Ford Lightning all Electric Truck

[MapleLeafFarmer]

ok now.... for those of us ordering the new Ford Lightning all electric truck it will come with the Ford PRO electric charger free of charge. (yeah!!)

Great news in that where I am I am not on a "grid" for electrical power and suffer lots of power outages. Our village has a single 12 mile power line from the main road which runs through a Pine forest. So subject to a lot of power failures especially when windy. Will be able to use the truck as a 120v - 30amp battery backup system that auto switches over and should run at full load for 2 or 3 days! yeah!!! no need for gen. backup

On the downside the charger for this truck takes an 80amp - 240v breaker in the panel box.... ok for me as I have lots of power and spare room in panels....

For most homeowners or non-commercial places will having 80a @ 240v open for this charger install be a problem?

 

[GreensvilleJay]

yeah 'full load' 2 , 15 A receptacles. That'll power one microwave and a furnace, cross your fingers though. You can buy a couple more powerful gennys for less than the 'onboard' inverter in the F150.

Be prepared for a $14000 bill to replace the battery in 8 years. And don't go far ! Wife can't get to her sisters, 240miles away on a full charge. BTW the' range' is without AC on, no heater,defrost,seat warmers,passengers or anything in the box. Ford's dealer 'fast charger' took an hour and only got 15% put into a MustangE.
At least Ford decided to have the computer disable the entire car 9driving and some options) when the battery power level is below 32%, unlike Tesla where you could literally drive and drain the battery so you couldn't open the trunk to get the charging cable out !

Not a problem for the charger install, but opens a 'can of worms'. 'details' like the electrician has to be Ford certified(read that in a 'private paper'...),and it's unlikely a homeowner has a spare 80A breaker, you need to get another 100A pulled into the house, permit has to be pulled, two inspections, new wires from transformer to new panel, oh yeah, in Ontario that'l trigger a 'whole house electrical' inspection and everything MUST be brought up to 'code'...which includes $%&&^& priced 'arc fault breakers', yeah the pricey new ones that fail/mistrip a LOT. Odds are real good the average homeowner will be forking out $6000 for this. Now IF 2 or 3 of your neighbours do the same, then the transfomer that feeds you needs to be upgraded.

 

[sagor]

There is supposed to be a 32A and/or 48A charger for homeowners for slower charging rates. But, I think you need the 80A if using the truck as a 9.6kW generator, not sure. Too many "ifs"...

 

[Tropical Jack]

Boakley, I like your optimism! Jay, I respect your pessimism. I suspect that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I believe that EVs will be inevitable as PART of the world’s solution to energy and the environment. I would love to have a Ford Lightning. I am willing to live with it’s shortfalls. But I am not yet ready to stand in line and pay a premium price for an unproven product. I will wait on the sidelines with my 20+ year old Dodge diesel until an electric pickup has proven itself in the real world. I am optimistic that it will happen before my present truck is relegated to the junk heap. I also think that Ford’s idea to utilize the battery in the Lightning is an excellent concept. May need a little refining - but that is the way new concepts are developed. You will most likely not see this in a Tesla, because Elon Musk would rather sell more “battery walls”.
Jack

 

[GreensvilleJay]

I rode around in a battery powered milk delivery van 60 years ago,used trolley buses for 1/4 of my life, did energy harvesting 5 decade ago. The overall problem to EVs is WHERE to get the electrons to repower them ! Without a HUGE, constant, cheap, reliable source of power, EVs in every garage will remain a 'pipe dream'. It's not 'rocket science' to design/build and EV but you have to ask WHY aren't cities using them ? Hamilton,On could replace 250 diesel buses NOW, with a fleet of EV buses, for 1mill a bus and still have 750 millon 'leftover' from the ont guv handout for other things. Instead the mayor and crew demand a 'light rail system' ,that'd only serve a handful of the 600,000 here. Ebuse would got everywhere with ZERO disruptions.
Dead batteries is a HUGE problem. STELCO here is looking into partnering with a German firm to recycle them,kinda weird that the once biggest mfr of steel in Canada may tear batteries apart...
It'll be interesting to see the Lightning when it quietly drives into my driveway in a few months. Hopefully it'll have a better 'screen' in it than the E-stang does !
I would have thought a 'TeslaTruck' would be on the roads. something 'ranger' sized, a multipurpose delivery van. Kinda says there's no money in that product line ?

 

[fried1765]

yeah 'full load' 2 , 15 A receptacles. That'll power one microwave and a furnace, cross your fingers though. You can buy a couple more powerful gennys for less than the 'onboard' inverter in the F150.

Be prepared for a $14000 bill to replace the battery in 8 years. And don't go far ! Wife can't get to her sisters, 240miles away on a full charge. BTW the' range' is without AC on, no heater,defrost,seat warmers,passengers or anything in the box. Ford's dealer 'fast charger' took an hour and only got 15% put into a MustangE.
At least Ford decided to have the computer disable the entire car 9driving and some options) when the battery power level is below 32%, unlike Tesla where you could literally drive and drain the battery so you couldn't open the trunk to get the charging cable out !

Not a problem for the charger install, but opens a 'can of worms'. 'details' like the electrician has to be Ford certified(read that in a 'private paper'...),and it's unlikely a homeowner has a spare 80A breaker, you need to get another 100A pulled into the house, permit has to be pulled, two inspections, new wires from transformer to new panel, oh yeah, in Ontario that'l trigger a 'whole house electrical' inspection and everything MUST be brought up to 'code'...which includes $%&&^& priced 'arc fault breakers', yeah the pricey new ones that fail/mistrip a LOT. Odds are real good the average homeowner will be forking out $6000 for this. Now IF 2 or 3 of your neighbours do the same, then the transfomer that feeds you needs to be upgraded.

Ah yes..... Canada just LOVES those worthless arc fault breakers!
Electric inspection required them, and I then took them out of my Nova Scotia Summer home!

 

[niteshiftfromkc]

I had looked at getting one of the trucks. My problems with it were: towing distance (It takes 40+ minutes to charge it to 80 percent on the fast charger), having to add an extra electrical service to my house (200 amp service and no room for an 80 amp breaker), I go into a lot of areas that won't have chargers so I don't want to risk getting stuck somewhere. If you run the battery dead there is no walking to nearest service station for a bucket of electricity.

I would prefer that the auto industry get into the EV Hybrid technology more. That way you have a gas engine when the battery system should happen to fail. What about road taxes? Right now the road taxes are taken care of with fuel purchases. Guess you'll have a big bill every year when they figure how many miles you have driven.

Another problem with the battery packs is the fact that they are hard to extinguish if they catch fire. Not sure if you all watch the show Top Gear, but when Richard Hammond had a crash with an EV sports car, the fire department had to keep an eye on it for over two days. The battery cells kept catching fire afterwards. I also saw that in Europe they use big dumpsters to put the EVs into when they do catch fire, that way they can just submerge them.

 

[Yooper]

No doubt, electricity is very efficient and is not going away. As many of you pointed out it comes down to the battery. They need a quantum leap before they will replace fossil fuels. Right now, fossil fuels are the best way to store energy

 

[lynnmor]

No doubt, electricity is very efficient

I have my doubts, generating here and sending it there with power losses in the transmission lines is never mentioned. Cris-crossing everyone's land with those lines is never mentioned. There is an agenda with this electric vehicle nonsense and you won't like it when all hits home.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

re: power losses in the transmission lines is never mentioned.

It is, on EVERY Ontario Hydro bill I get !! Special line on the bill, tells me MY portion I HAVE to pay for !

Hybrids have there own set of 'interesting' problems. The Ford my brother test drove to FLA and back... engine mysteriously started/ran several times even though battery was 90% good. Turns out, if the car is too hot or too cold, the computer runs the engine for drive power !! So a hybrid probably will run on gas a lot of Jul, Aug, Dec,JAn,Feb and MArch here in southern Ontario. I'd have to pull the threshold specs out of the 'computer' to do th e'math' for possible battery vs gas runtimes.

Last month, 8 story apartment in NYC burnt down.. cause of fire ? The battery in an Ebicycle fried !!

 

[aaluck]

I thought long and hard on buying one of these. In the end the range was my determining factor. Just cannot be limited to X number of (uncertain depending what I'm pulling A/C, Heat etc) miles.

 

[skeets]

Naww I ll pass thank you

 

[GreensvilleJay]

probably get x2 distance if it was a 2 door,short box, 2wd.
heck can't buy a 2wd Ranger here in Canada.

 

[torch]

oh yeah, in Ontario that'l trigger a 'whole house electrical' inspection and everything MUST be brought up to 'code'...which includes $%&&^& priced 'arc fault breakers', yeah the pricey new ones that fail/mistrip a LOT.

Is this new? It used to be that only the parts of the electrical system being worked on had to be upgraded to the latest edition of the code.

 

[jimh406]

It's an expensive backup power system. . I would buy some large batteries and inverter and have solar charge them up even if slowly. You only need to charge them in between outages.

Electric cars/trucks aren't a reasonable option for me since I drive more than their range on many trips. Stopping to charge in the middle of a trip doesn't sound like fun.

I do think most people will have an issue with having an 80A circuit added. I wonder how many people will figure that out after they have their new truck.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

re: Is this new? It used to be
master electrician told me, ESA says if you 'open the panel', he has to ensure all connections and wiring to that panel are 'safe', so a whole house inspection is required ,since covid came to town though they can just take pix/fids of their work and as long as COVID-19 is first on the paperwork, ESA stamps the permit 'OK'.
TSSA can decomisson(turn OFF) your furnace or water heater if there's ANY visible rust,say from very minor flooding(laundry oopsies). This started preCovid,under the vail of 'safety'. So when you get the 15 minute inspectors in for 'energy rebates', you might not like what they say and do.

batteries/solar is a loser in southern Ontario in winter. There aren't enough long,sunny days to recharge batteries for a regular family in a normal house to carry on as usual.

 

[Yooper]

I have my doubts, generating here and sending it there with power losses in the transmission lines is never mentioned. Cris-crossing everyone's land with those lines is never mentioned. There is an agenda with this electric vehicle nonsense and you won't like it when all hits home.

Look at it from this standpoint. Power a washing machine with hydraulics, assuming you have hydraulic pressure delivered to your home via pipeline. Look at how big the pipes and lines would be compared to the wires.

You are right on with your last sentence

 

[lilguy]

Spent almost 40 years In the auto repair business, dealership tech. All you good folks buying in at the beginning are part of a grand experiment. It will be a valuable learning experience following reports from all the participants.

 

[Deleted member 47704]

It's an expensive backup power system. . I would buy some large batteries and inverter and have solar charge them up even if slowly. You only need to charge them in between outages.

Electric cars/trucks aren't a reasonable option for me since I drive more than their range on many trips. Stopping to charge in the middle of a trip doesn't sound like fun.

I do think most people will have an issue with having an 80A circuit added. I wonder how many people will figure that out after they have their new truck.

A lot of people don't realize that. I had a couple of EV fans tell me they were going to put in super chargers. I didn't tell them the power company will not put in 3 phase in a residence. Been there done that bought the tshirt. The fastest charger you can get at home is 12 hours.
The wait times at public chargers is getting longer and employees expect their employer to supply chargers? sure enjoy your pay cut.

 

[torch]

re: Is this new? It used to be
master electrician told me, ESA says if you 'open the panel', he has to ensure all connections and wiring to that panel are 'safe', so a whole house inspection is required

I suspect your electrician was either mis-informed or trolling for extra work. A basic principle is that existing installations are grandfathered, but any and all portions of new work must meet the latest code requirements.

Take arc-fault protection for example. Reference OESC Bulletin 26-29-3 on the subject; if a branch circuit is extended, then upgrading of the wiring before the extension is not required and arc-fault must be installed on the extension, not the entirety of the circuit. Even if the entire panel is replaced, arc fault is not required to be installed on the existing branch circuits. Of course, arc fault is required on any new circuits that are added.

Similarly, it is recommended but not required to replace existing receptacles with tamper-resistant type when adding new receptacles, but only the added ones are required to be tamper resistant. Of course, if a receptacle is replaced for any reason, it must be replaced with a TR type. And while new kitchen counter receptacles must be GFI protected, it is not required to add GFI when replacing an existing non-GFI split receptacle (as such an item is not available).

In a real-world example, my brother's old service entrance wiring overloaded and he lost a leg. While the old service entrance was at the peak of the gable and crossed the garage roof, he had to move the service entrance to the front of the house to comply with current code. As a result, he had to install a new disconnect in that corner of the basement, and run a new conductor to the panel location. He chose to update the panel at that time. The old panel was too high off the floor by current codes, so he had to extend all the existing branch line wiring through the use of J-boxes and short lengths down to the panel. Everything had to be inspected and passed by ESA before the utility could reconnect the service. However, he did not have to update any branch wiring as part of the service upgrade, nor was any of that required to be inspected.

Similarly, when I renovated, I changed the service from aerial to underground, upgraded from 100A to 200A, added a standby generator and sub-panel and added a whole new kitchen addition. The meter base, new panels, all new branch wiring, even the generator itself all had to pass inspection, but the rest of the place was not within the scope of the new work and was not of interest to the inspector. beyond the few inches of wire that entered the panels. It could have been ungrounded knob-and-tube for all he cared.