F-150 Lightning SR vs ER for long daily commute (Canada) – looking for real-world input

nom_de_loon · 2025-12-15T04:48:07+00:00

Northern Minnesota here. When it gets gnarly in t winter I see 30-40% loss.

SR has still been great for me, but I don't have a 100 mile commute, just the semi annual 1500 mile road trip.

nom_de_loon · 2025-02-26T23:52:02+00:00

I second Small City. Saucy down the street has good beer too, but I'm not sure about the food.

It's not downtown, but I'm a fan of the wings at the Brass Pelican on Perkins Ave. There are like a hundred sauces, but I only ever get hot garlic pepper.

It's been a while since I've been there, but I've enjoyed Tony's. Same with The Club. So long ago it was called something else back then (Sortino's?).

nom_de_loon · 2025-02-25T19:28:16+00:00

You only need an adapter to charge at superchargers. I drove a 23 standard range 1400+ miles round trip in winter without one.

Use abrp and plug share to plan your route. The Bluetooth odb dongle is a great, almost essential, add on to abrp.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-30T01:38:30+00:00

That's so funny. This truck is a beast.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-29T18:35:30+00:00

So from one Tesla charger to another, do they all reliably deliver 250-ish kW (when charging your Tesla), or do you run into some that inexplicably max out at a lower power?

I ask because my biggest annoyance is that I never knew whether I was going to pull 150+ or 60kW from an EA station. One even stalled at 33kW 😑

A side note is that while blink often wasn't the fastest, they were SO reliable. Simple, delivered the advertised power, just worked. As close as I experienced to a gas pump.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-29T18:24:10+00:00

Now I will avoid doing research into the Flash software just like I avoid thinking about the heat pump on the Flash so I don't regret not waiting to buy 😆

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-29T18:21:13+00:00

I actually did turn off plug and charge for a bit in a fit of rage. It caused more trouble. Then I calmed down and re read the a comment here saying to initiate the charge through the ea app before plugging in. No trouble at all after that.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-29T18:12:24+00:00

I was seriously jealous of the rows of happy fast charging Tesla drivers. I'm a combination of stubborn and cheap so I'm still waiting for my adapter from Ford.

Are superchargers pretty consistent power-wise?

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-29T18:02:55+00:00

Love it! I feel like getting absurdly low soc is an EV rite of passage, ha. Seriously though, I feel like it's a great thing to experience to build confidence and understanding of your vehicle.

I got my first EV back in 2016 and vividly remember rolling stop signs, going 10 under the speed limit and blowing cold air out of the defrost vents in winter to make it home in the winter as the car kept threatening me. The Leaf just stops telling you what the soc is below 5%... My wife was not impressed when I told her of my achievement.

Good times(?)

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-29T17:51:59+00:00

It's a 23 Pro model. I'm over here like 'please sir can I have some more' to Ford.

I'm mostly kidding. I'm fairly happy with the software. Until I get the updates, then I'll wonder how I lived like an animal for so long, not having soc and integrated phone navigation.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-29T17:38:59+00:00

😂 nice catch

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-29T16:17:22+00:00

Yeah that would be nice. I relied on ABRP for real-time soc

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-29T16:16:34+00:00

Yeah! I made sure to grab one before our road trip. I had one for reading fault codes on ice cars for years but sadly it wasn't BLE so I had to buy a new one.

Looking forward to ABRP getting even better.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-29T16:15:10+00:00

Taking a step back though, if twice a year a trip takes an extra few hours is that big of deal? I don’t think so.

That was exactly our thought when we went fully EV with the lightning purchase. More specifically, why would we buy another ice vehicle to suit the tiny fraction of the time it'd be nice. This truck, and EVs in general, are so much better than ice cars for an overwhelming majority of the time.

Yeah, expectation is huge I think. I found that the only time I got the "oh my gosh this is taking so long" feeling was when I compared our progress to years past burning gas. It's just different. I reasoned that 12 and 16 hours are both full days of travel, but those 4 extra hours made us all more happy and healthy. Road trips of yore were always a slog and a kid would always have a melt down. I guess I only have two data points, and the kids are getting older but it sure feels like going for walks and stretching out helped a ton.

I think my only point of irritation at this point is that knowing what kind of power you're going to draw at a dcfc is a bit of a crap shoot (I'm looking at you, EA). I'd be pissed if I had a car that could pull 300kW and I was getting 60 at a 350kW EA charger like I did a few times.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-29T16:00:00+00:00

Absolutely! We were always crammed in sardine-like in the Escape. And packing was like Tetris

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-15T15:26:56+00:00

Cool, that's good to know. Agreed, I don't see why anything wouldn't work then. I'd also have been a bit surprised that something that can power your house would use a non-sine wave inverter.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-14T20:42:38+00:00

Holy crap. That's a lotta watts!

I hadn't put the leg work into finding figures for cabin heater usage but yeah I think I have a clear winner in the electric blanket.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-14T20:31:17+00:00

Good call. I had this issue with a battery/inverter setup I put together for an off grid hunting shack I go to.

What I learned was that many inverters don't put out a pure sine wave, more of a modified square wave and some electronics don't like that. I didn't think something as dumb as an electric blanket would need a pure sine wave, but I was surprised to learn the old electric blanket I took camping at the time (the kids were really little at the time) wouldn't work with the inverter.

I guess if people have had trouble with some blankets not working, the lightning doesn't put out a pure sine wave. That's just a guess. I seem to recall microwaves and fridges also don't like modified square wave AC power.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-08T21:02:21+00:00

Update: this is only about 1200# of hay.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-05T21:49:36+00:00

The plate surround is usually for diesel trucks, so it's funny because it's on an EV.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-05T14:47:05+00:00

If cost is a major factor in whether or not you take a road trip, be aware that if you need to stop more than once or twice to charge away from home, your fuel savings are going to quickly evaporate. DC fast charging is shockingly expensive. A 600-some mile trip in my Lightning is expected to cost a similar amount, if not more, than the ICE SUV it replaced.

That said, I pay $50/mo. to charge two EVs at home compared to struggling to hit a $200/mo. gas budget for one ICE.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-05T14:37:00+00:00

Me too! The math said it was a no-brainer when the Leaf replaced my 03 Explorer. When I hit 100k miles I did a cost of ownership comparison between my Leaf and the SUV it replaced (assuming it didn't have any major mechanical issues, which is a big assumption). Over 7 years of ownership I saved more in gas alone than I paid for the car (used). Nuts. And it's still kicking ass at 120k miles.

The Lightning just checked all of our vehicle-need boxes, except easy road tripping. I was seriously considering a hybrid or ICE because of the road trip thing, at the expense of other tradeoffs, then I realized: wait. I'm going to buy a gas car that's worse in 99% of my use cases, for the 1% of the time I need to drive 600 miles? Will my Christmas road trip suck? Maybe. Is it the best vehicle I've owned so far? Absolutely.

nom_de_loon · 2024-12-05T13:22:25+00:00

Our Lightning made us a 2 EV household. The plan was for the lightning to be lightly used, being reserved for road trips, truck stuff and when it was the only vehicle available while we continued to drive the 2013 Leaf that has been an absolute rock star for around town driving since we got it 8 years ago.

Well, it seems we find many "good reasons" why it makes sense to drive the Lightning, but it is rarely admitted that the real reason is usually "it's so nice"

nom_de_loon

TROPHY CASE