Connect with us

Published

on

Besides F-150 Lightning towing, I also wanted to see how good the electric pickup would be for road-tripping. So I planned a trip from New York City to Detroit. And by planned, I mean I put the trip in Google Maps and made sure there were Electrify America (EA) stops along the way. Could it be this easy?

In short? Yes, mostly. But let’s check the details because that’s where the devil lies.

So traveling from New York to Detroit is mostly on Interstate 80 across Pennsylvania and Ohio. Fortunately, I come from outside of Cleveland – there was a Yankees/Guardians playoff game and a visit to my family to break up the trip a bit. But if I was going direct, this is what it would look like:

A Better Route Planner (ABRP) shows the following route for the 625-mile trip:

The stops are anywhere from 100-150 miles apart and each lasts under 30 minutes for charging. Normally this would be the beginning and end of my route planning but I know a lot of folks are a bit wary of long-distance EV travel and might want to think about backups.

Also Ford vehicles have Plug and Charge on Electrify America so you don’t have to mess with apps or a credit card. You just plug right in and charging starts about 20 seconds later, give or take.

In the unlikely event one of the chargers was down, Plugshare shows a ton of options during the first third of the trip and the last third but only a few fast chargers in the eastern two-thirds of Pennsylvania.

Plugshare

I should have paid more attention to this map, not because any of the chargers weren’t in working order but because it presented me with an option (Clarion Walmart 150kW EA station at the radius line) that would have allowed me to miss a stop and get to my destination quicker. ABRP was good, not great at planning this route.

Ford F-150 Lightning aerodynamics

Because I was going on a road trip, I thought I’d be able to go a little faster if I made the vehicle a little more aerodynamic. A pickup without a tonneau cover is about as bad as it gets with vehicle aerodynamics, and I thought I could save valuable time (shorter charger stops, driving much faster) if I added one. Ford obliged me, and Pleasantville Ford had a vinyl one installed over a lunch break. They also had the exact vehicle I was driving center stage in the showroom and apparently were selling quite a few of them. (See photo above.)

The F-150 Lightning is also a huge vehicle. Here it is compared to my Model 3 and my garage. For the record, I’d never buy one of these for road trips or for commuting or anything other than as a work truck. But these are the best-selling vehicles in the US, and I don’t think that many people use them only for work.

Ford F-150 Lightning road trip

I left home fully charged with about 284 miles showing on the F-150 Lightning and about 150 miles to the first charging spot in Bloomsburg PA. I drove at about 65-70mph the whole way and was getting pretty similar if slightly worse range than had been predicted. I got a chance to use Blue Cruise, and it worked really well.

Blue Cruise in the F-150 allows you to take your hands off the wheel in Interstate driving situations, and it felt similar to Chevy’s Supercruise, like you are a passenger in the car. There is a slight bouncing from side to side in the lanes that happens sometimes, particularly on roads with poor paint. Overall, it was right up there with GM’s Supercruise in terms of hands-off autopilot experience. Changing podcasts on CarPlay or finding a snack in my bag are super easy.

I’d been to Bloomsburg PA before because there is a Tesla Charger at the Ruby Tuesdays right off the highway. Unfortunately, the EA station was over two miles from the highway on a road running parallel.

Luckily, however, it is located at a Sheetz next to an Arby’s, so dinner was on. I arrived with over a third of a full charge, and I could have probably gone safely another 80 miles. I initially got 167kW charge that went up to almost 180kW.

I only stayed at the station for around 22 minutes, which was enough time to get a sandwich in me and enough charge in the Lightning to the next charging station in Dubois, Pennsylvania.

This was a mistake.

Had I stayed another 10-15 minutes, I could have easily made it to the 150kW Walmart in Clarion, Pennsylvania, and could have made it to Akron, Ohio, easily from there. I think ABRP had me go to the earlier station because it was a 350kW. But really 150kW station would have given me 90% of the speed I was seeing at both of the 350kW stations. Lesson learned.

I saw a slightly faster speed at the DuBois Walmart (which was also a few miles off the highway), topping out in the 180-190kW range.

I then had to stop at the Sheetz EA in Youngstown to top off. From there, I only needed about 10 minutes of charge to get to my destination in Akron where a Level 2 overnight charge was waiting for me.

Here I had the only EA fault of the trip. (See below.) I actually didn’t have to move the F-150, just grab a plug from a neighboring charge port and bring it over. Back in business.

Generally speaking, EA stations were pretty consistent, and I would see about 170-180kW to start, about 133kW at 50% state of charge, and down to about 115kW at 70% state of charge. I didn’t really ever have to stay anywhere longer than 30 minutes.

Interestingly, the hotel where I stayed had another F-150 Lightning charging where mine was. It was a rare Pro trim and the first Ive seen in the wild.

For the record, we took my mom’s Chevy Bolt to Downtown Cleveland to watch the game (Cleveland won with a walk-off – woo) because I didn’t want to have to park the F-150, though I probably could have.

The next day, I left Akron with a full charge and headed 140 miles toward Detroit. I could have easily made it the whole way but wanted to have some charge for towing the next morning, so I filled up again outside of Toledo.

Electrek’s take

Yes, you absolutely can take an F-150 Lightning on a road trip.

Is the Lightning the best vehicle for a trip cross country? No. If I was driving a Kia EV6 or a Model 3, the charging stops would have been half as long. It would have required half the energy.

But it was a good experience and will get better as EA and other charger ventures fill those gaps and make picking a charging stop the same as picking a gas station.

As for the chargers, EA with Plug and Charge is as easy as a Tesla and, in many cases, just as fast. I would have liked Chargers closer to the highway, but we’ll get there.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.


Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.

Continue Reading

Environment

Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

Published

on

By

Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.

France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.

At the same time, the EU’s transport sector has struggled to reduce emissions at the same rate as other industries – and road freight in particular is a major contributor to harmful carbon emissions issue due to that industry’s heavy reliance on diesel-powered trucks.

And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:

Advertisement – scroll for more content

While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.

FRANCO-GERMAN COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC EXPERTS (FGCEE)

That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.

“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”

The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.

You can read an English version of the CAE FGCEE joint statement here.

Electrek’s Take

Hydrogen-sceptical truck maker MAN to produce limited series of 200 vehicles with H2 combustion engines
MAN hydrogen semi; via MAN Trucks.

MAN Trucks’ CEO famously said that it was “impossible” for hydrogen to compete with BEVs, and even committed to building 200 hydrogen-powered semi truck to prove out that hypothesis.

He’s not alone. MAN’s board member for research and development, Frederik Zohm, said that the company is the one saying hydrogen still has years to go. “(MAN) continues to research fuel cell technology based on battery electrics,” he said, in a statement quoted by Hydrogen Insight, before another board member added that, “we (MAN) expect that, in the future, we will be able to best serve the vast majority of our customers’ transport applications with battery-electric trucks.”

With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.

SOURCE | IMAGES: CAE FGCEE; via Electrive.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Continue Reading

Environment

Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

Published

on

By

Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

On today’s tariff-tastic episode of Quick Charge, we’ve got tariffs! Big ones, small ones, crazy ones, and fake ones – but whether or not you agree with the Trump tariffs coming into effect tomorrow, one thing is absolutely certain: they are going to change the price you pay for your next car … and that price won’t be going down!

Everyone’s got questions about what these tariffs are going to mean for their next car buying experience, but this is a bigger question, since nearly every industry in the US uses cars and trucks to move their people and products – and when their costs go up, so do yours.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Continue Reading

Environment

SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

Published

on

By

SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.

GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.

At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.

The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”

SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.

Read more: The largest clean energy project in US history closes $11B, starts full construction


If you live in an area that has frequent natural disaster events, and are interested in making your home more resilient to power outages, consider going solar and adding a battery storage system. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –trusted affiliate link*

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Continue Reading

Trending