Driving an EV pickup

[sly_karma]

Public chargers. We gotta use 'em sooner or later. I thought I'd try using one, close to home while I had no time or range pressure on me. 25 or so Chevron stations across Southern BC have fast chargers, and they're free - for now.





DC fast chargers, often referred to as DCFC, or Level 3 charging, is what you use when you're on a road trip and want to add some range quickly. Instead of the 7-8 kW my home AC charger delivers, DCFC offers charge speeds of 150 kW and higher - 20 times faster than what flows through my home charging. Today I bumped the battery from 50% to 80% in 15 minutes.

The vehicle has an additional pair of sockets to accept the bulkier DCFC connector. Cable is thicker and shorter, possibly even liquid cooled due to ultra fast energy transfer.





Initiating the charge and payment (if any) are accomplished via an app, of which I'll no doubt acquire many. This one connected fine, but I'll keep trying the various networks in my area to verify that they handshake correctly and recognize my payment details. Don't want to be dealing with that when I'm out on the big trip to the coast with boat in tow.


Note at the very top the two estimated completion times for charging to 80% and 100%. 11 minutes to go from 59% to 80%, but a further 1hr22 to go from 80 to 100. Charge speeds drop way off above 80% so most drivers end the session there and get back on the road. The fastest charging zone is between 20 and 80%.

 

[sly_karma]

Time for the topic everyone on here wants to know about: towing. Caveat: this is a half ton truck. Its tow and bed capacities are much the same as any current model half ton. As always, bigger boats and trailers need a 3/4 or 1 ton. Tow capacity for Lightning Standard Range is 7700 lb, with the Extended Range battery and Max Tow pack you can increase that to 10,000 lb. Bed payload is the opposite situation: SR 1,852 lb, ER 1,500 lb (due to greater weight of battery). My boat is a 19 ft fibreglass runabout outboard on a single axle trailer; combined weight with fuel, oil, kicker, 2 batteries and fishing gear is 1300 kg/2850 lb, below the limit required for trailer brakes.

Lots has been written already about towing with a Lightning, a lot of different opinions. My experience so far is there's two parts to look at: actual towing, and towing range.

I've had the boat behind it on 3 occasions now, and it has towed exceptionally well. Electric motors develop full torque right from zero speed, which obviously is excellent for towing. Pulling out from a stop onto faster roads or merging onto freeways is quicker and smoother than any tow vehicle you've ever driven. No lag for downshift/s or turbo to spool up, no extra vibration or engine noise, it just goes. You won't be the slow guy up hills if you don't want to be. Regenerative braking makes descending easy, too. Control speed by feathering the accelerator, lifting off completely if need be. I found this very effective even on the long steep sections of the road from our local ski hill - no more downshifting, jake brake or overheated brake pads. I'm still getting used to one-pedal driving, so that and the added load of the trailer meant I didn't always gauge it right and had to use the actual brake pedal a couple of times going into switchback corners. No big deal, the Ford had plenty of braking power available for the job.

The road from Penticton to Apex gains 1400 m/4600 ft in just 30 km. This is about the same elevation gain over distance figures as the climb out of Peachland on the Okanagan Connector (hwy 97C), so I thought it'd be a good towing test as it's close to home and super steep in the last 10 km (800 m elevation gain). In terms of pure climbing and descending, this is one of the toughest paved roads in Canada. The Lightning pulled my medium-weight rig up and down the Apex road with ease. Speed control was mostly done to limit the effect of uneven pavement. All the pulling power I could ever want, and ultra smooth and quiet.

Despite a slightly shorter wheelbase than the Silverado I've been using to pull this boat until now, I didn't notice any quirks in trailer handling and tracking. If you were going on a trip with the box loaded up as well as a boat behind, you have the option of putting up to 400 lb of cargo in the frunk, which would surely improve the truck's fore-aft balance under load.

Ford makes it easy for towing rig operators, with a variety of tools also available on newer model gas and diesel trucks. The camera in the tailgate that looks directly downward on the hitch makes hooking up super easy. Trailer light test mode so you can check all of them without needing an assistant to pump brakes, operate blinkers etc. The camera at the rear of the cab can be turned on and viewed while driving if you want to monitor what's going on with the boat or the bed cargo. There's an input and screen menu item available to accept an accessory trailer-mounted camera. Cross-traffic alert is automatically disabled when a trailer is detected. The max tow package adds more items like extended mirrors, beefed up battery cooling system, built-in load scales, etc, but it was only available with the extended range battery and I didn't see value for my use case in the extra $16,000.

 

[N2013]

Time for the topic everyone on here wants to know about: towing. Caveat: this is a half ton truck. Its tow and bed capacities are much the same as any current model half ton. As always, bigger boats and trailers need a 3/4 or 1 ton. Tow capacity for Lightning Standard Range is 7700 lb, with the Extended Range battery and Max Tow pack you can increase that to 10,000 lb. Bed payload is the opposite situation: SR 1,852 lb, ER 1,500 lb (due to greater weight of battery). My boat is a 19 ft fibreglass runabout outboard on a single axle trailer; combined weight with fuel, oil, kicker, 2 batteries and fishing gear is 1300 kg/2850 lb, below the limit required for trailer brakes.

Lots has been written already about towing with a Lightning, a lot of different opinions. My experience so far is there's two parts to look at: actual towing, and towing range.

I've had the boat behind it on 3 occasions now, and it has towed exceptionally well. Electric motors develop full torque right from zero speed, which obviously is excellent for towing. Pulling out from a stop onto faster roads or merging onto freeways is quicker and smoother than any tow vehicle you've ever driven. No lag for downshift/s or turbo to spool up, no extra vibration or engine noise, it just goes. You won't be the slow guy up hills if you don't want to be. Regenerative braking makes descending easy, too. Control speed by feathering the accelerator, lifting off completely if need be. I found this very effective even on the long steep sections of the road from our local ski hill - no more downshifting, jake brake or overheated brake pads. I'm still getting used to one-pedal driving, so that and the added load of the trailer meant I didn't always gauge it right and had to use the actual brake pedal a couple of times going into switchback corners. No big deal, the Ford had plenty of braking power available for the job.

The road from Penticton to Apex gains 1400 m/4600 ft in just 30 km. This is about the same elevation gain over distance figures as the climb out of Peachland on the Okanagan Connector (hwy 97C), so I thought it'd be a good towing test as it's close to home and super steep in the last 10 km (800 m elevation gain). In terms of pure climbing and descending, this is one of the toughest paved roads in Canada. The Lightning pulled my medium-weight rig up and down the Apex road with ease. Speed control was mostly done to limit the effect of uneven pavement. All the pulling power I could ever want, and ultra smooth and quiet.

Despite a slightly shorter wheelbase than the Silverado I've been using to pull this boat until now, I didn't notice any quirks in trailer handling and tracking. If you were going on a trip with the box loaded up as well as a boat behind, you have the option of putting up to 400 lb of cargo in the frunk, which would surely improve the truck's fore-aft balance under load.

Ford makes it easy for towing rig operators, with a variety of tools also available on newer model gas and diesel trucks. The camera in the tailgate that looks directly downward on the hitch makes hooking up super easy. Trailer light test mode so you can check all of them without needing an assistant to pump brakes, operate blinkers etc. The camera at the rear of the cab can be turned on and viewed while driving if you want to monitor what's going on with the boat or the bed cargo. There's an input and screen menu item available to accept an accessory trailer-mounted camera. Cross-traffic alert is automatically disabled when a trailer is detected. The max tow package adds more items like extended mirrors, beefed up battery cooling system, built-in load scales, etc, but it was only available with the extended range battery and I didn't see value for my use case in the extra $16,000.

What sort of range decrease did you see ?

 

[wildmanyeah]

What sort of range decrease did you see ?

i really interested as well, read from 30% to 70% so would like to hear real world experiences

 

[sly_karma]

Part 2: towing range.

No getting around it, EVs suffer a loss of range when they're loaded up or towing. Gas and diesel vehicles have this issue as well, but it's not as severe. If you have a rig that's up toward the high end of Lightning's tow capacity, or do a lot of long trips, you may want to hold on to an ICE truck for that work, until engineering advances bring things into range.

On my worst-case Apex road assignment, the energy consumption was savage. Average energy use so far in the 1200 km I've had the truck is 24 kWh/100 km. Climbing to Apex village used 75 kWh/100 km - triple the energy! Time for the drive is a bit off as I saw a buddy out for a walk halfway up and stopped to chat, lol. For the most part I was driving fast and reveling in what seemed like unlimited torque. I like that the battery and motor temps (horizontal bar displays at top of screen) are firmly in the middle despite this being just seconds after a big climb.



On the way down, though, much of the energy used to elevate an 8000 truck/trailer rig 4600 ft is recovered. Back at my place, a very low 7 kWh/100 km. Note that, despite traveling almost 36 km, the truck actually gained back some 7 km of range!



Now, average the two consumption values: 41 kwh/100 km. That is a sobering increase of 65% over the truck's average consumption so far. If I was heading out of town towing the boat on a route of similar intensity, my theoretical range would drop from 385 km to 239 km.

I did a more moderate run the following day, 20 minutes each way and far less elevation gain/loss, average was 31 kWh/100 km. That would reduce max range from 385 km to 316 km.

This is early in the learning process for me and the truck. A couple of times during the towing runs, a screen message popped up to say towing range had been adjusted. As time goes on, the truck will develop a more accurate range estimate based on my use and my trailer.

For me in Penticton, and towing to the coast once or twice a year, with what I see so far, getting to Hope on a single charge might be doable, but too too close for comfort. The Hope-Princeton highway is less energy intensive than the Coq/Connector, and less electrons burnt than the steep Apex road. The FordPass trip planner comes up with a 12 minute charging stop in Princeton then 24 minutes in Chilliwack. That's about 15-20 minutes more than I'd normally be stopped on that drive, but hardly a deal breaker.

So, towing is excellent. Towing range... less so, but workable for me. Your mileage may vary (literally). Every trailer will affect range differently, depending on weight and frontal area.

The app is tied into the truck navigation system and other users report that it will update range and charging stops in real time if conditions change; eg, a strong headwind or heavy rain/snow occurs.

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[sly_karma]

Here's a thread from the Lightning Owners forum. One of the mods hauled a 24.5' travel trailer from Maryland to Oregon and back, via Texas and California. Lengthy, but lots of pics and vids of charging stations, with a focus on their trailer friendliness (or lack thereof). Well out toward the edge of what is possible, the guy is an enthusiast.

He posts several spreadsheet shots detailing the effect of highway speed on towing range. With that big square front area, you just know every 10 km/h speed increase is gonna cost you lots more electrons.

I guess a hundred years ago, car enthusiasts were making similarly 'out there' trips in their Model Ts and writing stories for the local paper detailing their amazing journeys for the interested but less adventurous readers.

 

[sly_karma]

First out of town trip for the Lightning, to Sun Peaks for a bike race. Outward trip was fine other than strong headwinds that took a toll on energy consumption. Stopped in Kamloops to charge, had lunch, dealt with some email. Log says 53% charge added in 28 minutes. This was at a Chevron with the free DCFCs.

Arrived at SP with 49% charge. The hotel said I could plug into any available 120V outlet in the parkade. First one I could access didn't work, no lights on mobile charger. Tested the outlet: no power. In fact, none of the 4 outlets I found had power present. My guess is they're all on a single circuit and the breaker trips every time more than one EV tries to charge.

There is a pair of free public AC chargers at the skating rink but were in use every time I checked. Locals saving on their hydro bill? Not a big deal, I'll hit the Chevron again in Kamloops.

The chargers Chevron are using have a battery storage system so they deliver high speeds without a massive grid connection; the battery recovers between charges at a lower speed. This is a less expensive way to get into the charging game and drive business to their convenience store and Triple Os franchise. But if use is heavy, there's not enough power available and the charger slows way down, pretty much to AC speeds. This happened to me, found I'd only added 20% in 25 minutes. Tried their other charger, same thing. Slowed to a trickle after a couple of minutes. I decided to head over to Merritt and fill up there.

Eff me, same thing! By this time I'm watching the app carefully and see it slow down. Unplugged and headed down the street to Petro Canada, where their charger quickly but expensively booted me up to 70%, plenty for the run back to Penticton. At four times the price I pay at home...

Moral of the story appears to be, free stuff comes with a catch. There is no external way of telling if the Chevron charger will go into conservation mode while you're there. Worth a try? I guess. They've worked fine for me a couple of times, and they give you a free coffee too! But after a long and dusty weekend I wasn't thrilled about an hour of faffing about.

The truck is a pleasure to drive on the highway, though. Effortless power on the long climbs, and the complete lack of vibration and background noise means you're not as fatigued when your arrive home. And a 600 km road trip cost $10. I'll get better at the charging thing as I learn the ropes.

 

[Rain City]

Drove my buddy's new Ford yesterday. Just, wow. I want one.

 

[sly_karma]

Drove my buddy's new Ford yesterday. Just, wow. I want one.

Once you drive one...

And by today's crazy standards, $69K (XLT trim, standard range battery) is pretty cheap. You'll pay more than that for any gasser with leather seats. (Although they do come complete with weekly trips to the gas station...)

 

[Rain City]

Once you drive one...

And by today's crazy standards, $69K (XLT trim, standard range battery) is pretty cheap. You'll pay more than that for any gasser with leather seats. (Although they do come complete with weekly trips to the gas station...)

Plus all the bells and whistles included with the power frunk lid and tailgate. Pretty slick.

 

[sly_karma]

The XLT has a lot of equipment standard: heated power front seats and steering wheel, tow package, adaptive cruise and lane keeping, power tailgate with step system, box lighting and tie downs, under seat storage, rear seat AC/heat, running boards with puddle lights. I've never liked leather seats or sunroofs, so I didn't even think about Lariat or Platinum trims. I did pay up front for sprayed in bed liner, was surprised to find the Ford dealership had the best pricing.

Even way back at ordering time I was disappointed about the only box option being the shorty 5.5 ft. Since it's a work truck, I would rather have had a smaller back seat and a foot longer box. But I've realized the frunk does help a lot. Stuff like compressors, hoses, cords, tool boxes, etc just goes up front now, leaving the box free for lumber, scaffold etc.

I installed a headache rack, so longer lumber goes up there, but I'm not so sure now about the trifold tonneau cover I have waiting to go. It will take space I might need more with the shorter box. I'll see, still getting used to the new box and rack geometry. My little work fleet has trucks with 6'8 and 8' boxes, so there's other options anyway.

 

[Rain City]

The XLT has a lot of equipment standard: heated power front seats and steering wheel, tow package, power tailgate with step system, box lighting and tie downs, under seat storage, rear seat AC/heat, running boards with puddle lights. I've never liked leather seats or sunroofs, so I didn't even think about Lariat or Platinum trims. I did pay up front for sprayed in bed liner, was surprised to find the Ford dealership had the best pricing.

Even way back at ordering time I was disappointed about the only box option being the shorty 5.5 ft. Since it's a work truck, I would rather have had a smaller back seat and a foot longer box. But I've realized the frunk does help a lot. Stuff like compressors, hoses, cords, tool boxes, etc just goes up front now, leaving the box free for lumber, scaffold etc.

I installed a headache rack, so longer lumber goes up there, but I'm not so sure now about the trifold tonneau cover I have waiting to go. It will take space I might need more with the shorter box. I'll see, still getting used to the new box and rack geometry. My little work fleet has trucks with 6'8 and 8' boxes, so there's other options anyway.

On my old F350 I had one of the metal electric retractable tonneau covers with a fob to open and close it. I liked how rigid and secure it was. I actually had those hidden tie downs in the rails as well so I just used that to stack lumber and materials on. Allowed me to keep tools and beer cans in the bed.

 

[sly_karma]

Yes that was a good solution before, but now there's the frunk. Better weatherproofing and security. The zombies have no idea there's anything under the hood other than a V8.

 

[onefish]

And a 600 km road trip cost $10. I'll get better at the charging thing as I learn the ropes.

That is a lot of gas money saved in a year of driving.

 

[sly_karma]

At home, charging from 20-100% costs $8. Out in public charger world, it varies a lot. Some are free. Some are nominal rate like $2/hour. Fast Chargers are per minute, Rate depends on charging speed, but somewhere in the area of 27 to 50 cents per minute.

The cost of EV use is going to vary according to how much you drive, of course, but the more you charge at home, the cheaper it will be. And if you have solar panels and the EV can charge during the day: free.

 

[sly_karma]

Rack installed. The DeeZee rack I have on the Silverado got a lot of use in the past 8 years, so I went with that brand again, but in Black this time.

 

[sly_karma]

First month of ownership, odometer is at 2306 km.
Home charging: 340 kWh @$0.11= $37.40
Public charging: $12.00
Total energy cost: $49.40
Av. energy cost: 2.1 cents per km
Projected annual energy cost @24,000 km p.a.: $514

Previous truck (Silverado 1500 crew with 5.3L)
Av. gas use: 14.9 L/100 km
Annual fuel used: 3816 L
Annual fuel cost @ $1.80/L: $6869
Oil changes, 2 @$170: $340
Petro energy cost per year: $7209
Av. energy cost: 30 cents per km

Difference: $6695

I should say here that this is a very preliminary look at my EV running costs. Have logged only a small amount of highway driving and public charger use so far, and it's still summer - EVs are known to use more energy in cold weather due to battery heating and cabin heating. But even if the projected power use number is way off and I end up using double the electricity, I'm still winning by over $6000 a year. And that's before maintenance costs - almost nothing to spend on an EV. Cabin air filter, under $25 and change it myself. Brake pads/rotors, about 400,000 km life because of regenerative braking.

 

[Bifmalibu]

Haters are gonna hate, but that kind of savings will make a lot of sense for a lot of people. My towing with my current 3.5 Ecoboost is to the boat ramp and back, about 14 minutes total. This truck would make a lot of sense for my day-to-day uses. I guess for the couple time a year trips to northern BC it could be a pain in the butt, not sure how I'd feel about 10 days on a moose hunt with an EV, but for just about every other day of the year it's a no brainer.

How many KM would you gain after 8 hours on a Honda 2000 genny?

 

[doug78]

Haters are gonna hate, but that kind of savings will make a lot of sense for a lot of people. My towing with my current 3.5 Ecoboost is to the boat ramp and back, about 14 minutes total. This truck would make a lot of sense for my day-to-day uses. I guess for the couple time a year trips to northern BC it could be a pain in the butt, not sure how I'd feel about 10 days on a moose hunt with an EV, but for just about every other day of the year it's a no brainer.

How many KM would you gain after 8 hours on a Honda 2000 genny?

My model 3 would charge at 8km per hour if I could run it off my 2000 watt generator. 120volt charging is limited to a 15 or 20 amp circuit (in telsa world) They don't like the generator ground, something about a cheater cord that connects ground and neutral will make it work. It's not practical but would be nice in an emergency if you had not far to go...

 

[sly_karma]

Haters are gonna hate, but that kind of savings will make a lot of sense for a lot of people. My towing with my current 3.5 Ecoboost is to the boat ramp and back, about 14 minutes total. This truck would make a lot of sense for my day-to-day uses. I guess for the couple time a year trips to northern BC it could be a pain in the butt, not sure how I'd feel about 10 days on a moose hunt with an EV, but for just about every other day of the year it's a no brainer.

How many KM would you gain after 8 hours on a Honda 2000 genny?

I think many people who are into boating hunting and camping will keep a diesel truck for years into the future, just for the big annual trip. Nothing wrong with that, you get the cost saving and low emissions of an EV all year, then bring out the big iron when needed. Even before EV, plenty of people would have a small commuter car as well as a truck for towing and utility work like dump trips, firewood, etc.

As for the generator question, don't you gas up your truck at the last place possible before heading into hunting camp? Same sort of practice would apply to an EV truck.