• LoveCanada@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    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.

    • Slevin06@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      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.

      • LoveCanada@lemmy.ca
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        21 hours ago

        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.

        • Slevin06@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          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.