Ford F-150 Lightning winter towing tests and Engineers interview
Ford has been taking some hits in the media on the F-150 Lightning towing range, so we thought it would be good to test it ourselves and then get the background from the people who built the Lightning, especially as we head into winter. Along with Ford’s PR team, we were joined by:
- Dapo Adewusi, F-150 Lightning Engineering Manager
- Gitanjli McRoy, Chief Engineer, EV Energy Management Systems
Here’s the discussion along with firsthand towing impressions in both New York and Detroit.
I wanted to see how much range I’d lose while towing because there have been some recent videos showing only low double-digit-mile ranges coming out of the Lightning.
It is hard to quantify how much range you’d lose because of a ton of significant factors, like trailer weight, aerodynamics, and efficiency as well as normal EV range factors like elevation, climate, speed, etc., which are magnified while towing a trailer.
So I did two different tows: one with an open hauling trailer with a friend in New York and one with a closed trailer in Detroit – both very different experiences.
F-150 Lightning towing in the New York hills
After receiving the F-150 Lightning loaner, I immediately went to a friend’s place to try some towing. He’s got a tiny house Airbnb north of New York City, which requires hauling loads of firewood into the mountains. As the weather gets colder, the tiny house mini split heating requires 240V power, and we wanted to see if the Lightning could power it.
His trailer is about 7×5 feet and weighs about 5,000 pounds loaded. Using the rear and above camera views makes hitching the trailer a breeze.
Without any outside instruction, we were able to enter the info into the Lightning’s towing configurator and were off in a matter of minutes.
The trip was mostly uphill, and after about six minutes, our already dropping fast range dropped by about half, which was initially very scary. I had started the trip with about 180 miles of range and within a few miles of uphill road, we were at about 140 miles of range. The truck recalibrated us down to 68 miles of range, which was a bit scary since we had planned to try powering the house while we were there and had to make it back as well.
The truck continued to lose range quicker than we were using it until the top of the mountain where it equalized with the range. That gave us a lot of confidence to try powering the house since most of the return trip was downhill and we would be without the load of wood.
Lightning powers a tiny house, including heating, easily
This exercise doesn’t really have to do with towing, but while we were at the Tiny House, we decided to try to power the whole house, including mini split heating, using the F-150 Lightning’s Pro Power on board and 240V generator plug.
It just works. Usually, this requires a generator or a very large solar/battery setup, but not only can you tow a Tiny House (or Airstream/camper) to the middle of nowhere, you can also power it and heat it with the F-150 Lightning. I think I may have sold a few F-150s on this alone.
With the heat on full blast, the two power outputs stabilized at just over a kW, meaning we could have powered this thing for a full day using about 25kWh of battery.
The interesting thing about the trip back is that we ended with just about the same range as we’d started with, so we must’ve regenerated close to the 10 miles of range of the trip going downhill.
F-150 Lightning towing on flat ground
In Detroit, we drove an 8,000-pound trailer, 8×8 feet front end, about 15 miles on the highway, with about five miles of city driving, then 15 miles to return. Initially, while on the highway, I kept it at about 55-60mph (just under 100kmph). Most of the Detroit area is quite flat, so elevation isn’t a factor here, and it was about 40 degrees with rain. During this time, I saw energy usage at 1 mile/kW, which means we can extrapolate 130+ miles from the 131kWh usable battery. I would use this figure as a baseline for towing. You might get better in warmer, dryer conditions with a smaller trailer, but starting here is easy and effective, and you can always drop down to this speed when towing on the highway.
While driving in the city with stops and starts, I saw the mi/kWh go down to .9, so keep in mind that city driving with an 8,000-pound load won’t necessarily save you range.
On the return trip, I tried hitting 65-70mph for brief periods, and that took the power usage down to .8 miles per kWh. So by driving just 10 mph faster, the range went from approximately 130 miles to about 100 miles.
Conclusion: Speed kills range, but it kills it even harder with a 64-square-foot front trailer. I imagine the videos where the F-150 Lightning gets only a low double-digit range are staged or at best poorly planned.
I finished with the following numbers after mixed driving:
F-150 Lightning Towing Observations
- Probably the biggest takeaway for me is that towing is highly dependent on outside variables, many of which are controllable by the driver. Just dropping from about 67mph to about 57mph, for instance, added around 30 miles of towing range. The off-roading trim on my F-150 Lightning drops about 50 miles from the nontowing range, so prioritize accordingly.
- Preconditioning the vehicle in cold weather can save almost all losses from the weather. Towing does put a higher strain on the batteries, but that heat keeps the pack warm and helps heat the interior of the vehicle.
- One interesting thing I noted in hilly New York was that you lose a lot going uphill, but the regen going back down often mostly makes up for it (something that isn’t the case for ICE trucks).
- On highway driving, as long as the trailer is built and maintained well, weight IS NOT a huge factor in flat road driving but aerodynamics IS. It makes sense since once you get the inertia going, weight doesn’t really put a force on the vehicle (as long as the speed is consistent), but the drag from the trailer is a constant and strong force, which increases exponentially with speed.
- Plows (would impede the frunk) and camper backs aren’t currently supported officially on the F-150 Lightning, but Ford is taking this into consideration for the future. Ford also notes that it is your truck, and you can do what you want with it. Also, Ford officially supports putting 400 pounds in the trunk, which is a lot less than most plows.
- The overall towing experience is so smooth and effortless compared to ICE that drivers might forget they are towing. There’s no audible cue of higher revving and struggling motors. The electric drive system makes slowing down and speeding up seem like a normal drive. Ironically, forgetting you have a trailer can actually be a concern when maneuvering/cornering, so stay alert!
- There’s no way to sugarcoat it: The Lightning’s towing range isn’t as robust as its ICE counterparts. If you are towing a tiny house up a remote mountain, you might want to look elsewhere. However, for over 90% of towing use cases, the Lightning suffices, especially if planned accordingly with charging stops.
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National Grid Renewables has broken ground on its 100 MW Apple River Solar Project in Polk County, Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin solar farm, which will use US-made First Solar Series 6 Plus bifacial modules, will be constructed by The Boldt Company, creating 150 construction and service jobs. Apple River Solar will generate over $36 million in direct economic benefits over its first 20 years.
Once it comes online in late 2025, Apple River Solar will supply clean energy to Xcel Energy, which serves customers throughout the Upper Midwest. According to National Grid Renewables, the solar farm will generate enough energy to power around 26,000 homes annually. It will also offset about 129,900 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year – equivalent to taking 30,900 cars off the road.
“We are excited to see this project begin as it underscores our dedication to delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy to our customers,” said Karl Hoesly, President, Xcel Energy-Wisconsin and Michigan. “This project is an important step in those goals while bringing significant economic benefits to Polk County and the local townships.”
Electrek reported in February that Xcel Energy, Minnesota’s largest utility, expects to cut more than 80% – and possibly up to 88% – of its emissions by 2030, putting it on track to hit Minnesota’s goal of net zero by 2040. It also says it’s on track to achieve its clean energy goals for all the Upper Midwest states it serves – Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Michigan.
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Tesla has announced that it will finally deliver 500 kW charging as it is about to install its long-awaited V4 Supercharger cabinets.
The rollout of Supercharger V4 has been a strange one, to say the least.
Tesla has been deploying the new charging stations for two years and calling them “Supercharger V4”, but it has only been deploying the charging stalls.
Supercharger stations are made of two main parts: the stalls, which are where the charging cable is located, and the cabinets, which are generally located further back and include all the power electronics.
For all these new “Supercharger V4”, Tesla was actually using Supercharger V3 cabinets. This has been limiting the power output of the charging stations to 250 kW – although
Today, Tesla officially announced its “V4 Cabinet”, which the automaker claims will enable of “delivering up to 500kW for cars and 1.2MW for Semi.”
Here are the main features of the V4 Cabinet as per Tesla:
- Faster charging: Supports 400V-1000V vehicle architectures, including 30% faster charging for Cybertruck. S3XY vehicles enjoy 250kW charge rates they already experience on V3 Cabinet — charging up to 200 miles in 15 minutes.
- Faster deployments: V4 Cabinet powers 8 posts, 2X the stalls per cabinet. Lower footprint and complexity = more sites coming online faster.
- Next-generation hardware: Cutting-edge power electronics designed to be the most reliable on the planet, with 3X power density enabling higher throughput with lower costs.
Tesla reports that its first sites with the new V4 Cabinets are going into permitting now. The company expects its first sites to open next year.
We recently reported about Tesla’s new Oasis Supercharger project, which includes larger solar arrays and battery packs to operate the charging station mostly off-grid.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to all Supercharger stations, and Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
It took about 8 years, but it sounds like the pieces are now getting actually in place with Supercharger V4, Megapacks, and this new Oasis project.
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Hyundai has a new secret weapon it’s about ready to unleash. To revamp the brand in China and counter BYD’s surge, Hyundai is launching a new AI-powered EV next year. The new model will be Hyundai’s first dedicated electric car for the world’s largest EV market.
With the help of Haomo, a Chinese autonomous startup, Hyundai will launch its first EV equipped with generative AI. It will also be its first model designed specifically for China.
A Hyundai Motor official said (via The Korea Herald) the company is “working to load the software” onto the new EV model, “which will be released in the Chinese market next year.” The spokesperson added, “The level of autonomous driving is somewhere between 2 and 2.5.”
In comparison, Tesla’s Autopilot is considered a level 2 advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) on the SAE scale (0 to 5), meaning it offers limited hands-free features.
With Autopilot, you still have to keep your eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel, or the system will notify you and eventually disengage.
Haomo’s system, DriveGPT, unveiled last spring, takes inspiration from the OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT.
The system can continuously update in real-time to optimize decision-making by absorbing traffic data patterns. According to Haomo, DriveGPT is used in around 20 models as it looks to play a bigger role in China.
Hyundai hopes new AI-powered EV boosts sales in China
Electric vehicle sales continue surging in China. According to Rho Motion, China set another EV sales record last month with 1.2 million units sold, up 50% from October 2023.
Over 8.4 million EVs were sold in China in the first ten months of 2024, a notable 38% increase from last year.
BYD continues to dominate its home market. According to Autovista24, BYD accounted for 32.9% of all PHEV and EV (NEV) sales in China through September, with over half of the top 20 best-selling EV models.
Tesla was second with a 6.5% share of the market, but keep in mind these numbers only include plug-in models (PHEV).
Like most foreign automakers, Hyundai is struggling to keep up with the influx of low-cost electric models in China. Beijing Hyundai’s sales have been slipping since 2017. Through September, Korean automaker’s share of the Chinese market fell to just 1.2%.
Last month, Hyundai opened its first overseas digital R&D center in China to help kick off its return to the region.
According to local reports, Hyundai is partnering with other local tech companies like Thundersoft, a smart cockpit provider, and others in China to power up its next-gen EVs
With its first AI-powered EV launching next year, Hyundai hopes to turn things around in the region quickly. The new model will be one of five to launch in China through 2026.
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