Its a cool truck IF you dont need to tow anything.
But a LOT of contractors tow trailers. Building supply trailers, tool trailers, heavy equipment trailers, air compressor trailers and then on the weekend pulling holiday trailers, boat trailers and sometimes car trailers or moving trailers - there’s a lot of things that get pulled by pickups - and they royally suck for range once you’re pulling. Range drops very dramatically.
Its one thing to pull into a gas station and refuel but MOST charging stations aren’t even set up as pull throughs, so a trailer is a major pain in the butt. The entire point of a new ‘tool’ like the Lightning is to make your life easier and more convenient, not less.
I will say though, that the new Silverado EV has surprisingly long range for an EV. Reportedly up to 800 km with no load and even at half range, 400 km while towing is still usable, not outstanding, but usable.
I deleted my previous reply as I did not properly read the article you linked. Motortrend briefly touch on the point that the Aging Wheels video goes into much more depth on. That it is aerodynamic efficiency, not weight that has the significant impact on range. This is an important distinction. Tools, construction materials, etc. weigh what they weigh, altering that variable to a significant degree is not really a feasable proposal and does rule out electric vehicles in general for viable long distance towing if this was the major impacting factor. Improving aerodynamic efficiency of heavy towed loads as a major impacting factor however is a much more viable strategy.
I think a more accurate criticism is that electric vehicles are a poor choice for towing aerodynamicly inefficient loads long distance, as whilst the efficiency loss impacts all vehicle types, the energy carrying capacity and recharge times of many current electric vehicles make them a worse choice.
That seems like a lot of words to say EV trucks suck at towing especially the Lightning.
The very nature of almost all trailers is that they dont have great aerodynamics, especially holiday trailers, a primary reason why people buy a pickup truck.
That doesn’t mean that it is financially unviable to improve tailers, to the benefit of both gas and electric vehicles. With the advent of Airshaper, CFD is commercially viable for trailer companies R&D if there is demand.
Its a cool truck IF you dont need to tow anything.
But a LOT of contractors tow trailers. Building supply trailers, tool trailers, heavy equipment trailers, air compressor trailers and then on the weekend pulling holiday trailers, boat trailers and sometimes car trailers or moving trailers - there’s a lot of things that get pulled by pickups - and they royally suck for range once you’re pulling. Range drops very dramatically.
Its one thing to pull into a gas station and refuel but MOST charging stations aren’t even set up as pull throughs, so a trailer is a major pain in the butt. The entire point of a new ‘tool’ like the Lightning is to make your life easier and more convenient, not less.
I will say though, that the new Silverado EV has surprisingly long range for an EV. Reportedly up to 800 km with no load and even at half range, 400 km while towing is still usable, not outstanding, but usable.
Aging wheels debunked this: https://youtu.be/UmKf8smvGsA
There are multiple *reputable *car and truck magazines that say range of the F150 Lightning drops in half while towing. https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/ford-f150-lightning-electric-truck-towing-test
MotorTrend real world range with no trailer: 255 miles.
Range with light, medium and heavy trailer: 115, 100 and 90 miles.
BIG range killer. Heavy trailer kills range to almost 1/3 of unloaded range.
The Lightning is particularly bad for towing.
I deleted my previous reply as I did not properly read the article you linked. Motortrend briefly touch on the point that the Aging Wheels video goes into much more depth on. That it is aerodynamic efficiency, not weight that has the significant impact on range. This is an important distinction. Tools, construction materials, etc. weigh what they weigh, altering that variable to a significant degree is not really a feasable proposal and does rule out electric vehicles in general for viable long distance towing if this was the major impacting factor. Improving aerodynamic efficiency of heavy towed loads as a major impacting factor however is a much more viable strategy.
I think a more accurate criticism is that electric vehicles are a poor choice for towing aerodynamicly inefficient loads long distance, as whilst the efficiency loss impacts all vehicle types, the energy carrying capacity and recharge times of many current electric vehicles make them a worse choice.
That seems like a lot of words to say EV trucks suck at towing especially the Lightning.
The very nature of almost all trailers is that they dont have great aerodynamics, especially holiday trailers, a primary reason why people buy a pickup truck.
That doesn’t mean that it is financially unviable to improve tailers, to the benefit of both gas and electric vehicles. With the advent of Airshaper, CFD is commercially viable for trailer companies R&D if there is demand.
deleted by creator
About 2/3 of truck owners rarely or never tow.