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Electric Vehicles

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JoeMorgue said:
Now you darn furniers who don't even have the common decency to be born in 'Murica might not get the big deal but the F-150 line of trucks is the best selling vehicle in America. Not the best selling truck, the best selling vehicle. It is the most common passenger vehicle on the road in the US.
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This is accurate but gives a distorted view of the country's vehicle market/population. The most popular truck was pretty much bound to be the most popular overall because of the limited range of options in the class. By far most vehicles in this country aren't trucks, but each truck model takes up a few times as much market share as a single non-truck model, just because there are so many more models of non-truck to choose from.

One part of that is the fact that only a few manufacturers even make trucks at all, and the other is that each truck manufacturer makes just one model per category, while they all make multiple different models in other categories. For example, Ford and Chevrolet make 1 type of full-size truck apiece (F-#50 and Silverado) and 1 light truck apiece (Ranger and Colorado), whereas they make 7 or 8 SUVs and 2-5 cars apiece, and other companies like Mitsubishi and Subaru make several kinds of car & SUV apiece but no trucks at all. So people who want a truck are funneled into a smaller set of options and people who don't are spread out over a bunch of options.

(And a third contributing factor for Ford in particular as opposed to other truck manufacturers is that Ford's biggest competitor, GM, even divides its own numbers for them, by splitting its products into two smaller names; F-150's GM counterparts, the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, are fundamentally the same truck and sometimes sell more than F-150 combined, but not separately.)
 
arthwollipot said:
I'm no car person, but isn't it true that electric motors generate a lot of torque, which is why they go like the clappers when Sleepy Joe puts his foot down? I would think that would be advantageous to towing.
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Problem is the weight. the EV's have the torque to towing without an issue, but it would probably halve your range.

Now with a Tesla, Some of the range come from the aerodynamics. Towing, especially on the highway ***** it up.
The F-150 Lightning isn't designed for Aerodynamics, and have a very large battery pack. Towing may not have a big of a hit as it would for a Tesla.
 
jadebox said:
My trailer (a 5x8 enclosed) seems to cut my mpg in half when I tow it behind my SUV.
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Roughly the same for our Ford Flex EcoBoost towing a 4,500 lb travel trailer. About 22 mpg normally, 10-12 mpg towing.

I suspect the Lightning will be great for local towing - towing tractors or dump trailers or the like to construction sites or whatever. Highway towing will likely require a lot of advance planning for charging every 100- 150 miles or so.
 
I am wondering if any charging stations where designed with someone towing a trailer in mind, as if parking at or even getting to a charging station while towing a long trailer is going to really be as easy or even possible as Ford is thinking.
 
It does seem strange that towing vehicles is being focused on. Seems like the lowest hanging fruit for electric vehicles is passenger vehicles. I suppose there's good PR value in showing that the technology for EV's is capable enough for heavy duty work, but seems to me that the most critical goal for the technology is a cheap, practical EV passenger vehicle that can compete with ICE's to function as people's daily drivers.

ETA: Then again, trucks are really popular in this country, and plenty of people buy them and only rarely actually use them for heavy payload or towing work. Pickup trucks are as much status symbols and cultural identity as they are practical working vehicles by my estimation. I'm sure there's plenty of people who currently drive trucks that could easily find the electric F-150 meets all their needs, which probably includes quite a bit of just ordinary passenger vehicle driving and only very occasional towing or payload usage.
 
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arthwollipot said:
I'm no car person, but isn't it true that electric motors generate a lot of torque, which is why they go like the clappers when Sleepy Joe puts his foot down? I would think that would be advantageous to towing.
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I am pretty sure it would be an advantage. It would be an advantage generally for a truck.

I can imagine it'll be easier to back up the truck to hook up a trailer since you can better control the speed and the truck won't move when you put it in park.

Ford didn't take advantage of it (yet), but using electric motors also lets EV designers do things like have individual motors for each wheel.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I am wondering if any charging stations where designed with someone towing a trailer in mind, as if parking at or even getting to a charging station while towing a long trailer is going to really be as easy or even possible as Ford is thinking.
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I haven't seen any charging stations right now that would be easy to use with a trailer attached. That will probably change with more electric trucks being produced, but probably not soon.

And it isn't just trailers. Most charging spaces would be a tight squeeze for a truck.

The truck manufacturers will probably have to create their own networks or give incentives to the existing networks to have them install pull-through chargers.
 
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jadebox said:
I haven't seen any charging stations right now that would be easy to use with a trailer attached. That will probably change with more electric trucks being produced, but probably not soon.

And it isn't just trailers. Most charging spaces would be a tight squeeze for a truck.

The truck manufacturers will probably have to create their own networks or give incentives to the existing networks to have them install pull-through chargers.
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What about an extra length extension cord, so that the large vehicle can park a bit out of the usual space?
 
How much expense would it add to the vehicle's owner to provide such a cord? I'm not assuming it's trivial but it would avoid the theft question of leaving the cord hanging around the charger.
 
gnome said:
How much expense would it add to the vehicle's owner to provide such a cord? I'm not assuming it's trivial but it would avoid the theft question of leaving the cord hanging around the charger.
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There may be safety concerns with that. There's a lot of power going down that cord, you dont necessarily want it going down a cable of dubious history.

In my experience, slower chargers use the cars own cable, cast chargers come with their own fixed cable.
 
gnome said:
How much expense would it add to the vehicle's owner to provide such a cord? I'm not assuming it's trivial but it would avoid the theft question of leaving the cord hanging around the charger.
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I'd guess 100-200 dollars based on what I know of 600 AMP welding cables and theater light cables.
 
Small sample size, other factors, and all that but 20 foot charger extension cord for the J1772 standard goes for about 175 bucks on Amazon.
 
I was thinking in terms of an approved, proper cord that the owner of a towing vehicle would buy. I wouldn't expect stowage to be too big a deal in a full sized truck, and if it's something many people need, the manufacturer could even provide some kind of stowage for it, perhaps under the hood.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I am wondering if any charging stations where designed with someone towing a trailer in mind, as if parking at or even getting to a charging station while towing a long trailer is going to really be as easy or even possible as Ford is thinking.
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Some of the newerish Tesla Supercharging stations may have one or two stalls allowing for 'pull in' spaces to make it easier for Teslas that are towing.
Tesla Supercharge stations have a rather short cable. One has to back into a spot normally to get the charge cable to reach.

For the F-150 Lightning, looks like the charge port is closer to the front of the vehicle. As well, most Non-Tesla chargers have VERY long cables.
 
quadraginta said:
Too easy.
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Fast DC chargers have cables about an inch and a half in diameter with coolant running through them. So,.extension cords aren't practical.

And most charging spots are standard parking spaces. A truck with a trailer wouldn't fit.

I suspect some charging locations in the future will look more like gas stations with charging lanes so vehicles can pull up beside the charging stations. But, most will remain as individual parking spaces that are easier and cheaper to set up without taking up too much space.
 
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Shalamar said:
For the F-150 Lightning, looks like the charge port is closer to the front of the vehicle. As well, most Non-Tesla chargers have VERY long cables.
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In my experience, the cables at public charging stations are just barely long enough to reach the port on the rear of my car when I pull in nose first. If I have a passenger, I back in so the passenger can get out after I hook up the.charge cable.
 
Shalamar said:
Some of the newerish Tesla Supercharging stations may have one or two stalls allowing for 'pull in' spaces to make it easier for Teslas that are towing.
Tesla Supercharge stations have a rather short cable. One has to back into a spot normally to get the charge cable to reach.

For the F-150 Lightning, looks like the charge port is closer to the front of the vehicle. As well, most Non-Tesla chargers have VERY long cables.
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So if the putative towing F-150 is able to pull in nose first, it should be OK ?

In fact that seems like a reasonable way for a manufacturer to accommodate various lengths of "rig".
 
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