Tuning a Lightning

[P-38]

I could see detuning the pedal mapping as making it easier to drive softer so that would give the appearance of more efficiency but constant speed driving would have no gain.

Maybe a kit could be made to make the bottom of the truck smoother for better areo? Or an improved active shutter that can deal with a leaf or two.

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[Henry Ford]

Or an improved active shutter that can deal with a leaf or two.

They fixed the active shutter but it requires owners to not care about leaves. I don't care at all about leaves and have never had an issue with it.

 

[Mal106]

The efficiency loss due to hard acceleration, I suspect, is minimal. Electric motors gain efficiency as they generate a back EMF at higher RPMs. Hard acceleration gets the motor through the less efficient RPMs faster. Of course it also gets the truck into aerodynamic drag quicker as well. The compensating tradeoffs are obvious. The magnitude of those effects are above my pay grade.

 

[P-38]

They fixed the active shutter but it requires owners to not care about leaves. I don't care at all about leaves and have never had an issue with it.

Hmmm.... I've had several DTCs about it when I go looking (no trouble light) and always find leaves stuck in it. When I have zero codes there are zero leaves. I tend to look after I have a 1.7 on a highway trip instead of 2-2.1
I've looked after good trips and have no codes and no leaves

 

[GoodSam]

When I have zero codes there are zero leaves.

Have you considered adding a screen? 8"x20" if I remember correctly. Still could have tree leaves (Nissan Leafs?) stuck on that screen. Are you saying the leaves jam the shutter?

 

[WXman]

No trouble with leaves on my truck yet.....but the trees are starting to change colors now so it won't be long.

 

[P-38]

Yes the tree leaves jam the shutter.

 

[daczone]

It would be cool to add more power. In order to add efficiency Ford needs to do 2 things.

1. Make the truck more aerodynamic. Both the Rivian R1T and the GM EV trucks have significantly less drag.

2. Add a clutch disconnect to one of the axles. That way on the highway one of the motors can be completely shut off.

My Tesla allows me to slide a slider on the screen to go from AWD to RWD or FWD, It also has a Drift Mode. (Never even used it). Not asking Ford to do this same... but love the thinking outside the box.

If you have ever looked underneath the Lightning? It seems that someone could sell a cheap aero package.

Compare the Tesla:

To the Lightning:

Even the Rivan has Aero:

Even remember having one of those rollup snow sleds as a kid.

Made from pretty thick Polyproylene. If we could have this in Black and remove a few bottom bolts and create our own aero. It's flexible to it won't made noise yet would defend against rocks, mud and all those air catching places.

 

[daczone]

Found this... Tap Plastics 4x8 sheet $86

It's a rubber like product.

 

[Athrun88]

I would pay for an underbody aero cover.. anyone have the time/patience to create a template?

 

[RLXXI]

Speaking of leaves and the active shutter, fixed that issue with this.

https://ebay.us/m/O4tdMZ

 

[Firn]

I have looked at the underbody sheeting and spent some time on ecomodder seeing what the hypermiler guys are doing.

In the end there are two schools of thought. Make the bottom good a d smooth, or keep the air from going under there in the first place.

The downside to smoothing the underside is it can have undesired effects. A flat bottom can actually make a bit of suction if not done right. Flip that around and load the back, giving a noze up attitude and now it can reduce pressure on the rear tires.

Thats why most OEMs go simply with keeping air from going under there in the first place. The just results in an area of stagnat air that you just drag around with you.

From what I have seen blocking air from going under is as effective and essier.

 

[Maxx]

The efficiency loss due to hard acceleration, I suspect, is minimal. Electric motors gain efficiency as they generate a back EMF at higher RPMs. Hard acceleration gets the motor through the less efficient RPMs faster. Of course it also gets the truck into aerodynamic drag quicker as well. The compensating tradeoffs are obvious. The magnitude of those effects are above my pay grade.

This guy's pay grade allows him to draw it (Red Circles). Dude knows his stuff when it comes to efficiency.

Comes from this older video reposted:

 

[Firn]

This guy's pay grade allows him to draw it (Red Circles). Dude knows his stuff when it comes to efficiency.

Comes from this older video reposted:

Cool video, thanks!

So, the "efficiency" lines he draws corelate roughly to a Brake Specific Fuel Consumption graph for regular fuel engines.

An example is here

Compared to a power efficiency map for a brushless motor.

Now not a perfect example since we don't know what engines/motors these are from, but we can see in the Brushless motor example the efficiency is between the mid-80s and mid-90s. Aka, more torque requested, more loss, having maybe 10-12% more loss at high demand.

On a fuel motor we can see the same thing. In this example we see that fuel usage per power output (possible grams of fuel per kw delivered) changes pretty drastically. comparativly if where the electric motor may have lost 12% in efficiency, if that gas motor ends up in the 350 region it has ~25% loss in efficiency.

Its not so much that electric motors don't have "any" loss, its that they don't have a high loss and that loss is much less than in a gas motor.

If I can trust ChatGPT with some of this it would indicate that in a typical brushless motor the loss from high output is <10% (% loss, not change in absolute efficiency). In the plot above the total change was 41% (41% decrease in efficiency). Absolute efficiency is in the 30% range so using absolute there isn't the same.

 

[Maxx]

Cool video, thanks!

So, the "efficiency" lines he draws corelate roughly to a Brake Specific Fuel Consumption graph for regular fuel engines.

An example is here

Compared to a power efficiency map for a brushless motor.

Now not a perfect example since we don't know what engines/motors these are from, but we can see in the Brushless motor example the efficiency is between the mid-80s and mid-90s. Aka, more torque requested, more loss, having maybe 10-12% more loss at high demand.

On a fuel motor we can see the same thing. In this example we see that fuel usage per power output (possible grams of fuel per kw delivered) changes pretty drastically. comparativly if where the electric motor may have lost 12% in efficiency, if that gas motor ends up in the 350 region it has ~25% loss in efficiency.

Its not so much that electric motors don't have "any" loss, its that they don't have a high loss and that loss is much less than in a gas motor.

If I can trust ChatGPT with some of this it would indicate that in a typical brushless motor the loss from high output is <10% (% loss, not change in absolute efficiency). In the plot above the total change was 41% (41% decrease in efficiency). Absolute efficiency is in the 30% range so using absolute there isn't the same.

What you are saying makes perfect sense but neither me nore the Lucid guy were thinking about ICE. If You think of his circles as 95% and 97% and his curve as 60 KW, his graph of electric motor looks exactly like yours. I think he was just trying to convey some general concepts to electrically challenged folks like me. But I do get your point.

Even if electric efficiency improvement is not significant, it adds up. When I keep my power band in control (under 50 KW) that motor efficiency adds to the power I am not loosing fighting air molecules at higher speed or on tire friction flooring it. So my total real life saving operating that motor in that range is much larger than 10%. I get 3.6 Kwh in my city drives vs 1.8 Kwh flooring it on the highway. 100% improvement is not too shabby. So as others have suggested, instead of worrying about mods, I just chill and enjoy the scenery.

All that said, it is fun to see how much others can eek out of the system.

Thanks for sharing. Seeing the numbers next to the lines helps clear things up a bit. Now I am thinking I should dig out the RPM numbers out of my car scanner. I always wondered what would be the appropriate speed going up a hill near my house. With your graph, even if the graph is not for Lightning Motor, having two of the variables, I should be able to make an educated guess.

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