Just took a 450 intersate road trip in a standard range lightning. Never again

[biers]

I just finished my SIXTH 1500+ mile trip of the year in my 2023 Pro SR. Almost all of those miles were on interstate highways. Except for my interactions with Electrify America charging stations - which are next to worthless and are becoming rip-offs - I’ve loved every quiet, smooth and sure-footed mile.

Let me apologize in advance if this comment is snide and dismissive, but I really don’t understand the mindset and driving method of the OP. The way he approaches long trips deliberately sets up the Lightning SR for failure (or at least disappointment).

I usually drive 130 to 165 mile legs on long trips because I don’t want to sit for more than 2 or 2.5 hours without a break. I find that range is EASILY achievable by assuming a usable SOC of 10% to 85%. I keep my speed between 67 and 72 mph unless there are favorable factors such as a downhill, tailwind or high altitude (6500+ feet). When I make a stop, I immediately put the truck on the charger, then use the restroom, get coffee or other drink, and sometimes a bite to eat. Add in the inevitable conversation with either another EV owner or a curious ICE driver, and it is time to unplug and get back on the road.

Since my trips are not short 400 or 500 mile hops, I also take advantage of hotels that offer overnight and often free L2 charging. I’ll usually let the Lightning go to 100% so I have some extra range to start the day. Pro Tip: get yourself an 80 amp Tesla to J1772 adapter; it will significantly increase the number of properties where you can charge (and Tesla destination chargers are often faster than the usual 6.6 kW L2s).

Look, if you’re going to treat every highway trip as a Cannonball Run, you’re just setting yourself and the truck up for failure. Traveling long distances in an EV today becomes a vastly more pleasant experience if you adapt your driving style to the realities of both the vehicle and the charging landscape.

I’m with you. SR Pro is great for road trips. Perfect cadence of 2 hours driving 30 min charging (assuming available full speed working charger). Just did 400 miles Portland to Shasta. First stretch was 198 miles, second 150 up to 3,000 feet then the last stretch of 50 to 4k feet. Truck did awesome.

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[roddiaz1]

I can get ~2.2 miles kwh at 75mph freeway. 60s-70s Fahrenheit. If I try 85-90mph, I dip down to 1.7miles kwh.

Wow! I can only achieve those levels when I'm going down hill.

 

[ackatack]

This truck should come with a disclaimer
*not meant for interstate use.

Driving at normal interstate speeds, going from 80% SOC to 20 % SOC took all of ~115 miles.
Stated average of 1.7 kWh, pencil came to about 1.55

Love it around town, average between 2.7 and 2.9. but this interstate travel is bananas. Contemplated driving 65 but would have still had to make 3 stops to charge, so went around 75mph.
Stopping every 2 hours for another 30-40 minutes is a big ask, added about 50% more time to the trip 6 hours vs 9 hours. Had to charge to 90% on the final charge- didn’t want to arrive dead.

Anyway, I suspected it would be a challenge, but didn’t expect it to be like this.

I may have opted for the extended range had Intaken a trip before purchase.
Again, love the truck and it fits my needs, was just a bit shocked how 240 mile range is actually about 115 miles when keeping it between 80% and 20% interstate driving.

On the plus side, had great luck with Electrify America charging stations.

What are “normal interstate speeds?” I drive 72MPH on the highway and get between 1.8-2.2M/kWH.

 

[Lightning Rod]

When I went to order my Lightning in November 2022, I looked at both SR and ER options. I pretty much immediately decided that SR was out of the question. The last thing I wanted to do was buy an SR and regretting it. I thought about how the prices were insanely more for the ER but I figured it would still be better to pay the extra.

I remember back in the 80s, We all rode motorcycles and we rode 750 and 1000 cc bikes. I warned several people that were considering getting 350 cc, to go ahead and get the bigger bike because they would regret it in the long run. Some went and bought the smaller bike, only to sell it a short time later and buy the bigger bike like we all recommended in the first place. I am nowhere near rich, but a lot of the time, I will spend more for something because sometimes, it's worth paying more for some things.

I've always believed that, in a lot of cases... "You get what you pay for."

 

[Bigisland Guy]

I knew the restraints of SR when ordering so I have to drive like a 16 wheeler on the interstates, it resulted in better then the 230 range on my SR Lariot. Its possible under the right conditions.

 

[atguru]

This truck should come with a disclaimer
*not meant for interstate use.

Driving at normal interstate speeds, going from 80% SOC to 20 % SOC took all of ~115 miles.
Stated average of 1.7 kWh, pencil came to about 1.55

Love it around town, average between 2.7 and 2.9. but this interstate travel is bananas. Contemplated driving 65 but would have still had to make 3 stops to charge, so went around 75mph.
Stopping every 2 hours for another 30-40 minutes is a big ask, added about 50% more time to the trip 6 hours vs 9 hours. Had to charge to 90% on the final charge- didn’t want to arrive dead.

Anyway, I suspected it would be a challenge, but didn’t expect it to be like this.

I may have opted for the extended range had Intaken a trip before purchase.
Again, love the truck and it fits my needs, was just a bit shocked how 240 mile range is actually about 115 miles when keeping it between 80% and 20% interstate driving.

On the plus side, had great luck with Electrify America charging stations.

I took delivery of my 2023 lightning pro SR in January 2023. I picked it up from the dealer which was over 1700 miles from my home. I drove the vehicle back home accompanied by my son ( who didn’t do any driving, just slept )

I never owned a full-size truck before, and I never owned an EV before, but I was able to navigate across 4 states just fine and had no issues.

The biggest challenges was the lack of reliability of the EA infrastructure. Otherwise it was a smooth trip.

just in the past week, the vehicle just had its 30,000 mile service. I’ve been very pleased with its performance, drivability, and the wide range of functionality.

What I’ve learned is this vehicle requires some planning and discipline, if you intend to drive long distances. I am certainly looking forward to access to the Tesla supercharger environment, which will make the planning much easier

 

[Tony Burgh]

Wow! I can only achieve those levels when I'm going down hill.

But your down hill is only 1/4 mile then it’s back up hill.
Being in your neighborhood you might understand my 5 mile trip to one of my favorite breweries is downhill and I arrive to my first IPA with greater SOC than I left home with. On the trip home I concentrate (intensely) on driving and never look at the guess ommeter.

 

[chl]

We have put 26000 miles on our Extended Range Lariat with a camper on the back. We are averaging 2.0 miles per kWH lifetime with many long trips. Spped makes a big difference as does a headwind and we have seen as low as 1.5 miles per kWH with below freezing, a 30 mph headwind and interstate travel. You have to be willing to slow things down at times as well as run with just the heated seats and steering wheel in a very rural area of the west with very scattered charging opportunities but we like ot more than our previous F150 PowerBoost Hybrid for many reasons. We’ve driven to Southern Itah from the Olympic Peninsula and back, to San Diego and back and down to the Oregon Coast and mountains and back. You have to adapt to the strengths and weaknesses of an EV but we would never go back to ICE.

Driving style (speed, acceleration, braking) can make a lot of difference in range as I found out with my 2012 Nissan Leaf. I was averaging around 4.8 miles/kWh once I started driving less aggressively - before that 4.0 miles/kWh.

I never attempted a long distance trip, stuck to local driving, with some interstate hwy, but mostly 45 mph and below trips. We used my wife's Prius for long trips averaging 50 mpg or better almost all hwy driving at 70 mph and up. Use my 2001 Ranger 4.0L for truck-type stuff, towing boat, hauling wood, furniture, etc.

I just put down a deposit on a 2023 Lightning Pro SR with $4,000 in options (Tow tech pkg, ProPower on-board 9.6kW, Max Trailer Tow pkg, on-board scale/smart hitch and mobile power) for $48k bottom line including tax, etc., and after the up-front $7500 credit to purchase Jan 2, 2024 - I was going to wait for the 2024's but prices on the 23's were dropping so fast, I couldn't resist. I would have preferred the LFP tech batteries but Ford is not saying when that will happen, and cut back on battery expenditures, so it could be a long ways off.

Also I was reading that Ford was cutting back on Lightning production for 2024, so FOMO took hold. Hoping I have a good one with few issues, fewer than some of the unlucky posters who bought troubles.

I have been waiting a long time for an EV pickup, since Musk announced the Cybertruck - I am number 118k in line or so, and I registered the day after the announcement.

I had a Lightning reservation which I cancelled when I got the message to order, due to the 40% price jump. I also had a reservation for the Chevy Silverado EV, which actually sounded like a better truck than the Lightning when announced, but GM has pushed back the date it will be available so many times now, I got fed up with it and cancelled the reservation. Right after doing that, the same day, a salesman called and asked me why I did it. I said I got tired of waiting and bought a Lightning. He said he was waiting to buy a Silverado EV too, and was also disappointed it was taking so long.

After my 12 years of experience with the Leaf, I expect I will be happy with the Lightning. My local trip radius is going to pretty much triple with the Lightning.

The boxy shape and resulting drag will reduce the miles per kWh compared to the Leaf, esp. on the hwy. But around here, most of my hwy driving is limited to 55 mph so I am curious to see how that comes out in m/kWh.

As the Lightning becomes more established, I imagine there will be companies offing range upgrades by adding batteries, that happened with the Leaf in the early years. There is a lot more room in the Lightning for more batteries than in the Leaf hatch-back area.

Maybe battery swapping out/in will become more widespread which would eliminate some of the range/time to charge issues, since a modular battery with 100% SOC can be swapped in, in a mater of a few minutes vs the 20+ minutes to reach 80% with DC charging. DC charging over time decreases battery health. Maybe the swap batteries will have more capacity than the SR Lightning batteries?

Time will tell.

 

[COrocket]

Before I bought my truck I did some ABRP simulations for a 2000 mile road trip I was anticipating doing in the near future, and I plugged in both the SR truck and the ER truck into the planner. For the 2000 trip in an ER truck I was going to need to do around 8 hours of charging, but an SR truck was going to need around 16 hours of charging. This sealed the deal for me justifying the increased cost of the ER battery. ABRP ended up being spot on for the charging time when I actually did it in the ER truck.

It’s not intuitive that bumping the range 25% from 240 to 320 miles can half the time spent charging, but the ER battery broadens the number of possible solutions to optimize the gaps in the charging stops. The other factor is the ER battery being able to absorb a higher rate of charge and increase the amount of total energy delivered for a specific amount of time.

This is why the idea of a 500 mile Cybertruck (and hopefully future Lightning) is so intriguing and why I think a lot of current EV owners looking to upgrade to the Cybertruck are disappointed with the specs so far. A 500 mile rated EV would realistically do around 250-300 miles with a 80-10% charge cycle at interstate speeds and possibly not ideal temperatures, so I think this type of range would finally break the stigma of EVs being handicapped road trip vehicles.

 

[biers]

Before I bought my truck I did some ABRP simulations for a 2000 mile road trip I was anticipating doing in the near future, and I plugged in both the SR truck and the ER truck into the planner. For the 2000 trip in an ER truck I was going to need to do around 8 hours of charging, but an SR truck was going to need around 16 hours of charging. This sealed the deal for me justifying the increased cost of the ER battery. ABRP ended up being spot on for the charging time when I actually did it in the ER truck.

It’s not intuitive that bumping the range 25% from 240 to 320 miles can half the time spent charging, but the ER battery broadens the number of possible solutions to optimize the gaps in the charging stops. The other factor is the ER battery being able to absorb a higher rate of charge and increase the amount of total energy delivered for a specific amount of time.

This is why the idea of a 500 mile Cybertruck (and hopefully future Lightning) is so intriguing and why I think a lot of current EV owners looking to upgrade to the Cybertruck are disappointed with the specs so far. A 500 mile rated EV would realistically do around 250-300 miles with a 80-10% charge cycle at interstate speeds and possibly not ideal temperatures, so I think this type of range would finally break the stigma of EVs being handicapped road trip vehicles.

I did the same thing and it proved to me the SR was the right choice. Did nearly 700 miles in one day in my pro earlier this year. Took 13 hours. If I had an ER I would have been 11.5-12 hours. I’ll gladly spend an extra hour or so of time charging once a year to keep the extra $$$.
Biggest thing is that it’s nice to have the option as there is a customer for both.

 

[3rdgenfan]

Driven to central Maine and back (~2k miles factoring in some day trips we made while up there) on my SR XLT, as well as a ~900mi trip to and from central Ohio. Does the trip wonderfully. I've never seen 1.5-1.6 show up on my cluster unless i am driving through my neighborhood on a cold morning.

Sure, the ER would be great to have but the SR does just fine.

 

[lightspeed]

This truck should come with a disclaimer
*not meant for interstate use.

Driving at normal interstate speeds, going from 80% SOC to 20 % SOC took all of ~115 miles.
Stated average of 1.7 kWh, pencil came to about 1.55

Love it around town, average between 2.7 and 2.9. but this interstate travel is bananas. Contemplated driving 65 but would have still had to make 3 stops to charge, so went around 75mph.
Stopping every 2 hours for another 30-40 minutes is a big ask, added about 50% more time to the trip 6 hours vs 9 hours. Had to charge to 90% on the final charge- didn’t want to arrive dead.

Anyway, I suspected it would be a challenge, but didn’t expect it to be like this.

I may have opted for the extended range had Intaken a trip before purchase.
Again, love the truck and it fits my needs, was just a bit shocked how 240 mile range is actually about 115 miles when keeping it between 80% and 20% interstate driving.

On the plus side, had great luck with Electrify America charging stations.

Honestly the ER battery (131kWh) should be the base battery and a 180+kwH battery the ER battery. It will happen over time. GM has the 200kWh+ battery and RAM says they will too.

 

[JRT]

31k miles with my 1st EV, SR Mach-e, taught me I need the ER. Even so, our holiday trip of 600+ miles was a challenge and easily added 2 hrs going down and 1 hour coming back cs my old ICE truck. I did use all my EA credits, so my out of pocket was just under $40 in charging fees. I learned 2 things, Chevy Bolts in Atlanta area are the cancer of EV chargers, and I can't wait for Tesla access next year.

Understanding the driver use case is critical at this point in EV adoption more then anything.

 

[Effonefiddy Lightning]

This truck should come with a disclaimer
*not meant for interstate use.

Driving at normal interstate speeds, going from 80% SOC to 20 % SOC took all of ~115 miles.
Stated average of 1.7 kWh, pencil came to about 1.55

Love it around town, average between 2.7 and 2.9. but this interstate travel is bananas. Contemplated driving 65 but would have still had to make 3 stops to charge, so went around 75mph.
Stopping every 2 hours for another 30-40 minutes is a big ask, added about 50% more time to the trip 6 hours vs 9 hours. Had to charge to 90% on the final charge- didn’t want to arrive dead.

Anyway, I suspected it would be a challenge, but didn’t expect it to be like this.

I may have opted for the extended range had Intaken a trip before purchase.
Again, love the truck and it fits my needs, was just a bit shocked how 240 mile range is actually about 115 miles when keeping it between 80% and 20% interstate driving.

On the plus side, had great luck with Electrify America charging stations.

You cant you expect 240mi. from 80% to 20%. Nobody ever said it can do that. Your expectations were set way to high.

 

[MM in SouthTX]

Just a suggestion:

I know people who are number crunchers who rent cars for long trips. They say that the economics work in their favor. Add those miles to a rental car, not yours, and you will come out ahead on resale.

Not sure it's true, but if you need to go somewhere in a SR Lightning, you could use that justification to rent a car or truck.

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