Silent_Thunder
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Ok, we have over 500 miles under our belts with our Lariat and are starting to get the feel for this machine. We’re seeing avg mi/kWh in the 1.8-2.2 on highway (avg speed of 70 mph) and 2.8-3.4 in town (speeds varying 25-50 mph).
Love, LOVE the hands free “Blue Cruise,” but still need to play with it a bit more. I like that it truly is hands free so long as you’re looking ahead. I like that it accelerates when changing lanes instead of hesitating like auto pilot does on Tesla. I like that it doesn’t try to maintain the middle of an unmarked/unlined merge lane. I didn’t experience the jockeying that @oneguynick experienced…so no nausea here
.
This thing is POWERFUL! I took some friends for a test drive yesterday and even I, as a former Model 3 owner, was BLOWN AWAY by the torque! It continues to pull hard well beyond posted speed limits (which, I, of course didn’t exceed
). Case I point: one of my favorite tricks in the Model 3 was to stomp on the “go” pedal at 40/45 mph and hear the gasps for air from my occupants. Never once did I hear tire squeal from it. The Lightning, on the other hand, spins the fronts when I attempt that. BE FOREWARNED—make sure to keep both hands on the wheel; the torque steer threw me for a loop when I was one-handing it. I predict lots of crashes if people aren’t mindful of the power this thing has. Oh, and this was all in “Normal” mode, too 
In preparation for the rides yesterday, I took it to a touchfree car wash to clean off some of the bugs and mess from our first trip over the weekend. The “mega power frunk” stayed nice and dry inside, but the interior fenders were splashed/wet. I don’t think it’ll be a concern, but as a handyman, I intend to keep tools up there on the daily. (See pics)
Finally, it’s going to take some getting used to if you’re coming from Tesla. (We traded our Model 3 in and are no longer Tesla owners). And this is just one use case *with a brand new truck*. I accept my husband and I are early adopters and trust this will get better with time.
We left our cottage in SW MI with enough projected range to get to a DC Fast charger along our route (roughly 50% battery or 139 miles of projected range). When entering I-94, the navigation had us stopping at an EA Charger in Evergreen Park IL with a delta of 20 or so miles. Sunday was a very windy day and we were driving SW into SW winds—massive headwind. While we got 2.2 mi/kWh going up to the cottage on Saturday, our efficiency was shrinking to 1.6/1.8 during this leg of the journey. As we started driving home, the projected range and destination delta began shrinking significantly.
Here’s where I missed our Model 3. We’d normally top up at a supercharger before hitting the road (our cottage doesn’t even have grounded outlets so charging wasn’t happening there). The supercharger network made traveling so simple in a Tesla. We do lots of road-trips each year and have taken our Model 3 to all of them since purchasing in 2018.
As we were nearing the Indiana state line, the nav system began redirecting us 34 miles in another redirection to a DC Fast Charger along I-80 (we were traveling along I-94). We were basically in a DC Fast Charger dead zone. First, we hopped on PlugShare to see what nearby chargers existed. We found a Chargepoint charger at the next exit and headed that way. Upon arrival, we watched a Mach-E plug into the only CCS at that station. He planned on being there for 20 minutes. Impatience got the better of us so we decided to head to the next nearest “fast charger” which brought us to a travel stop on I-80 East (yes, opposite from our destination). After 38 minutes, we only mustered 62 miles and plugged in our route home, which still took us farther East to a DC Fast Charger in South Bend. They’re, we used 62 or 63 kWh of our 250 kWh balance from the Blue Oval network and did a plug and charge. Tty minutes later we added 142 miles which was plenty to get us home. What’s typically a 2.5 hour ride, turned into a 4.5+ hour trek home.
I admit I was frustrated. Was it the sunburn? Was I hangry? Did I contemplate pulling over and listing on carsandbids.com? Yes. It’s just the trade-off of being an early adopter in a vehicle that’s still getting used to us.
edit: updated tag for @oneguynick.
Love, LOVE the hands free “Blue Cruise,” but still need to play with it a bit more. I like that it truly is hands free so long as you’re looking ahead. I like that it accelerates when changing lanes instead of hesitating like auto pilot does on Tesla. I like that it doesn’t try to maintain the middle of an unmarked/unlined merge lane. I didn’t experience the jockeying that @oneguynick experienced…so no nausea here
.This thing is POWERFUL! I took some friends for a test drive yesterday and even I, as a former Model 3 owner, was BLOWN AWAY by the torque! It continues to pull hard well beyond posted speed limits (which, I, of course didn’t exceed
). Case I point: one of my favorite tricks in the Model 3 was to stomp on the “go” pedal at 40/45 mph and hear the gasps for air from my occupants. Never once did I hear tire squeal from it. The Lightning, on the other hand, spins the fronts when I attempt that. BE FOREWARNED—make sure to keep both hands on the wheel; the torque steer threw me for a loop when I was one-handing it. I predict lots of crashes if people aren’t mindful of the power this thing has. Oh, and this was all in “Normal” mode, too In preparation for the rides yesterday, I took it to a touchfree car wash to clean off some of the bugs and mess from our first trip over the weekend. The “mega power frunk” stayed nice and dry inside, but the interior fenders were splashed/wet. I don’t think it’ll be a concern, but as a handyman, I intend to keep tools up there on the daily. (See pics)
Finally, it’s going to take some getting used to if you’re coming from Tesla. (We traded our Model 3 in and are no longer Tesla owners). And this is just one use case *with a brand new truck*. I accept my husband and I are early adopters and trust this will get better with time.
We left our cottage in SW MI with enough projected range to get to a DC Fast charger along our route (roughly 50% battery or 139 miles of projected range). When entering I-94, the navigation had us stopping at an EA Charger in Evergreen Park IL with a delta of 20 or so miles. Sunday was a very windy day and we were driving SW into SW winds—massive headwind. While we got 2.2 mi/kWh going up to the cottage on Saturday, our efficiency was shrinking to 1.6/1.8 during this leg of the journey. As we started driving home, the projected range and destination delta began shrinking significantly.
Here’s where I missed our Model 3. We’d normally top up at a supercharger before hitting the road (our cottage doesn’t even have grounded outlets so charging wasn’t happening there). The supercharger network made traveling so simple in a Tesla. We do lots of road-trips each year and have taken our Model 3 to all of them since purchasing in 2018.
As we were nearing the Indiana state line, the nav system began redirecting us 34 miles in another redirection to a DC Fast Charger along I-80 (we were traveling along I-94). We were basically in a DC Fast Charger dead zone. First, we hopped on PlugShare to see what nearby chargers existed. We found a Chargepoint charger at the next exit and headed that way. Upon arrival, we watched a Mach-E plug into the only CCS at that station. He planned on being there for 20 minutes. Impatience got the better of us so we decided to head to the next nearest “fast charger” which brought us to a travel stop on I-80 East (yes, opposite from our destination). After 38 minutes, we only mustered 62 miles and plugged in our route home, which still took us farther East to a DC Fast Charger in South Bend. They’re, we used 62 or 63 kWh of our 250 kWh balance from the Blue Oval network and did a plug and charge. Tty minutes later we added 142 miles which was plenty to get us home. What’s typically a 2.5 hour ride, turned into a 4.5+ hour trek home.
I admit I was frustrated. Was it the sunburn? Was I hangry? Did I contemplate pulling over and listing on carsandbids.com? Yes. It’s just the trade-off of being an early adopter in a vehicle that’s still getting used to us.
edit: updated tag for @oneguynick.
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