not sure how you guys with the standard range batteries do it.

I feel like I did fine last winter keeping the truck basically parked outside (couldn't close the garage door) in the northeast... my daily commute isn't more than 40 miles though, so it isn't like I have that much to worry about.

The best & most important thing while on an actual road trip when you need the range is monitor your MPK and calculate.

I was wondering about this... in cold weather your battery pack, from what I understand, won't have the same total charge density/usable charge. When doing calculations on the fly, I don't know if you are necessarily safe to say your pack has 98 kwh or 131 kwh available at 100%.

My other thought is... who wants to try and put 2" of polyiso foam insulation boards around their pack in the winter?

 

[luebri]

I was wondering about this... in cold weather your battery pack, from what I understand, won't have the same total charge density/usable charge. When doing calculations on the fly, I don't know if you are necessarily safe to say your pack has 98 kwh or 131 kwh available at 100%.

Incorrect understanding. The kWh’s are all there, they’re just less effective/effecient.

If your understanding was correct, you wouldn’t be able to pump/charge the full 131 kWh into the battery in winter. Which trust me, you can certainly do.

 

[wighty]

Incorrect understanding. The kWh’s are all there, they’re just less effective/effecient.

I'm referring to cold starts more so... not when the battery is being conditioned by the truck to maintain temp. This would be where people see a huge drop off at the start of a cold start trip compared to estimated range at the end.

If your understanding was correct, you wouldn’t be able to pump/charge the full 131 kWh into the battery in winter. Which trust me, you can certainly do.

And your pack, while charging, is not going to be at the outside temp... it will be most likely temp regulated by both the act of charging and by the conditioning system to maintain a good charge (hence the overhead costs of energy while charging... something like 500w isn't it?).

 

[luebri]

I'm referring to cold starts more so... not when the battery is being conditioned by the truck to maintain temp. This would be where people see a huge drop off at the start of a cold start trip compared to estimated range at the end.



And your pack, while charging, is not going to be at the outside temp... it will be most likely temp regulated by both the act of charging and by the conditioning system to maintain a good charge (hence the overhead costs of energy while charging... something like 500w isn't it?).

Believe what you need to, but I can tell you is I’ve monitored and calculated MPK x Kwh (via SOC%) on several trips to below 5% SOC in the cold and it’s always reconciled very accurately. Saying what you “understand” is that calculation would been overly optimistic and I would have been stranded. From what I recall, I’m fairly certain I’ve never been stranded!

 

[Surfnturf]

I have shared this elsewhere on the forum.... I put it together mainly for my amusement, but maybe it would be helpful for some people. The MPK efficiency I'm sure could be debated, but for the most part it seem to be fairly accurate. Better than relying on GOM. I would turn it off if I could. I would prefer just to see KWH remaining. Not SOC. Not miles.

I have 17k miles and driven the whole gamut from -10F to 95F in my truck.

FWIW, I'm consistently getting 350 miles per charge (trip meter shows 2.8 m/kWh) in almost all city driving, 75F temp.

 

[Zprime29]

I'm referring to cold starts more so... not when the battery is being conditioned by the truck to maintain temp. This would be where people see a huge drop off at the start of a cold start trip compared to estimated range at the end.

That's due to the truck warming the battery instead of using that same energy to make you move. It's still the same amount of available energy, it is just getting used for something other than turning the motor. I.e. there's a loss of efficiency when the battery is super cold. Which is what @luebri was saying. Doesn't matter if it's cold or hot, you still get the same amount of energy capacity. Where that energy goes determines your efficiency. Your efficiency determines your range.

My limited understanding (I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night) is that the available power output might be less when super cold, but the stored energy is not affected.

 

[edcoble]

Oh come on, don’t any of you guys use A Better Route Planner (ABRP). I have no affiliation with ABRP but the app works so well, I feel I really need to stess the value of the app. Let me give you a real life example of the value of the app.

It’s about 230 miles from the EA station in Trinidad, CO to the one in Amarillo, TX and the speed limits range from 70 to 75 mph. When I charge my Lariat ER in Trinidad to about 90% SOC my GOM says I can’t make it to Amarillo but ABRP says I can with plenty of range to spare. I trust ABRP a lot more than the GOM so I start the trip with confidence that I can make it to Amarillo.

The first 100 miles is on a plateau and the flat land eats up my range. The GOM keeps telling me that I’m in big trouble but ABRP says I’m fine. After I get off the plateau and start going downhill I start picking up range on the GOM.

I usually end up with about 20% SOC when I make it to Amarillo. This is not an isolated occurrence. It seems like practically every time I head out on a travel leg the GOM says I can’t make it but ABRP says I can, this is understandable because I use ABRP to plan my trips, not the GOM.

I always use ABRP to plan my trips and I do a lot of “what if” runs to plan new, adventurous routes. I have an ABRP subscription tsp I get really time weather adjustments. When I first started using ABRP I dialed in the energy consumption of my Lightning but since then it’s been very reliable.

When I read about all these tables and rules of thumb people are using to estimate their range I think back to the times when I used to do the same but I found a better way. If you are sick of the GOM screwing up your trips, you should give ABRP a try.

Texas Dan, I drive that same route
Do you use an OBD scanner with ABRP? Or do you rely on ABRP's native application?

 

[wighty]

That's due to the truck warming the battery instead of using that same energy to make you move. It's still the same amount of available energy, it is just getting used for something other than turning the motor. I.e. there's a loss of efficiency when the battery is super cold. Which is what @luebri was saying. Doesn't matter if it's cold or hot, you still get the same amount of energy capacity. Where that energy goes determines your efficiency. Your efficiency determines your range.

My limited understanding (I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night) is that the available power output might be less when super cold, but the stored energy is not affected.

I get that but I guess I was wondering if Ford pulled a legacy auto and had crappy software not doing a good job with the BMS and knowing exactly what charge it has, which then affects the GOM leading to wildly inaccurate range estimates.

I'll say that this year I've noticed some oddities that makes me think Ford did change something, in that multiple cold starts over the past month I have noticed the battery charge going *up* while driving, which would make sense if the BMS was not correctly accounting for the temp and its affect on voltage (ie as the truck battery is warming up the voltage will increase). I never once noticed that happening last winter. I would see the charge go up maybe 1-2%... though now that I think about that I can't remember when Ford added the battery charge number and if that was after the winter.

 

[flyct]

Of course, that can be painful for folks accustomed to pushing the speed limits.…………

And if you bought an EV for cross country use or 200 plus miles a day, you are the fool for not reading enough......

Cross Country in a Tesla is a non-event, not like doing it in a CSS charging Lightning. Day and night difference.

I have a 82 year old lady friend who just did a 2800 mile round trip from Florida to Chicago and back in her Tesla Model Y Long Range. She spent 7 days in Chicago and then returned.

She drives 77 MPH all the time. She said the trip was great, no issues with charging and very relaxing.

Here is her hand written log of charging costs for the trip. She said only once did she charge to more than 80%. Multiple times she arrived at next Super Charger with 7-10% left. The charging stops averaged less than 30 min each.

 

[Texas Dan]

Texas Dan, I drive that same route
Do you use an OBD scanner with ABRP? Or do you rely on ABRP's native application?

I have a OBD scanner but I haven’t tried to use it with ABRP yet. So I rely on native application. I calibrated it based on how far ABRP is off at the end of the trip.

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