Driving an EV pickup

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The 2028 F-150 Lightning EREV is Ford's next-generation electric truck, transitioning from a fully electric model to an Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV) that combines electric motors with a gasoline-powered generator, offering an estimated range of over 700 miles. This design aims to provide the benefits of electric performance while alleviating range anxiety for drivers.
 
wildmanyeah said:
I've now seen lots of YouTube videos on solar set ups. In places like California where the panels were once looked at as being a 25 year pay back many have paid back in less then 8 years as the cost of electricity has increased their quite a bit.

I do say thought of powering you EV with your own solar system does seem appealing, especially now when some countries are going into rationing there fuel.
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Aussies are flocking to EVs as their gas and diesel prices are well above $3.00/L and rationing seems likely in a month or so. About half of all Australian homes have rooftop solar, and many now have a battery as well, as governments have redirected incentives away from panels and into home battery/s. Daytime electricity prices are often lower than overnight because they have so much solar. Their "normal" grid rate is around $0.25-0.35/kWh, ie, 2-3 times what we pay. Solid savings by going solar and much of the country has the climate for it.

I know people back in Oz who drive EVs daily, yet haven't paid an electricity bill in three years because of their solar/battery setup. Making your own fuel at home sounds like a greenie fantasy, yet lots of people are doing it every day. Is there any wonder there are so many little media attacks on the renewable energy and EV concepts? All those articles and memes about fires, battery life, short range, long charge times, extra tire wear, etc etc... the original source for most of that is the fossil fuel industry battling for its life.
 
sly_karma said:
Another item of minor interest: my Lightning has received another two over the air updates in the past month. Despite concerns following the announcement that the full BEV Lightning format was ending, Ford continues to support and improve the vehicle. The most recent update contained new software releases for Blue Cruise (hands free driving) and Adaptive Cruise Control.

There are ongoing safety recall notices out there as well, park brake and trailering modules. Waiting for local dealership to receive parts and schedule the work. Once again, Ford following normal practices for their vehicles. I wasn't too concerned when the announcement came, my faith appears to be justified. Surely they want us all to buy the new EREV Lightning when it's released, no chance of that if they abandon all us first gen owners.
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I don't understand all the angst about a model being ended. Car makers end models all the time, and still have to support them for years to come. Why would the Lightning be any different?

As a Lightning owner I am disappointed, because its a very capable truck, but I get that the market isn't justifying this particular model so they have to respond. I've got zero worries about Ford servicing this vehicle as it ages.
 
sly_karma said:
While ICE owners are being slammed with near-daily fuel price increases at the moment, it's all calm in EV land. Or is it? BC Hydro public chargers have new rates effective today. Fast charger pricing has bumped up from $0.37/kWh to $0.40/kWh, or about $1.50-$2.00 extra on a typical highway stop with my truck. Yes, it's an 8% increase, but 8% of not much to begin with ends up at not much more.

These price increases were of course submitted to BC Utilities Commission, and approved and announced back in February before taking effect today. All very orderly, considered and fact-based. Little details like this make life more bearable under the socialist regime in the People's Republic of Cascadia.
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I do think the public charging rates are steep, and getting steeper. How do they justify billing 4x the rate we get power at home? I can understand that the infrastructure has a cost, but 4x?

Fortunately most of us EV owners charge at home the vast majority of the time. I think I'm at about 98% home vs road charging, over 200,000km of use.
 
Park brake and trailer is just a software update however done at the dealer and not over the air, no parts necessary. Mine just done and I sat in the dealership about 2 hours while they did it.
Driver assist over the air update scheduled for tonight.
 
EREVs and plugin hybrids just make sense. its what the market should move to. yes yes..drivetrain complexity and all that. but at the end of the day i need a tank of gas and a motor sitting in my vehicle. i may have sails for primary propulsion or i may have an electric motor coupled to a battery. but nothing beats a heat engine sitting at the back even if it doesnt do anything. wind dies, battery runs out.... good old fossil fuels are there.
after 8K miles under sail i needed diesel for the last 300. and it would have been a huge pain (and dangerous) if i didnt have it when i needed it. same thing in a road vehicle. when you run out of battery and you need something to get you over the last 50 miles or whatever because youre in the middle of nowhere, fossil fuels are there.
the problem with the lightning was always the same problem with these EVs. limited knowledge at dealerships, parts get discontinued as they age as they become one hit wonders. its hard enough getting parts for my plain vanilla minivan from 2005 which can use a bunch of generic ford parts. i have to dumpster dive at scrapyards for some parts. lightning EV from 2024 in 2032 ? good luck with that. its like tesla parts if tesla goes bust or whatever those EV companies are which recently went bust (fisker, bollinger,faraday anyone ?)
 
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zurk said:
EREVs and plugin hybrids just make sense. its what the market should move to. yes yes..drivetrain complexity and all that. but at the end of the day i need a tank of gas and a motor sitting in my vehicle. i may have sails for primary propulsion or i may have an electric motor coupled to a battery. but nothing beats a heat engine sitting at the back even if it doesnt do anything. wind dies, battery runs out.... good old fossil fuels are there.
after 8K miles under sail i needed diesel for the last 300. and it would have been a huge pain (and dangerous) if i didnt have it when i needed it. same thing in a road vehicle. when you run out of battery and you need something to get you over the last 50 miles or whatever because youre in the middle of nowhere, fossil fuels are there.
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You're working on emotion, not logic. You long since learned to plan your driving and boating to avoid running out of fuel. EV drivers are almost universally former ICE drivers, they too possess this skill. Southern BC is loaded with public chargers, to the point now where I don't think about where to stop for a charge, I know there'll be somewhere within a few km when the % charge indicator or my bladder tell me it's time to stop. You get a BEV that can go 3-4 hours between charge stops and you're fine. Anything much longer than that is pushing into fatigue issues that make a driver unsafe regardless of the energy source in their vehicle.

A small portion of drivers have needs beyond EV being best choice. Like the guy who drives 60,000+ km a year in his job as a sales rep or technician with the whole province as his territory. That guy needs a small diesel, and don't worry about any electric drive at all, just extra weight and expense. But if that guy spends say one week a month back at head office and spends it doing sales calls all over the city, those km would be good for PHEV. But are they enough to cover the higher cost to buy? Numbers suggest you need to be somewhere around 50/50 road and highway mileage for PHEV to make sense. That's actually a fairly uncommon situation, most people are 80/20 city/highway. Pickups towing large loads would push the needle more toward PHEV, no question that the extra drag of a trailer cuts into EV range bigtime.
 
sly_karma said:
Aussies are flocking to EVs as their gas and diesel prices are well above $3.00/L and rationing seems likely in a month or so. About half of all Australian homes have rooftop solar, and many now have a battery as well, as governments have redirected incentives away from panels and into home battery/s. Daytime electricity prices are often lower than overnight because they have so much solar. Their "normal" grid rate is around $0.25-0.35/kWh, ie, 2-3 times what we pay. Solid savings by going solar and much of the country has the climate for it.

I know people back in Oz who drive EVs daily, yet haven't paid an electricity bill in three years because of their solar/battery setup. Making your own fuel at home sounds like a greenie fantasy, yet lots of people are doing it every day. Is there any wonder there are so many little media attacks on the renewable energy and EV concepts? All those articles and memes about fires, battery life, short range, long charge times, extra tire wear, etc etc... the original source for most of that is the fossil fuel industry battling for its life.
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My buddy is basically there with his Chev electric truck and a large solar array in Saanich. Drives a ton, hauling beer to clients all over the place. Only has to use a charger when doing the Tofino run and back, and at work a few times over the winter.

It's amazing the anti-EV and anti-bike crowd, if it's not something I've tried then it must be a waste. I can't fathom the need to tax EV's since they aren't paying enough fuel tax, but AB, SK and NS have gone ahead. Glad BC is sticking to supporting EV's, I can see the argument for reducing the mandate for EV's and supporting Hybrids made in Canada, but overall nice to see charging and no extra tax.

Wish we had full provincial and federal support for Edison, be really nice to have a BC diesel electric truck manufacturer.
 
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sly_karma said:
You're working on emotion, not logic. You long since learned to plan your driving and boating to avoid running out of fuel. EV drivers are almost universally former ICE drivers, they too possess this skill. Southern BC is loaded with public chargers, to the point now where I don't think about where to stop for a charge, I know there'll be somewhere within a few km when the % charge indicator or my bladder tell me it's time to stop. You get a BEV that can go 3-4 hours between charge stops and you're fine. Anything much longer than that is pushing into fatigue issues that make a driver unsafe regardless of the energy source in their vehicle.
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of course. but markets - and purchasing decisions - are governed by emotion not logic. my cellphone never runs out of a charge either while i am on the road. but is there a charging cable in my cars and boats ? you betcha. its never used but its there just in case i need it. to supply power from a gasoline engine at $0.55/kWh. do i follow the 1/3rd rule with everything ? obviously.
can i count on a public charger to be there when i need it ? nope. because i dont own that public charger. you could argue that i dont own that gas station either in which case i can counter that i could extend my range by carrying along an extra tank of gas to get to the next one. something impossible with a BEV.
but i can own that generator sitting in the EREV. and it will be there when i need it. and i own the gas it takes to run it.
people who buy EVs are the same people with trust in government. because youre counting on a third party external to yourself to be there when you need it. i believe in being self sufficient - i'll trust that i can buy fuel and store it for a year or two without needing anyones help when i need to use it. and i can buy it from multiple countries so government has little say in it. thats why there is a pullback on EVs. they exhausted the population who trust external entities. now they are stuck with the rest of us and we aint buying what theyre selling regardless of how good it is.
 
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Fossil fuels are at the heart of global political power, and conflict. The more we can electrify our energy demands, the more we can localize our energy generation strategies, and that means we don't need to worry about the straight of hormuz and what the global jacka$$e$ are doing to each other there. If this was the only reason to shift away from ICE vehicles I'd do it. And the reason so much of our population is fed horror stories about transitioning? Just follow the money.
 
Fossil fuels are at the heart of global political power, and conflict.
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true. the reason for that is they are so convenient as a medium. coal used to be there as primary energy storage but it was a huge pain to store due to its size and dust would get all over you. then we got whale oil in a bottle and didnt look back. you could pour it around. it moved. it disappeared magically and reduced its weight when it was used. it was a physical object which was easy to store in dedicated tanks which had low weight when empty so easy to transport around.
synthetic fuels should be a good alternative to fossil fuels. make them from cheap coal or CO2 or garbage (biomass). convert to syngas and then to synthetic gasoline or diesel thru hydrocracking.
electricity is not convenient as a storage medium. batteries cant be poured around and even if they dont get dust all over you they still have the same storage problems as coal. its ultimately a solid with substantial weight which is inconvenient to move around or reduce in size for transport. and you cant really reduce its weight to just lug around empties to fill when needed.
 
zurk said:
true. the reason for that is they are so convenient as a medium. coal used to be there as primary energy storage but it was a huge pain to store due to its size and dust would get all over you. then we got whale oil in a bottle and didnt look back. you could pour it around. it moved. it disappeared magically and reduced its weight when it was used. it was a physical object which was easy to store in dedicated tanks which had low weight when empty so easy to transport around.
synthetic fuels should be a good alternative to fossil fuels. make them from cheap coal or CO2 or garbage (biomass). convert to syngas and then to synthetic gasoline or diesel thru hydrocracking.
electricity is not convenient as a storage medium. batteries cant be poured around and even if they dont get dust all over you they still have the same storage problems as coal. its ultimately a solid with substantial weight which is inconvenient to move around or reduce in size for transport. and you cant really reduce its weight to just lug around empties to fill when needed.
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I hear this, and your previous posts, but here’s a thought for you…

You cannot readily refine fossil fuels into gasoline or diesel at home. It’s technically possible, but isn’t remotely practical, and you don’t have the base oil to start with. You rely on supply chains that are vulnerable to geopolitical events, taxation, local events (think Abbotsford floods). Your argument assumes that fossil fuels will be available regardless of cost. This is not necessarily the case. This Strait of Hormuz interruption is merely the latest example of energy insecurity.
Do you think that a US export restriction on refined fuels is possible given the refinery situation down south, or the present trade realities between our two countries? If that happens, BC will be in very big trouble and fuel will become unavailable except to essential services.

An unlikely but very real silver lining for those who own EVs is the reality that they can literally home shore their vehicle energy supply chain with On Grid and Solar, albeit a numerically excessive number of panels in lower sun areas.

Related, if there was ever a time to build out a home solar and storage system, it is now.
 
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Battery storage and EV battery swapping is huge in Asia and china. No gas pumps, fumes to get high on, even swap batteries out using automation so you don't have to get out of your car. Battery tech has come so far in just the last 24 months, and with this increase in fuel prices we will see more and more investment and innovation.

The convenience of pumping or shovelling oil out of the ground, transporting it, refining it, delivering, dispensing it is so inefficient. We will still need it in the north and at sea but convenience is not an argument in big parts of the world including BC.
 
I don't want to rely on a global extraction, transportation, refinement supply chain that is controlled by power enclaves in the desert or the whitehouse, thanks. I don't care how handy it is to carry a jerry can of gas wherever I need it. Renewable energy is democratization of power. Literally and metaphorically. Solar panels on my roof. A wind turbine right here. A dam up north. Wood for my stove. Small nuclear. Whatever. Build it close to those who use it, and let them control their own destiny.

The analogy of the sail boat with a diesel motor is useful. I use the diesel for certain tasks, but nothing more than what it is uniquely good at serving. Use the wind when it is blowing. But I don't say wind power sucks because I can't use it 24/7, and we have to run all boats on carbon fuels. if that was the case, we would not have conquered the seas centuries ago.
 
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