What's it like to take a road trip in a truck like the Terra (F-150 Lightning)?

[SpaceEVDriver]

Just passed 30,000 miles on the truck.

On the way to that, I was driving from central northern Arizona to the Los Angeles valley via Interstate 40. On the drive out, I was feeling good so didn’t feel the need to stop at the first charging stop in Yucca, AZ. Nor the backup for the first stop in Needles, CA, which was about 40 miles farther along the road. So I ended up going an “extra” 77 miles farther along I-40 to Essex, CA.

There, I encountered a situation that’s fairly common on I-40 in the middle of nowhere desert: Broken refueling pumps.

No, not the Electrify America charging posts. Those were in great condition with four usable of the four available.

Most of the fuel pumps were out of order.
One pump had been removed—it looked and smelled like it had been burned.
Two other pumps were wrapped in caution tape.
Of the eight gasoline nozzles usually available, only two were usable. And because of the price, people were only buying a few gallons just to make it to the next stop.

The cost for fuel?

$8.20 to $8.70 per gallon. Note that the price there is higher than usual, but not that much higher than usual. This is an emergency refueling station. This is the kind of place that charges $15 for a small bag of chips.

The cost for electricity? $0.42/kWh.

The cost per mile for the leg from home to this station, 256 miles away? The winds were up, so my efficiency was down to 2.2 miles/kWh. $0.42/kWh / 2.2 miles = $0.19/mile.

If I’d driven an F-150 gas truck and refueled here? $8.20/gallon / 16-19 mpg = $0.51/mile to $0.43/mile.
If I’d stopped at the Needles EA station? $0.32/kWh => $0.15/mile
If I’d stopped at a Needles gas station? $5.79/gal => $0.36/mile to $0.30/mile.

 

[Logan]

Just passed 30,000 miles on the truck.

On the way to that, I was driving from central northern Arizona to the Los Angeles valley via Interstate 40. On the drive out, I was feeling good so didn’t feel the need to stop at the first charging stop in Yucca, AZ. Nor the backup for the first stop in Needles, CA, which was about 40 miles farther along the road. So I ended up going an “extra” 77 miles farther along I-40 to Essex, CA.

There, I encountered a situation that’s fairly common on I-40 in the middle of nowhere desert: Broken refueling pumps.

No, not the Electrify America charging posts. Those were in great condition with four usable of the four available.

Most of the fuel pumps were out of order.
One pump had been removed—it looked and smelled like it had been burned.
Two other pumps were wrapped in caution tape.
Of the eight gasoline nozzles usually available, only two were usable. And because of the price, people were only buying a few gallons just to make it to the next stop.

View attachment 13947

The cost for fuel?

$8.20 to $8.70 per gallon. Note that the price there is higher than usual, but not that much higher than usual. This is an emergency refueling station. This is the kind of place that charges $15 for a small bag of chips.

The cost for electricity? $0.42/kWh.

The cost per mile for the leg from home to this station, 256 miles away? The winds were up, so my efficiency was down to 2.2 miles/kWh. $0.42/kWh / 2.2 miles = $0.19/mile.

If I’d driven an F-150 gas truck and refueled here? $8.20/gallon / 16-19 mpg = $0.51/mile to $0.43/mile.
If I’d stopped at the Needles EA station? $0.32/kWh => $0.15/mile
If I’d stopped at a Needles gas station? $5.79/gal => $0.36/mile to $0.30/mile.


View attachment 13948

The gas prices being volatile right now has me doing this same math for our road trip this summer.

Of course that’s way far out, but movement there could affect which vehicle we take (the ~30mpg PHEV, or the ioniq9). The math I did last month showed the PHEV would’ve about half the price.

Will have to see how things look this summer.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

The gas prices being volatile right now has me doing this same math for our road trip this summer.

Of course that’s way far out, but movement there could affect which vehicle we take (the ~30mpg PHEV, or the ioniq9). The math I did last month showed the PHEV would’ve about half the price.

Will have to see how things look this summer.

When you do that math, don’t forget to include your first and last fill-up at your residential electricity prices for the EV. And if you plan your trip to get free or cheaper L2 charging during your overnight stays, you’ll push that per mile cost even lower.

For the full round trip that I just did:

131 kWh @ $0.035/kWh = $4.59
92 kWh @ $0.42/kWh = $38.64
73 kWh @ $0.43/kWh = $31.34
73 kWh @ $0.00/kWh = $0.00
24 kWh @ $0.42/kWh = $9.78
98 kWh @ $0.65/kWh = $63.53
12 kWh @ $0.56/kWh = $6.67
112 kWh @ $0.035/kWh = $3.94

$158.49 / 615 kWh = $0.26 / kWh average.

This time, my total trip distance was about 1123 miles with several trips in the city.
$158.49 / 1123 miles = $0.14/mile

Note that while the chargers are generally between 40-160 miles apart, I do have choices for pricing. If I’m feeling like it, I’ll make the decision to go farther or stop earlier to save some money. This trip I could have stopped in Needles for a $0.32/kWh charge instead of $0.65/kWh charge, which would have saved me about $25. Similarly, I could have charged an additional 80 kWh for free while in Los Angeles, instead of just the 73 kWh. That would have saved me another $30-$40.

My efficiency wasn’t great (1.8 miles/kWh average) this trip because I had to leave at a time when I was very likely to encounter headwinds when crossing the desert, in both directions. If I had planned better, I would have been able to take advantage of those winds in both directions.

 

[LastDayScout]

Just passed 30,000 miles on the truck.

On the way to that, I was driving from central northern Arizona to the Los Angeles valley via Interstate 40. On the drive out, I was feeling good so didn’t feel the need to stop at the first charging stop in Yucca, AZ. Nor the backup for the first stop in Needles, CA, which was about 40 miles farther along the road. So I ended up going an “extra” 77 miles farther along I-40 to Essex, CA.

There, I encountered a situation that’s fairly common on I-40 in the middle of nowhere desert: Broken refueling pumps.

No, not the Electrify America charging posts. Those were in great condition with four usable of the four available.

Most of the fuel pumps were out of order.
One pump had been removed—it looked and smelled like it had been burned.
Two other pumps were wrapped in caution tape.
Of the eight gasoline nozzles usually available, only two were usable. And because of the price, people were only buying a few gallons just to make it to the next stop.

View attachment 13947

The cost for fuel?

$8.20 to $8.70 per gallon. Note that the price there is higher than usual, but not that much higher than usual. This is an emergency refueling station. This is the kind of place that charges $15 for a small bag of chips.

The cost for electricity? $0.42/kWh.

The cost per mile for the leg from home to this station, 256 miles away? The winds were up, so my efficiency was down to 2.2 miles/kWh. $0.42/kWh / 2.2 miles = $0.19/mile.

If I’d driven an F-150 gas truck and refueled here? $8.20/gallon / 16-19 mpg = $0.51/mile to $0.43/mile.
If I’d stopped at the Needles EA station? $0.32/kWh => $0.15/mile
If I’d stopped at a Needles gas station? $5.79/gal => $0.36/mile to $0.30/mile.


View attachment 13948

Excellent real world example.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Beginning tomorrow, we’ll be at two years of ownership of the Lightning.
tl;dr:
It’s been the best vehicle we’ve ever owned.

But we still have no plans to buy another Ford. This is because we’re all BEV and will stay all BEV and I don’t believe I can trust Ford’s C-Suite to lead their engineers in the right direction.

We have approximately 32,000 miles on the Lightning (31,458 to be exact, but I’ll be driving about 300 miles today).

Here’s my two-year review:

First, the problems with the Lightning:

• Every very hot day, we would get a powertrain error and DTC. This is because of the idiotic motorized shifter. I finally got around to replacing it with a dial shifter and a printed mount. I never did take it in to the dealer to replace the shifter.
• The local dealer is anti-EV, unreliable, and untrustworthy. They claimed to do some recall work on our Mustang Mach-E but never actually did. We had to take the Mustang to another dealer two hours away to get that recall work done.
• I wish the Lightning were the size of the Ranger instead.
• That’s it with problems with the Lightning.

The Lightning's lifetime average efficiency is just over 2.5 miles/kWh. It would be higher if we stayed home more often, but we do a LOT of road trips in the Lightning. We’ve done about 28,000 miles of road trips. That is, about 88% of the miles on the Lightning are road tripping. This map shows most of our road trips, including both the Mustang Mach-E and the Lightning. I do an ~monthly NAZ to LA trip that’s about 1100-1200 miles round trip. We also like to go camping in remote areas of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Nevada. If the trip is 12 hours or less of driving, it’s likely we’ll drive instead of fly.

Here are some photos from some of our adventures:

Playing with the drone and 4x4 performance of the Lightning.

Giving a friend’s EV6 some “roadside” charging in the cold winter.

Sneaking into Arches National Park via the “secret entrance.” We have a yearly pass to the National Parks, and we checked in when we left through the main entrance. They still got to count us as a visitor.

Camping at Kodachrome Basin State Park.

Playing with the installation of a 270 degree awning. I don’t like the placement, but to move it forward, I have to raise it a bit so it doesn’t hit the cab.

Visiting Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. Yes, those are solar panels on the bed cap. Yes, they were useful for our 10-day trip. We were able to charge a little bit every day while going out to do photography. We were also able to keep the fridge and freezer running without using the Pro Power plugs.

The funk is a fantastic camera equipment secure storage space.

Practicing a little with the snow plow. If we ever get more snow, I’ll probably add a front-mounted hitch and use it in the front.

Towing a tractor out to the middle of nowhere:

 

[cyure]

Beginning tomorrow, we’ll be at two years of ownership of the Lightning.
tl;dr:
It’s been the best vehicle we’ve ever owned.

But we still have no plans to buy another Ford. This is because we’re all BEV and will stay all BEV and I don’t believe I can trust Ford’s C-Suite to lead their engineers in the right direction.

We have approximately 32,000 miles on the Lightning (31,458 to be exact, but I’ll be driving about 300 miles today).

Here’s my two-year review:

First, the problems with the Lightning:

• Every very hot day, we would get a powertrain error and DTC. This is because of the idiotic motorized shifter. I finally got around to replacing it with a dial shifter and a printed mount. I never did take it in to the dealer to replace the shifter.
• The local dealer is anti-EV, unreliable, and untrustworthy. They claimed to do some recall work on our Mustang Mach-E but never actually did. We had to take the Mustang to another dealer two hours away to get that recall work done.
• I wish the Lightning were the size of the Ranger instead.
• That’s it with problems with the Lightning.

The Lightning's lifetime average efficiency is just over 2.5 miles/kWh. It would be higher if we stayed home more often, but we do a LOT of road trips in the Lightning. We’ve done about 28,000 miles of road trips. That is, about 88% of the miles on the Lightning are road tripping. This map shows most of our road trips, including both the Mustang Mach-E and the Lightning. I do an ~monthly NAZ to LA trip that’s about 1100-1200 miles round trip. We also like to go camping in remote areas of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Nevada. If the trip is 12 hours or less of driving, it’s likely we’ll drive instead of fly.

View attachment 14792

Here are some photos from some of our adventures:

Playing with the drone and 4x4 performance of the Lightning.

View attachment 14800

Giving a friend’s EV6 some “roadside” charging in the cold winter.

View attachment 14799
Sneaking into Arches National Park via the “secret entrance.” We have a yearly pass to the National Parks, and we checked in when we left through the main entrance. They still got to count us as a visitor.

View attachment 14798

Camping at Kodachrome Basin State Park.


View attachment 14797

Playing with the installation of a 270 degree awning. I don’t like the placement, but to move it forward, I have to raise it a bit so it doesn’t hit the cab.

View attachment 14796

View attachment 14795

Visiting Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. Yes, those are solar panels on the bed cap. Yes, they were useful for our 10-day trip. We were able to charge a little bit every day while going out to do photography. We were also able to keep the fridge and freezer running without using the Pro Power plugs.
View attachment 14794


The funk is a fantastic camera equipment secure storage space.

View attachment 14793


Practicing a little with the snow plow. If we ever get more snow, I’ll probably add a front-mounted hitch and use it in the front.
View attachment 14791


Towing a tractor out to the middle of nowhere:
View attachment 14801

Not having a BEV every so often the range anxiety creeps in when I think about getting a BEV Traveler. Then I see your posts and it floats away. Thanks Space!

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Not having a BEV every so often the range anxiety creeps in when I think about getting a BEV Traveler. Then I see your posts and it floats away. Thanks Space!

The past month or so has been a wild ride.

I think we're up to about 15 round trips of 250+ miles, a half-dozen round trips of 125 miles each. Multiple times we had a single night to recharge two BEVs from 30% to 100%. Only stopped at a DCFC a couple of times. Just lots of Level 2 charging at home. Today I'm going about 250 miles. Tomorrow I'll do another 250 miles. Monday I may do another.

My partner has, a couple of times, admitted that she has imagined that a PHEV/EREV might be preferred to a BEV, but she also said that was just an irrational thought based on feeling rather than reality. There hasn't been a time when we were restricted from getting to where we needed to be in the time we need to get there. The grass always seems greener...

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Just got home tonight with 58% charge. Will be at 100% well before tomorrow morning when we leave for another 250 mile day.

Thank the engineers for Level 2 charging.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Usually when we're charging an EV overnight, we use a little bit of our backup battery, but not all of it. We rarely draw from the grid.

Last night I had the truck on the 80A charge for 55kWh added. And the Mustang on the 48A charge for 50kWh added.

That brought our 64 kWh backup battery from 100% to 0% (and then drew from the grid). I'm happy that the cost of lithium batteries dropped to below the cost of AGM for our backups.

The backup should be fully recharged via solar by the time we're home this evening.