Electric F150 first look by Sandy Munro

[jharrell]

First good look at electric F150 Lightning by Sandy Munro used to work for automakers and now runs a company that consults on improving manufacturing processes for the automakers and has a popular Youtube channel tearing down EV's.

If your interested in how EV's are engineered I haven't found a much better source.

Will be interesting to see the towing range of the Lightning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D084ANhs2-k

[R.Wold]

Being a pick up it seems like an auxiliary fuel tank would be simple - I wouldn’t be surprised to see the aftermarket jump on that.

[radar]

Originally Posted by R.Wold

Being a pick up it seems like an auxiliary fuel tank would be simple - I wouldn’t be surprised to see the aftermarket jump on that.

Might be cool. Maybe add an extra 60 kWh pack or whatever.

[jharrell]

The extended range pack is close to 180kwh many are speculating 400+ miles of range unloaded even though the EPA estimates are at 300 miles with a 1000lbs payload I believe. Huge battery compared to any current EV.

Towing will greatly effect it though like all EV's, most guess are around 100 miles fully loaded to 10,000lbs towing.

Does have a sophisticated system for calculating range with a trailer where you enter dimensions and do a short "validation" drive to calibrate and its will try and give you and accurate range estimate with that trailer. Also has a system to measure tongue weight too.

Full independent suspension that by all accounts rides great, very low COG like most EV due to large portion of weight being battery mounted center and low.

Range extender battery in the bed would be interesting but anything significant will be heavy and expensive reduce payload and wallet even more so, would need to tap into high voltage system will protecting against un-balanced packs, usually means drain higher pack to same as lower pack then drawing from both which means high current controls probably contactors. Electric bicycles are doing this now with dual packs but much lower voltage and power with solid state controls, would be surprised if anything like that makes it to market soon.

[radar]

Yah. I think the software would be a headache too unless Ford was on-board with it.

Interesting info on the 180 KWh pack. Didn’t realize that. I like the truck although we have decided against getting an EV truck because of garage reasons. (We had a Cybertruck on order). We are going to tow a teardrop trailer with an EV SUV. We don’t travel very far in a day so should be fine for us. Still, I think I’ll be drooling when we see the first EV trucks out there .

I think fords biggest challenge is to step up the charge rate at fast chargers. From what I remember reading about it, it tops out at 150 KW. They need to be shooting for 350 kw in my opinion. Our Tesla does 250 kw max but it’s a much smaller battery of course. I don’t think we have ever spent more than 15 minutes at a Supercharger except if we were having a restaurant lunch. Ford needs to shoot for that kind of thing with their truck.

Hope it works well for them. Good looking truck.

[jharrell]

Originally Posted by radar

I think fords biggest challenge is to step up the charge rate at fast chargers. From what I remember reading about it, it tops out at 150 KW.

Yeah the problem is it looks like they are doing a 400v battery so will be limited by CCS to 150kw due to amperage, 350kw requires 800v. So your looking at more than on hour from 0 to 100.

Tesla is 400v but they have their proprietary connector and liquid cooled cables to be able to do the amperage for 250kw at 400v (625 amps). Not sure if CCS can be adapted to higher than 150kw I think the DC pins are too small even with liquid cooling.

A lot of people think they should have gone 800v since its probably the future but the motors on power controllers and auxiliary equipment are more mature at 400v and it more complicated to charge a 800v car from older 400v charger it needs a on board voltage booster, which in the case of the Taycan is limited to 50kw unless you pay more for a 150kw version. But my understanding is most Charge America stations are 800v capable at this point.

[radar]

Originally Posted by jharrell

Yeah the problem is it looks like they are doing a 400v battery so will be limited by CCS to 150kw due to amperage, 350kw requires 800v. So your looking at more than on hour from 0 to 100.

Tesla is 400v but they have their proprietary connector and liquid cooled cables to be able to do the amperage for 250kw at 400v (625 amps). Not sure if CCS can be adapted to higher than 150kw I think the DC pins are too small even with liquid cooling.

A lot of people think they should have gone 800v since its probably the future but the motors on power controllers and auxiliary equipment are more mature at 400v and it more complicated to charge a 800v car from older 400v charger it needs a on board voltage booster, which in the case of the Taycan is limited to 50kw unless you pay more for a 150kw version. But my understanding is most Charge America stations are 800v capable at this point.

I was wondering how Porsche did that. I have a rudimentary grasp of what has to happen to make the 800 volt systems work with 400 volt stations but I have to admit a lot of it escapes me.

Tesla just installed 4 Chademo/CCS stations (yah you read that right) and 12 V3 250 KW supercharger stalls two blocks from our house. The four Chademo/CCS stations will be operated by FLO and of course the V3’s by Tesla. But Tesla did the whole install. There are eight other new Supercharger locations in BC where this is happening right now, all with a ratio of 4 to 1 Tesla. But many of us here were stunned to see the FLO stations were only 100 kw units. It just doesn’t make sense. FLO knew they would literally be located next to Superchargers with 2.5 times the max charge rate. I think it would suck to be a leaf owner watch Tesla’s come and go every 15 or 20 minutes and be stuck there for 40 minutes in a leaf. And apparently all these new V3’s are capable of being upgraded to 300 KW according to the scuttle butt from Elon.

Anyway. I think the Ionic 5 (never seen one yet) is now the new fast charge King with their 800 volt architecture. This morning we were at an intersection and their were an older and newer ionic, two Tesla’s, a leaf and a bolt all staring at each other across the intersection. Kinda funny.

Cheers.