What do you get for starting $47,000?
One YouTuber learned the hard way that towing a heavy load is more complicated with an electric truck than a gasoline-powered one.
In a recent video on his Hoovie’s Garage channel, Tyler Hoover put the towing capability of his Ford F-150 Lightning to the test — and he called the experience a “complete and total disaster.” The saga illustrates one of the challenges to owning a battery-powered truck: towing range.
Hoover charged up his Lightning to 200 miles (almost all of its 230-mile range) and set out for a trip to his mechanic 32 miles away to pick up a 1930 Ford Model A and tow it home. As soon as Hoover set out pulling an empty trailer, the Lightning’s range started “dropping like a stone.”
In the end, the 64-mile journey sucked up 150 miles of range from the Lightning’s battery.
“The truck towing 3,500 pounds can’t even go 100 miles,” he said. “That is ridiculously stupid. This truck can’t do normal truck things.”
Yes, it is very stupid
To be sure, Hoover’s test wasn’t exactly scientific. In a follow-up video, he conceded that his trailer and boxy 1930 Ford weren’t especially aerodynamic.
Still, the clip highlights an important point: Extra weight and drag can deal a significant blow to an electric vehicle’s range, which can make towing with them tricky. Gas trucks lose efficiency when towing too, but with them it’s easy to pull over and fuel up. Running low on energy in an EV means stopping for 45 minutes at a fast-charging station.
Car buyers aren’t looking for scientific: they want their vehicles to do what they’re supposed to do in real life, not in perfect scenarios of testing.
Also very stupid?
Proposition 30 has voters deciding on a tax for zero-emission vehicles. What you need to know
On its face, Proposition 30 is simple enough: Raise taxes on the richest Californians. Pull in $30 billion to $90 billion over the next 20 years. Use 80% of the money to subsidize electric vehicles and charging stations, and 20% for wildfire suppression and prevention.
The fight for votes has prompted plenty of sloganeering and a gusher of spending.
Supporters say Proposition 30 is essential to address climate change. Opponents say it’s not.
Opponents say higher taxes will chase wealthy, job-producing people from the state. Supporters say the rich can afford it, and there’s no proof high-income earners are fleeing the state.
You know it won’t work, because these schemes never work. Whatever happened to all the money from cap and trade? “Erratic and unpredictable.” How about from marijuana? It created a huge black market, and the inflowing tax is about half of expected. Businesses have, in fact, left. But, you do you, California. Every experiment needs an experimental group.
On its face, Proposition 30 is simple enough: Raise taxes on the richest Californians.
Liberals HAVE to support this. They always claim the rich aren’t paying their “fair share”*, aren’t they?
*This term has never been defined, at least not by lefties.
All of which was predicted by sane people.
Considering in the not-so-distant future the Government can and will mandate EVs be connected to the internet I No longer have any desire to have an Electric Car or Truck at all. Period.
They will simply use the internet as a tool to monitor your activities including CHARGING. They can tell your car not to charge at certain hours and if you disconnect from the internet the EV will NOT charge. And they are going to tell you to not charge most days and nights since there is NO longer any reliable electricity you will find your EV a very expensive lawn ornament.
I had a friend buy solar panels and lament them every day. The area he is located gets full sun very few days per year since it is mostly cloudy, foggy, or overcast. When he does get the sun it is low in the sky and his panels are pointed in the wrong direction because of the way his house was built.
There are entire areas of the US that face less than nominal sunlight and little wind forcing them to power their homes HOW? Who cares snicker the AGW NAZIS.
Out in the Street wrote:
I can’t say that your friend was very bright if he had solar panels installed in the wrong direction!
Solar panels would work well on my humble abode, since both one roof of the house and one side of the garage/shop rood face southwest. A windmill, maybe not so much, because in a river valley between low hills, while the wind does whistle through here in the fall and winter, we usually don’t get much in the spring and summer. The river valley here runs roughly northwest to southeast.
I can’t say that your friend was very bright if he had solar panels installed in the wrong direction!
Ever been to the Seattle/Tacoma area? Fog and clouds nearly every day.
He understood that he was not in an optimal area for solar but figured that if he could get 40 percent of 20k volts he would be set. He gets about 15 percent on an average day since it is so cloudy in Seattle or actually the great Northwest.
Life is full of not-so-bright decisions. But sometimes when a person who is a doctor and a semi-environmentalist can afford 50k like you and I can afford Slurpees then spending that kind of money was not an issue for him. He does not lament spending the money, he laments that his panels do not even give him 15 percent of their max(annually) and he went with overkill.
The story was designed to point out that there are many areas in the USA that cannot use solar panels with any kind of efficiency unless the US government or state government mandates them, hooks them to the grid and PAYS FOR THEM.
I would install panels on my home only if the local electric utility paid for them since they are the ones that truly benefit from the electricity I would produce.
Is this supposed to be a surprise?
The range of any pickup is usually cut by 50% while towing. Most people who but an EV are not planning on doing a lot of frequent long distance tows.
If you are going to do that don’t buy one.
The estimated cost for charging a Ford Lightning is 20$ per week. That would buy you 5 gallons of gas which would take you how far?
Child, the left wants to – and is in some cases, succeeding – at taking those choices away.
It’s good to hear that you do NOT support things like CA’s all-electric declaration.
The Hirsute One wrote:
Oddly enough, when I was towing U-Haul trailers between Jim Thorpe and Old Creekmore Farm — how our current property was listed in the Estill County Deed Book in 1906 — I didn’t have to make more than the one stop for fuel listed here, if the range had been cut by 50%, I’d have arrived at my destination on fumes; I didn’t.
Translation: if you are going to use a truck as a truck, rather than a fancy vehicle for hauling groceries and beer, don’t buy an electric pickup.
I have a 42-foot Fifth wheel and a dodge 3500 one-ton, non dually, Diesel.
When I pull the Fifth Wheel I get about 8 miles to a gallon. In town, the Diesel gets around 14 mpg and I can get around 18 mpg on the highway not towing anything.
Diesel trucks are designed to WORK. An electric Truck is not going to work well at all and I have to laugh at Hairy and his fleet of Semis trolling the gas stations every 100 miles pulling 80,000 lbs. I can imagine a Semi using at least 6 to 8 motors and needing three to four battery packs to run 40 tons on the Hiway 300-400 miles per day if they are lucky. Can you imagine the electricity that 1 million electric Semis will be drawing from the LOCAL MUNICIPALITIES every day?
Pretty soon when 1000’s of semis force power rationing in local cities near highways the people will be rebelling in those cities.
EVS are still not ready for prime time but I really don’t care if people buy them but I do care that the NAZIS are trying to destroy Fossil fuels before we are even anywhere close to replacing them with Green Energy.
I understand their plan fully. Force it down their throats and they will have no choice. And he is right. When there are no longer any coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants operating in the USA there are going to need to be solar panels on every house and oceans of windmills spread across the country taking up the valuable farm and ranch land.
ALL WERE PURCHASED FROM CHINA BY THE WAY. Tell me the AGW agenda is not driven by CHINA??
But hey, I forgot they don’t want us to eat meat either cause that takes up valuable windmill land.
If Civil War ever starts it will be when we wake up one morning and we have no power and no internet because we can’t produce enough thanks to Hairy and Dowd. Or even better for the AGW NAZIS FUNDED BY CHINA.
When we all wake up in our hi-rise with no power and a box of bugs to eat and CCP communists from China patroling our streets we can thank the DOWDS and HAIRYS of the world.
My 2010 Ford F-150 came with a standard 36 gallon fuel tank. When I fuel up, the counter on the dash panel says that I have 650 miles to E.
In the process of moving between Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania and our new (to us, anyway) home in the Daniel Boone National Forest, I made several trips between the two, pulling a U-Haul trailer. Yes, I could definitely feel the drag of the trailer in the mountains of Maryland and West Virginia, especially on I-68 in Maryland, but I still had to refuel only once on the trip, either at the Valero station in Jane Lew (Exit 104 on I-79) or the BP station in Flatwoods (Exit 67), both in the Mountain State. That decision was usually taken based on whether I wanted fast food at Flatwoods.
Without the trailer, and starting with a very full fuel tank, I could, technically, made the trip, 624 miles, without refueling, but I’d have arrived on fumes, and I wasn’t stupid enough to try that. I preferred to fuel up in West Virginia rather than Pennsylvania of Maryland because fuel taxes are lower in WV.
The extended-range battery pack will take the truck 320 miles, or slightly less than half how far my 2010 F-150, with a smaller V-8, will go. If I had to make that trip today, in an F-150 Lightning, without a trailer, I’d have to stop twice to recharge, unless I was stupid enough to drive until I was at a “flat can” on battery charge.
That’s the thing about range guesstimates: only stupid or careless people drive until they’re almost out of fuel or battery power. If you have an estimated 320 mile range, you ought to be thinking about recharging after 250 miles at most, because you never know what might lay ahead of you on the road. If you’ve got just the standard 240 mile range, after 180 miles you’re down to a “quarter tank,” so a smart person would want to recharge then.
law of unintended consequences……
E.Vs use no gasoline…..gasoline has a road tax included in the price…. road tax is suppose to be used for up keep of roads and bridges…
if all cars are E.V.s, and use no gasoline, and pay no road use tax, how are the road repairs going to be funded???
Dear xtron:
How? The government will find a way.
Increase license/registration fees.
Increase sales taxes on just the purchase of an EV.
Charge a use fee based on mileage when car is registered.
Place a tax on electricity use at the home.
Down on the corner
Your friend sounds like he is not the sharpest marble in the sack. You really should have tried to tell him that his home was a much less than ideal place for solar.
Solar technology is constantly both improving while cost is decreasing. Be a smart consumer. Don’t try to put solar on a house where it is not a good fit. If you need to do a lot of towing buy extra battery capacity or perhaps even consider waiting a few years until batteries are more suited to your own personal needs. Lol
There is a 2 year wait anyway for a Ford Lightning with that wait for build seems to only be getting longer as more people are putting down deposits. 25% of Lightning sales are going to fleet operators whose major concern is lowest total cost of ownership over their 5 years of ownership. That may/may not be the primary reason that drives other customers to buy an EV truck
Anyone with an ounce of intelligence could figure out the more your vehicle weighs or tows, the more energy is required to pull the load. This is why cars have become lighter to meet EPA fuel requirement standards.
Trucks were meant to haul and be used for work and now they are just becoming another look at me I care about the planet tool.
Johnny-if the cost is decreasing, why is it still the most subsidized of all energy sources? I realize I may have answered my own question….
John-if your unreliables are supposed be such a great energy source, why would we have to wait a couple of years for the technology to advance, if it even does?
[…] William Teach explores that question, and, comes up with a BIG FAT nuthin! […]
“To be sure, Hoover’s test wasn’t exactly scientific. In a follow-up video, he conceded that his trailer and boxy 1930 Ford weren’t especially aerodynamic.” So if you are stupid enough to buy this P.O.S., make sure your firewood is aerodynamic.
Tossing in my 2 cents, I’ve watched several YouTubes on EV pickup towing and the results seem to vary with the “test” parameters. Towing takes energy and if your vehicle isn’t properly set up for the job, even more energy. My old Expedition was ordered as a ‘tow vehicle’ with the hitch, axle, trans configuration, cooling, etc. and pulling a 5k or so trailer cross country cost me 4 or 5 mpg on a truck that wasn’t thrifty on fuel to start with. Add 2 or 3,000 lbs and things get ugly with 6~9 mpg overall. I don’t know if the Lightning actually has a tow package as I haven’t shopped them and we aren’t in the market for a truck. The bottom line as I view it is that BEV trucks will be city / urban vehicles for the near future until battery tech and charging availability make a quantum leap. Just not ready for prime time.
Rich or poor, Californian are getting mugged at the gas pump. (Pretty sure they are paying more now.)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2021-03-12/how-much-are-you-paying-in-taxes-and-fees-for-gasoline-in-california
#LGBFJB
#NewsomToo
Bwaha! Lolgf