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Hey, this is Seth with Electrek and we've got a special podcast presentation for you. I'm here at Ford's headquarters and we just did some towing with the F-150 Lightning. We have two of Ford's project managers with us, or you should give me your titles. Who do I have with us?
Gathangeli McBray, I'm the chief engineer for EV Energy Management Systems. Dapo Adewusi, I'm the vehicle engineering manager for F-150 Lightning. Okay, so we just took the F-150 Lightning on a towing adventure, I would say. It's pouring down rain here. It's like 40 degrees Fahrenheit. And we took it around Detroit toward the airport and on mostly highways.
And we got about 0.9 miles per kilowatt, which I think comes out if you've got a 131 kilowatt hour battery to somewhere over 100 miles. And we've seen some reports recently and some clickbait YouTubes where people are complaining about the mileage. So even with the 40 degrees, we're kind of on flat ground here in Detroit.
What can we kind of expect when we get to wintertime in terms of what kind of range is a typical Ford F-150 Lightning going to see when it gets down to 15 degrees, 30 degrees? I mean, I can start. I mean, the effect on range or key factors don't change with...
with weather, right? I mean, we talked about speed, which you observed, right? If you go really fast, you're going to see that efficiency drop, right? And if you're towing something that has a huge frontal area, that's also going to impact what you're moving. Then you got weight, obviously, right? But once you start rolling, the weight's
It's not as, it's not like the highest factor, right? Right. Then you have temperature. Then topography. Are you going up a grade or not, right? And I think to your question, temperature, the key is before you start driving, precondition your vehicle, plug it in so the battery is in a nice operating mode before you start, right? No, I totally agree with your statements, Dapo. Yeah.
When we talk about towing and talk about the influences, you're taking your decrementing from your starting range. So that's why the starting range is really important with that preconditioning to get that battery in the best operating temperature it can for the start of that journey. And so just to drill down a little bit more, we had a 8,000 pound trailer. I think it was eight feet wide. And-
Yeah. Eight by eight. Yeah. So I would say it was pretty big on the, you know, on the trailers I've seen scale, it seemed pretty large, but the drive wasn't, you know, it wasn't particularly harrowing, even though, you know, it was raining. And so what kind of work did you guys put in, in addition to, you know, the range, what kind of work did you guys put in to make it a smoother ride? Yeah.
I mean, we took through the initial setup, so that setup process, right? So entering your profile because that's important for that intelligent range feature that
and basically gives you a prediction of what you're going to get for range. And also the features that ensure you're loaded correctly, right? Right. The smart hitch and making sure you don't have too much on the rear or on the front. That's also key. Then just being a...
a vehicle that has a near 50-50 weight split in the rear suspension. That all adds to that experience. And it's quiet, right? So you don't have noise of an engine, right? So that whole experience where it's the work that was done to optimize the load, the handling, that's what you experience there. It's just nice and smooth and great.
relaxing experience towing. And it's for... Seth also mentioned too the propulsion that you have on the vehicle. And I think you mentioned it while we were on the drive, how effortless it was that you...
you don't feel that same kind of experience of like, oh, I have a heavy trailer behind me. So that 775 foot pounds of torque, you know, really kind of come in handy. And I think where I feel that you really experience that is when you're trailering and you're merging on a traffic onto the highway. Yeah. The confidence you get to be able to do that is really driven by what you have there with the propulsion system. Right. And I would say it's almost...
I don't want to say dangerous, but it's so smooth and easy to drive that...
you forget your your trailering and then all of a sudden you're making a turn and you're not doing the equations of you know what's behind you so that's a good problem to have I guess so you know moving around the the vehicle we're entering into wintertime you know we talked about this before the lightning isn't something that's gonna have a a plow on it right
Yeah, I mean, the key here is we've optimized the frunk experience, right? Right. So you can load that frunk to 400 pounds. You can open and close it, right? So it's optimized around that experience and allow you to use that feature, which we know our customers love.
If you like to use a snow plow, we have other F-150s that accommodate that, right? Right. And we know it's an all-electric feature. At some point, there's probably going to be some consideration to plowing. We're always looking to improve our product. Right, right. So, you know, a lot of people tow boats, tow trailers, right?
Do you have any data on what percentage of your current users are towing? We're always looking at connected vehicle data. We know that
Over 70% of F-Series customers tow. How many people are towing the current Lightning? That's information that we need to go look at. Okay. Don't have that here today, but that information is available. Okay. And, I mean, is there any information on, like, you know, pre, like, people buying an F-150 Lightning with the intent of towing? Or is that, do you guys have any data on, like, who's, like, your customer profile? Is it somebody or is...
Are we just too early stages to know that stuff? We would have to... I can probably try and find that out from the product marketing team. Okay. Yeah. So...
you know at but we know it's i mean it's a truck right it's like 150 there and as davo said there's a high percentage of customers that that tow so we do we have engineered it so that people can tow with that vehicle that's what you experienced today yeah and so moving back into the cold weather stuff um we were talking previously about a customer in alaska who drives back and forth what what
profile does that person have? How far is his
towing and and what kind of temperatures does that person i think or is it a family they operate in i can't maybe to answer your question right it's not really what would they see right i think like we've said before the key is that customer needs to precondition right right if the ambient temperature drops below the what we experienced today or even much lower right you want to plug your vehicle in you want to precondition so the vehicle is ready for you to
Right. And it's nice that they're already plugged in, you know, typically from charging. Like I know in Alaska, a lot of the vehicles are plugged in even if they're gas. Right. So. It's not unusual for Alaskan customers to, you know, have their engine block heaters as well too, right? Right. I think there's experience there of getting your vehicle ready for the day. Right. Then another key thing is towing or not towing, right? It's, it's,
full-time all-wheel drive you have two motors right so the modes are optimized for that experience right i mean we had videos where we showed uh for doing development in alaska right towing on on snow right so
I've heard some people say, why don't you have a snow mode? The normal mode, the other modes are all optimized to whatever you decide to use it for. Yeah, I was towing with somebody and he was asking, well, where's the low mode? And it was like, well, the torque is pretty heavy duty all the way through. Is that something that, what do you have to kind of educate people
people who are coming over from older F-150s to the Lightning. What kind of education do you guys have to do for those customers? So, I mean, the key is repeating symptoms, like teaching them about preconditioning, teaching them about planning your trip, right?
I mean, if you're someone that tows every day and drives 500 miles every day, we also teach you that this might not be the vehicle for you, right? So just letting them know on EVs, you got to plan your trip and know where you're going. If you're going out of town, right? Plan the trip. Know that it's going to charge. Know how long it's going to take, right? We have...
Power My Trip is a feature that lets you do that. And besides charging, there's other considerations like the no different low and high. It's full-time four-wheel drive. I don't know if the typical F-150 has full-time. When you say typical F-150 ice, yeah, you can have a 4x4 or 4x2. Lightning is full-time.
I think quite a few customers, even on the F-150 Ice, will put it in auto as well, too, for their 4x4. So it's just kind of built in. So if you're used to having an auto, that's what your Lightning is. It's just always all-wheel drive. It's ready. It's putting the torque where you need it and doing it efficiently between the wheels.
front and rear motors that's doing that work for you. So I think it's, if anything, it's in some ways simplified the driving, though I totally agree with Dapo. I think one of the areas that the customer learning will be about the need to spend a little bit more time on the trip planning part of it and the tools that are there that support that planning. Yeah. Then we emphasize that it's built for tough. It's gone through the same rigorous tasks that
If it's a customer coming from a gas F-150, they're used to the build for tough mantra. So this is also built for tough. We let them know that you can tow tens of pounds if you didn't know that and haul up to 22,235 pounds, right? So it's just letting them know it's, even though it's electric, it's still an F-150. Okay. And so to switch gears, to use a tired euphemism,
A little bit. We're going to talk a little bit about the demand for F-150s seems to be a little bit off the charts. I don't think you've had even order books open for over a year. And everybody's talking about them. They're selling on the secondary market for much over MSRP.
How do you guys think about ramping up your, you know, we've heard that there's going to be a kind of a hockey stick type of ramp of F-150 Lightnings. How do you guys get to that point? You know, how do you get to a full, you know, how do you transition people away from ICE F-150s into electric ones?
So this is probably out of the wheelhouse of both of the... Okay. ...at the table here. Okay. But I think we've already talked about the fact that we'll be able to ramp. We're ramping next year. We continue to ramp, but we're aiming to hit an annual production run rate of 150,000 units a year by the end of 2023. Okay. For the F-150 Lightning.
Okay. So, you know, getting back into engineering, can we talk about tires a little bit? Are there special, you know, I know Goodyear has been sending me PR emails about, you know, their new electric vehicle tires. Are there any, because of the heavier weight of the batteries, are there any considerations with tires on F-150s?
I mean, actually, the current Lightning, the three of the four tires are actually tires that are already available in the... The options, yeah. The gas, right? The one that's currently unique is probably the all-season 20s, right? Those are optimized for a roller resistance for the truck. And those will get more range on a highway or something? Yeah, it's been optimized, yeah, for a roller resistance, so...
part of the enabler for the 320 miles. And somebody who does a lot of road trips would think about that as a primary option. Well, I mean, the EPA range on the Lariat is 320, right? Then the Platinum is 300. Then if you use the standard battery, you get 220.
23 model is 240. so depending on what you want to use you have that option right and do you find that most people are after that option or where do people prioritize you know range versus off-road capability well i mean
this is probably something we can get back to you and see what's currently going i think your question is what are people what's the take on the tires the tires right well the the high volume tire is the hall season tire so most people are going for that option okay and that that's the default kind of it's the and that mix the lariat that is your okay that's your standard that's your standard tire by default
And so, you know, I probably should know this, but like the smaller range truck also tows, but not the same. Yeah. So here's the difference, right? So if you want to tow 10,000 pounds, you need the extended range battery, probably equipped for a max still, right? Then on the standard battery, the max is probably equipped with the cooling system is 7,700. Okay. And the standard is 5,000. Okay. Okay.
And then, you know, we saw, you know, kind of our range dropped in half when we went to the, when it finally configured itself. I think it was six minutes or six miles. Six miles, right? So what happens is when your initial setup, so first time you're a customer just butt of your coal and you have a nice trailer, you follow the process, right? Hitch up, make sure you're safe, set up your profile, right? Yeah.
then there will be a literature that comes up and tells you it's going to calibrate, it's going to optimize within so many, a short duration. And that's what you experience within six miles. The vehicle optimized, and there was a little symbol on that profile that told you you were ready. And at the same time, you saw the message in the cluster saying, now optimize, right? Right. And that number was there. Right. So why six miles? Is that like a...
I mean, actually, we said six miles, but I was monitoring what you were doing. It didn't take six miles to get the message, right? It's just the key is a short duration after you start driving. It does the comparison to the other vehicles that have done similar routes or have similar profiles. Then it sends you what your projection should be. Yeah.
And once it's calibrated, it's calibrated. Once it's calibrated, yeah, this is just the first time. Next time you use the same trailer, it's done. Yeah, right from starting, you know where you're going to go. So, you know, I guess for a lot of people, they understand, like, if you go slower, you're going to get better range. But I think the factor by which the range goes down is
when you start going 60, 70, even 80 miles per hour with a trailer. I don't think people quite understand that. Why is it such a big change when you have a trailer versus when you're just driving on the highway?
So your driving behavior is always going to affect your range. When you have the trailer along with you and you are going at different vehicle speeds, remember that frontal area of that trailer is an impact on your range. So as you're going faster, you're pulling and you're pushing that frontal area through that range.
the wind, I'll call it, you know, and so you're having, you need the power to pull all that and push all that through. Yeah. So it's the combination of the speed you're going at and that frontal area of the trailer. So I guess like the drag kind of, you know, compounds everything.
And the faster you go, it's not just a linear. It's like a... Yeah, it's not linear. It's more parabolic. It's just more resistance the faster you go. Right. And you're also overcoming not just arrow, but road, all that stuff, right? Right. And, you know, like obviously we're talking about this. We're hoping to educate our readers. Do the dealers and do your kind of liaisons...
out there also explain to customers? Is there kind of like a learning process that happens? I mean, there's when you go and pick up your vehicle, the dealer should take you around the vehicle. But one of the benefits of the towing setup, for example, is what's in the cluster and how it takes you through step by step of setting up and making sure that each time you connect a trailer that is on.
And just to add to that, it's not, that's not like an intervention we just did for lightning. That step, that process is also there on the F series products, right? So they have shown people how to do that. We've optimized it to be better for the lightning, but it's a similar walkthrough, right? Yeah. I guess like what I mean is specifically in regard to range, because I know there's been a lot of, you know,
I would say negative media recently about, you know, Oh, I didn't get, you know, I have 320 miles of range and I only got, you know, 30 or 40 or something weird. Yeah. I mean, if you, I think there's a whole process where the dealership was educated on what to tell the customer. But if you go back to basic physics, right, it's, there's an energy source, which is your battery. And on the gas, there's also a same energy source. The physics is the same, right? Um,
When you pull that trailer, the factors we told you is also the same on the ICE. It's just that energy source you have to go spend time to charge rather than go to a gas station. But the physics, the explanation is pretty much the same. I think that one of the differences between our ICE and our electric vehicles just depends
Again, back to the physics is that electric vehicles are more efficient. And so when you see things that are your ad or you have influences and they're driving that take away from efficiency, you notice them more than you do on the ice. And that's why I think that as customers, that's part of that learning as well, too. OK, so, you know, one of the advantages of electric vehicles versus internal combustion engines is that when you get to altitude, you
uh you're climbing a mountain um there's less air to combust it's thinner um what you know how does how does that help um and you know what other kind of advantages are there to electric uh propulsion versus internal complete combustion in this kind of context yeah we talked about that a little bit on our drive right the advantage of the fact that um
on EV without having the need to have an air induction. You're not, you have more consistency of propulsion performance regardless of what altitude you're at, where you would notice those differences on the ice because of the pressure differences and air induction. So that's definitely one of the advantages I think on EVs is having that consistent performance regardless of your altitude location on your drive.
So I think that's one great part of it. I mean, the other thing of an advantage that I think that we talk about often, and we mentioned it a little bit earlier as far as the effortless feel of when you're towing and coming on to highway, merging in, is having that torque, early beginning of that max torque, right? It's pretty instantaneous. And when you have that
how that it translates into your feel of the vehicle, just in the fun part of the driving aspect, but also the confidence that it gives you, whether you're trailering or not. Again, that's one of my favorite things is the confidence of being able to merge onto the highway and know exactly, I'm going to put myself between these two vehicles and I'm going to, yeah, and I have confidence that I'm going to hit that spot.
So I think the experience of that near instantaneous torque really translates into quite a few of the driving experiences that you have with the EV over an ICE. Yeah, then to add, right, so your scenario is in the mountains and altitude, right? The other thing that's clearly different from EV versus ICE is
On the backside, you got to come down the mountain, right? So on ice, you're not going to gain back fuel, but you're going to get regenerative braking and put some of that energy back into the vehicle. So you come down like ice an hour, you come back down, you're like, oh my goodness, I got all this back, right? So that's pretty cool, right? You get that. And also...
It's coming down, and it's not screaming at you. Right. On an ICE, you tow haul and downshift, and it's 4,000 RPM. I'm like, oh, my goodness, the truck's going to blow up. But this, not literally, but this on the EV is quiet, and it adds to that effortless experience, right? It's quiet. You're in control. Like Jatanda, you said, you have all the torque, and you can talk and have a discussion like we're having here without straining your voice. Yeah. That's cool.
Yeah, and I guess you probably use a lot less braking, so you don't need to change your brakes as often, and brake dust isn't everywhere. So that's another benefit.
Um, so, you know, the last thing is, you know, we towed a trailer today. Um, are you like it, it, the F-150 lightning almost seems like the perfect, um, you know, to, to trip, to, to, to take like a airstream because not only do you have, you know, torque to bring it everywhere, but you also have power. Um, you know, talk to us about that a little bit. What's, what's like the airstream experience and, and what do you get from that?
So we're referencing our ProPower on board, right? So it's just one of the things that I think we're really excited about at Ford. Where we have a battery available, you basically have a mobile power source, right? So why not take advantage of it? And with the lightning, with up to 9.6 kilowatts of ProPower on board, I mean, that's quite a bit.
You can do quite a few things with it. And even as we were looking at the number of devices that you could do, one of the scenarios we did was camping, right? So let's see how you can support overnight camping and
kept putting devices on the list and it was, you have to put a lot on that list to get to 96 kilowatts. You can almost have a village of Airstreams. Yeah. So, yeah, so that's definitely a part of the EV experience is to have that mobile power source and be able to do that. And you mentioned Airstream, but the other way that we view the truck is it is a tool, a
as well too. So for those that use their truck for work, that same 9.6 kilowatts can also power quite a few worksite devices as well too. So I'm trying to cover both work and play. Sure.
Yeah, and the team that developed the feature has also ensured that if you're camping and you're using that mobile power source, you can ensure that you set maybe a limit, a point where, okay, I need to still be able to get back to where, so you can say, okay, use this much, but don't use it all right. Or you know the next charging spot is this many miles away. You can set it up so that. So then it will remind you.
Oh, okay. Well, you can choose to follow directions or not, right? So that's all part of the experience, ensuring that you can use that Airstream and enjoy your campsite. All right. Well, thank you so much for having us. This is Seth with Electric. I'm going to sign off.
