What's it like to take a road trip in a truck like the Terra (F-150 Lightning)?

[SpaceEVDriver]

I was chatting about sections of my the road trip I'm on right now in another thread and it was suggested that I start a separate thread so it's easier to find this content.

My partner and I are on a 3,000+ mile road trip right now. We went from northern Arizona to the Los Angeles area, spent almost a week there, then went a bit north, spent a few days, traveled to far northern California, stayed for a night, then continued on up to the Portland/Vancouver area. We're here for a few more days and then will travel back to northern Arizona.

I'll post each trip leg discussion in a new comment.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

I'll start with some information about me and my vehicles.
We are all-electric for our every-day vehicles. We have a 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E California Route 1 Extended Range AWD (>43,000 miles) and a 2023 Ford Lightning Lariat Extended Range (>9,000 miles). For this trip we decided to take the Lightning. It's less efficient, but it has slightly higher range and is far more comfortable. It's a big truck and isn't the most nimble vehicle, but its 360 degree cameras and fantastic cruise control make it a lot easier to drive than it has any right to be.

My typical road trip behavior is to set cruise control to somewhere close to the speed limit, maybe an mph or two below the speed limit to a few above the speed limit. I will sometimes find a semi to draft behind, but that's not always possible--usually they're going too slow.

We have an adapter that allows us to charge the vehicles at almost any brand of charger and we also carry adapters to charge at various wall outlets.

@Chaz26 makes a good point in a comment below: The Lightning charges a bit more slowly than the Scout promises, so the charge times here will probably be about 20% to 50% shorter for Scout drivers than me, when the Scout driver can find a charger with a high enough power to make that difference.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Day 1: Northern Arizona to Los Angeles Valley​

Leg 1:​

We left the mountain in the middle of what was threatening to be a snow storm, but petered out pretty quickly. We had charged to 95% on our Level 2 charger the night before and then told the truck to charge to 100% so it would reach the top just as we were ready to go; this warmed up the battery a bit for us. We left around 10:00 in the morning.

We hit the I-40 and stuck to the speed limit or slightly below--the roads on the mountain can be deceptively poor when they're wet and cold. The slushy not-quite-snow coming down only lasted for about an hour. Temperatures were around 32 ºF, and winds were noticeable but not awful. We drove for just under 3 hours to Needles, CA, where we grabbed lunch while charging.

State of charge at beginning of Leg: 100%
Estimated range at beginning of Leg: 313 miles

Distance Driven: 217.3 miles
Driving Time: 3 hours, 20 minutes.
Efficiency: 2.5 miles/kWh
Average Speed (this includes non-highway driving and regular traffic control): 65 mph
Cruise Control setting: 72 mph
State of Charge at end of Leg: 37%
Estimated Range on guess-o-meter: 102 miles

Charge added: 65 kWh, 46%
Time spent at charger: 30 minutes
State of charge at the end of the charge: 83%

Leg 2:​

We left Needles with 83% state of charge and hopped back on the freeway, with our next stop planned to be Barstow, CA. The headwind between Needles and Barstow, especially the last 70 miles or so can be pretty wicked. They weren't the worst I've ever seen, but they were up there. Two hours and 15 minutes later, we pulled into the charger at the Electrify America in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Barstow, plugged in, and went to the restroom. We had to kill some time because we were making better time than expected and our family wouldn't be home when we got there if we didn't go more slowly. We decided to charge to a higher state of charge than necessary. We only needed about 40% to get to our destination with a healthy buffer, but we went to 80%. The chargers weren't very busy, so we didn't worry about making someone else wait.

Distance Driven: 144 miles
Driving Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.
Efficiency: 2.1 miles/kWh
Average Speed (this includes non-highway driving and regular traffic control): 65 mph
Cruise Control setting: 72 mph
State of charge at end of Leg: 22%
Estimated range on guess-o-meter: 60 miles

Charge added: 75 kWh, 58%
Time spent at charger: 37 minutes
State of charge at the end of the charge: 80%

Leg 3:​

We left Barstow and headed down into the Valley. We hadn't needed to worry about arriving too early, traffic was much worse than we've seen in a long time. For whatever reason, the roads were full from Barstow to our destination, and we encountered several major slowdowns and a few stop-and-go sections. The winds going over the pass were high, but not dangerously so. We left at about 16:15 and arrived at about 18:30. The drive is about 115 miles. Traffic is fun.

We arrived at our family's home with 52% state of charge and ready for dinner.

Distance Driven: 115 miles
Driving Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Efficiency: 3.1 miles/kWh
Average Speed: 51 mph
Cruise Control setting: N/A
State of Charge at end of Leg: 52%
Estimated range on guess-o-meter: 210 miles

 

[pwrofgrayskull]

I was chatting about sections of my the road trip I'm on right now in another thread and it was suggested that I start a separate thread so it's easier to find this content.

My partner and I are on a 3,000+ mile road trip right now. We went from northern Arizona to the Los Angeles area, spent almost a week there, then went a bit north, spent a few days, traveled to far northern California, stayed for a night, then continued on up to the Portland/Vancouver area. We're here for a few more days and then will travel back to northern Arizona.

I'll post each trip leg discussion in a new comment.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

I'll start with some information about me and my vehicles.
We are all-electric for our every-day vehicles. We have a 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E California Route 1 Extended Range AWD (>43,000 miles) and a 2023 Ford Lightning Lariat Extended Range (>9,000 miles). For this trip we decided to take the Lightning. It's less efficient, but it has slightly higher range and is far more comfortable. It's a big truck and isn't the most nimble vehicle, but its 360 degree cameras and fantastic cruise control make it a lot easier to drive than it has any right to be.

My typical road trip behavior is to set cruise control to somewhere close to the speed limit, maybe an mph or two below the speed limit to a few above the speed limit. I will sometimes find a semi to draft behind, but that's not always possible--usually they're going too slow.

We have an adapter that allows us to charge the vehicles at almost any brand of charger and we also carry adapters to charge at various wall outlets.

I’m in for this one, thanks for sharing! I love road trips. I also very much enjoy the adaptive cruise on my current vehicle, so I have to ask: Does your Lightning have adaptive cruise? If so, do you use it and do you like it (does it function/behave well)?

 

[pwrofgrayskull]

Leg 1: Northern Arizona to Los Angeles Valley​

We left the mountain in the middle of what was threatening to be a snow storm, but petered out pretty quickly. We had charged to 95% on our Level 2 charger the night before and then told the truck to charge to 100% so it would reach the top just as we were ready to go; this warmed up the battery a bit for us. We left around 10:00 in the morning.

We hit the I-40 and stuck to the speed limit or slightly below--the roads on the mountain can be deceptively poor when they're wet and cold. The slushy not-quite-snow coming down only lasted for about an hour. Temperatures were around 32 ºF, and winds were noticeable but not awful. We drove for just under 3 hours to Needles, CA, where we grabbed lunch while charging.

State of charge at beginning of Leg: 100%
Estimated range at beginning of Leg: 313 miles

Distance Driven: 217.3 miles
Driving time: 3 hours, 20 minutes.
Efficiency: 2.5 miles/kWh
Average Speed (this includes non-highway driving and regular traffic control): 65 mph
Cruise Control setting: 72 mph
State of charge at end of Leg: 37%
Estimated range on guess-o-meter: 102 miles

Charge added: 65 kWh, 46%
Time spent at charger: 30 minutes
State of charge at the end of the charge: 83%

Elevation chang: ~7,000 feet to ~300 feet elevation.

Thank you for sharing these stats, this is all very interesting and helpful.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

We charged at the family member's house for a

Thank you for sharing these stats, this is all very interesting and helpful.

I made some updates while you responded...

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I’m in for this one, thanks for sharing! I love road trips. I also very much enjoy the adaptive cruise on my current vehicle, so I have to ask: Does your Lightning have adaptive cruise? If so, do you use it and do you like it (does it function/behave well)?

The Fords have adaptive cruise control. And they also have a semi-hands-free cruise control called "BlueCruise." I'm a fan of being able to grab a soda and open it or take my hands off the wheel to shake them or massage my wrists for a bit. I don't like "self-driving" vehicles until 1) there are developers who are able and willing to be held responsible for the actions their code takes and 2) most or all vehicles on the road have self-driving.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

LA Valley:​

We stayed in the LA valley for several days. The original plan was that I was going to be in a meeting, but the in-person portion of the meeting was cancelled the day before our trip, so instead I attended the meeting from my family member's home. My partner also had to work. We arrived on a Saturday and left on Tuesday after dinner.

We did a little bit of driving around town, but not a lot.
I discovered that the circuit I usually charge my truck from is now overloaded by something else my family plugged into it (how dare they use their own wall outlets!), so the charger was off for a few hours until I was able to take action on the notification the Lighting sent to me.

Level 1 charging maxes out at a theoretical 1.44 kW, but really only provides about 1.1 kW to the vehicle. With 48% of 131 kWh to recharge, I knew we weren't going to be recharged overnight: 48% of 131 kWh = 52 kWh; 52 kWh / 1.1 kW = 48 hours. That sounds like a lot, but remember that much of your time during the day is spent not driving. Anyway, we were at 93% state of charge when we left after dinner on Tuesday.

We only had 91 miles to go after dinner on Tuesday. It took about 2 hours and 30% of the battery to get to our next destination.

Leg stats:​

Distance Driven: 91 miles
Driving Time: 2 hours
Efficiency: 2.4 miles/kWh
Average Speed (this includes non-highway driving and regular traffic control): 45 mph
Cruise Control setting: N/A
State of charge at end of Leg: 64%
Estimated range on guess-o-meter: 202 miles


We charged up over night on the beach house rental's Level 2 (~7 kW) charger. While I don't believe that most EV drivers need a Level 2 charger, I do find it incredibly satisfying to wake up to a full vehicle, especially after a few days of slow charging on a Level 1 charger.

We stayed at the beach house for several days. We were still working remotely, so didn't do any real driving. We went out to dinner every night, but otherwise stayed very local.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Heading north... LA Valley to Redding, CA.​

Leg 1:​

We got up early Saturday morning for a long, 600 mile drive. We would be climbing some of the central California mountains as well as keeping up with traffic on the I-5. We caffeinated ourselves and started our drive.

We drove for about 3 hours to Kettleman City, which has a bunch of fast chargers of several brands. By the time we'd arrived, both of us really needed a pit stop. The clean restrooms are across the street from the chargers, so we both rushed to plug in and get moving toward the restrooms. The charging station was nearly empty when we arrived.

State of charge at beginning of Leg: 100%
Estimated range at beginning of Leg: 320 miles

Distance Driven: 195 miles
Driving Time: 3 hours.
Efficiency: 2.2 miles/kWh
Average Speed (this includes non-highway driving and regular traffic control): 65 mph
Cruise Control setting: 70 mph
State of Charge at end of Leg: 32%
Estimated Range on guess-o-meter: 102 miles

Charge added: 69 kWh, 50%
Time spent at charger: 31 minutes
State of charge at the end of the charge: 82%

By the time we got back to the charger, the station was full and there were at least two vehicles waiting to charge. We moved out of the way and planned our next stop.

Sometime during the stay in LA, the truck had received a software update that enabled Google Maps to talk to the truck's internals and to not only estimate range and all of that, but also to plan the next stop. So this time we plugged in Redding, CA and let the mapping application choose a stop for us. We retained veto power of that stop, but it choose a decent stop just south of Sacramento, so we decided to roll with it.

Google is pessimistic and predicted that we would arrive with less than 5% remaining on the battery. We weren't worried because 1) that was patently wrong and 2) 5% is still a good 15 or so miles so we could make adjustments as needed.

Leg 2:​

With our states of mind refreshed and ready to continue our trip, we got back on the freeway.

This leg was another ~200 miles, but we were feeling refreshed and figured we could do the 3-ish hours it would take and we had some snacks to tide us over for a late lunch. We left Kettleman City at around 09:45 and arrived at our next charging stop at around 12:55. We decided to grab a late lunch at a nearby restaurant, which ended up extending the stop by at least 10 minutes more than we intended.

State of charge at beginning of Leg: 82%
Estimated range at beginning of Leg: 228 miles

Distance Driven: 204 miles
Driving Time: 3 hours, 10 minutes.
Efficiency: 2.3 miles/kWh
Average Speed (this includes non-highway driving and regular traffic control): 65 mph
Cruise Control setting: 70 mph
State of Charge at end of Leg: 13%
Estimated Range on guess-o-meter: 40 miles

Charge added: 94 kWh, 69%
Time spent at charger: 43 minutes
State of charge at the end of the charge: 82%

Leg 3:​

Bellies full, bladders empty, and truck charged, we got back on the road.

This time we had 177 miles to go to get to Redding. Again, Google thought we would arrive at below 5%. We knew we would be able to plug into a slow Level 2 charge port when we arrived so weren't too worried. Also, Google is very pessimistic. The bomb cyclone's impacts were now being felt and the heavy winds and heavy rain meant that traffic slowed. We ended up taking almost 3 hours for this leg instead of the 2:45 as expected. Also, we had worse efficiency than expected because of the wind. Google wasn't as pessimistic as I had expected.

State of charge at beginning of Leg: 82%
Estimated range at beginning of Leg: 250 miles

Distance Driven: 177 miles
Driving Time: 3 hours.
Efficiency: 2.0 miles/kWh
Average Speed (this includes non-highway driving and regular traffic control): 65 mph
Cruise Control setting: 70 mph
State of Charge at end of Leg: 16%
Estimated Range on guess-o-meter: 42 miles

My family had set up a place for me to charge... But I'd loaned out my NEMA 6-50 to 14-50 adapter plug and forgot to get it back before our trip, so could only plug in my 15 A, 240 V charger instead of my 32 A, 240 V charger. We visited for a few hours, got 13% charge added to the truck, and then headed to our hotel. Where, sadly, we had a pay-to-use, slow (5 kW) Level 2 charger.

We charged over night, but only got to 64%.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Redding to Portland / Vancouver...​

When I got up in the morning, I decided to take the truck out for a quick charge. I don't usually have to do this, but the hotel we stayed at was running its Level 2 charger at 5 kW, which meant a big battery like the Lightning's doesn't get a full charge overnight. We'll revisit this on at least one more stop on this road trip. The charging station I stopped at was empty, so I plugged in, turned on the truck's seat heater, and took a nap. I woke up to 92%, which is way more than I usually charge at a DC fast charger, but the station was still empty, so I took it and ran.

We went to breakfast with family. The restaurant didn't have a charger, which was fine, we were at 90%, 10% more than we usually plan in the middle of a road trip.

Leg 1:​

We left Redding and headed north on the I-5. The weather was getting worse and we were passing through the mountains, so we expected and encountered snowy roads, slow traffic, and some minor traffic issues.

We got to our first charging stop in Grants Pass, OR, about 172 miles and a little over three hours later.

State of charge at beginning of Leg: 90%
Estimated range at beginning of Leg: 236 miles

Distance Driven: 172 miles
Driving Time: 3 hours, 15 minutes.
Efficiency: 2.4 miles/kWh
Average Speed (this includes non-highway driving and regular traffic control): 53 mph
Cruise Control setting: N/A
State of Charge at end of Leg: 34%
Estimated Range on guess-o-meter: 107 miles

Charge added: 68 kWh, 50%
Time spent at charger: 31 minutes
State of charge at the end of the charge: 84%

We were at a brand-T Supercharger, and several people came over to talk about the Lightning. They didn't know that Fords could use the NACS chargers. Several were interested in the truck enough that I'm considering sending a marketing bill to Ford. We ended up talking for an extra 10 minutes or so rather than hitting the road, which is totally fine. I'm a car geek and I like to geek out about cars, so...

Leg 2:​

The rain and wind for this leg was pretty bad, but at least we weren't going through the mountains much anymore.

We let Google determine the next stop and forgot to double-check it. This wasn't a mistake, but we probably would have made a different decision--not all chargers are the same and the algorithms for choosing a charger are not always aware of an individual's preferences. We don't like to use brand-T charging stations with fewer than 16 chargers because the entire point of the larger stations is that an off-brand vehicle charging doesn't disrupt the flow of the station if there are a lot of chargers, but it does tend to disrupt the flow if there are only a few chargers. We disrupted the flow at this next charger a bit, but we only needed a short charge so it wasn't too bad.

This charging station was just off the freeway and was located in the lot of an abandoned gas station. There were only 8 charging posts. And it was busy. When we pulled in, there were three posts open, but only one was usable by us. Unfortunately because of the poor engineering choices by brand-T and their very short charging cables, the Lightning has to pull into the spot to the right of the post it will be using, which means that it blocks an extra charging post unless you can get a spot on the very right-side end of the charging row. This wasn't possible for us--the only open chargers we could get to were on the very left-side of the charging row. We pulled in sideways and left enough room for a brave driver to squeeze in, but nobody took us up on that.

We didn't need much charge to get to our hotel in Vancouver, so we only stayed for 9 minutes. Just enough time to use the restroom.

State of charge at beginning of Leg: 84%
Estimated range at beginning of Leg: 265 miles

Distance Driven: 155 miles
Driving Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.
Efficiency: 2.2 miles/kWh
Average Speed (this includes non-highway driving and regular traffic control): 62 mph
Cruise Control setting: 70
State of Charge at end of Leg: 30%
Estimated Range on guess-o-meter: 90 miles

Charge added: 25 kWh, 19%
Time spent at charger: 9 minutes
State of charge at the end of the charge: 49%

Leg 3:​

We were back on the highway driving through wind and rain.
This leg was only 110 miles. It still took 2 hours due to rain, traffic, and a pretty major accident just before our exit from the interstate.

State of charge at beginning of Leg: 49%
Estimated range at beginning of Leg: 142 miles

Distance Driven: 110 miles
Driving Time: 2 hours.
Efficiency: 2.2 miles/kWh
Average Speed (this includes non-highway driving and regular traffic control): 55 mph
Cruise Control setting: N/A
State of Charge at end of Leg: 11%
Estimated Range on guess-o-meter: 32 miles

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Portland / Vancouver​

We've been here since Sunday night. We charged (slowly) on the Level 2 charger here at the hotel. It also only feeds the truck at 5 kW, and it's only about 89% efficient, so we were charged for 131 kWh of energy when the truck only received 117 kWh of energy.

We took a couple of trips here, one 110 miles round trip and another only about 30 miles round trip. We've also been working this week, so much of our time has been holed up in the hotel room.

We're moving to a new spot tomorrow, after picking up some family from the airport. We don't know if we'll be able to charge at the new spot, so I charged up to 100% today. It's down to 96% after going out to dinner. We'll be totally fine for our return trip.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Total distance traveled so far:
1754 miles.

Total cost for energy: $259

• Assuming a full (0% to 100%) charge at home: $13
• Electrify America chargers: $80
• Brand-T chargers: $85
• L2 Chargers: $81

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

This isn't the first road trip we've taken in the Lightning, but it's the longest so far.

The truck is ridiculously comfortable. I grew up with beaters from the junkyard, so driving this is just amazing, especially on road trips.

The cost of energy while on a road trip is probably not a whole lower than the cost of energy in a gas vehicle. Gasbuddy suggests it would cost about $300-$400 for the trip so far. The real cost savings come from charging at home and from almost no maintenance costs, but that's a different thread.

 

[J Alynn]

This isn't the first road trip we've taken in the Lightning, but it's the longest so far.

The truck is ridiculously comfortable. I grew up with beaters from the junkyard, so driving this is just amazing, especially on road trips.

The cost of energy while on a road trip is probably not a whole lower than the cost of energy in a gas vehicle. Gasbuddy suggests it would cost about $300-$400 for the trip so far. The real cost savings come from charging at home and from almost no maintenance costs, but that's a different thread.

Great stuff. Hope you got some sleep

 

[Chaz26]

This was a good read and well written! It seems similar to my EV road trip experiences as well. Most stops coincide with a lunch stop or a bathroom break so car is charging while you do it. If I'm staying somewhere, I usually have at least a level 1 outlet I can use as well. We went to the beach this summer and I charged up on a level 1, since we were there a week I was able to have it full for when we left.

The other thing to point out for people reading, is the F-150 has quite a low peak charging power (around 180 kW I believe) compared to the Scout planning on 350 peak, so should get even more power or take less time for the same amount. The Ford does have a very flat charging curve though which is nice, and even with that there doesn't seem to have been any major delays sitting around waiting to charge with nothing to do.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

This was a good read and well written! It seems similar to my EV road trip experiences as well. Most stops coincide with a lunch stop or a bathroom break so car is charging while you do it. If I'm staying somewhere, I usually have at least a level 1 outlet I can use as well. We went to the beach this summer and I charged up on a level 1, since we were there a week I was able to have it full for when we left.

The other thing to point out for people reading, is the F-150 has quite a low peak charging power (around 180 kW I believe) compared to the Scout planning on 350 peak, so should get even more power or take less time for the same amount. The Ford does have a very flat charging curve though which is nice, and even with that there doesn't seem to have been any major delays sitting around waiting to charge with nothing to do.

Yes, although the peak only lasts a few to ten minutes and so is less important for the charge time than the average power--the flat curve you mentioned. And I expect you're right that the Scout will have a higher average charge rate when the charger is capable of providing it.

A lot of people believe the brand-T chargers are faster and that's what makes them better. For most of the chargers out there, they're not faster because the cars can't accept a faster charge rate. The V3 superchargers max out at 250 kW, and a whole lot of the CCS1 chargers on our routes can hit 350 kW with the right cars. There are just more chargers at most stops for brand-T, so you're more likely to find an open post. The brand-T chargers that are out there right now will not give a much faster rate to the Scouts than the Lightning gets because they operate at 400 volts. The Scout will benefit from the higher voltage EA chargers more, but they'll have to compete for space at the stations.

For example, while the T chargers max out at 250 kW, they will only provide the Lightning with 160-165 kW. I can get the 180-200 kW from EA's 350 kW chargers.

Below is the 9-minute charge we drew from a supercharger. It stayed on the max power for most of the time, but it never pulled the maximum the truck was capable of (it asked for 190-200 kW).

The red, mostly smooth line in the plot here is maximum charge power the battery management module would accept. The green line is what the supercharger gave the truck. In this charge instance, we were only on long enough to get that peak and didn't see the charge drop down to the 100-130 kW that the truck averages. I usually forget to pull the charge information so I don't have these graphs for every charge stop we made. I can calculate the averages and will plop some information in another comment.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I don't always grab a charge plot like the one I posted in the comment above. I can, however, pull the average charge rate from the kWh provided to the truck and the time on the charger.

A note about terminology (this is NOT full-on EE precise, and it's not meant to be):

• Charge rate = Power = how fast does the battery charge. This is measured in kilowatts (kW).
  
  
• Energy = battery capacity is measured in kWh or Joules, but we'll keep it in kWh because that's what you'll see on the window sticker of an EV.
  
  
• Current = Amps = the rate at which electrons flow.
  
  
• Voltage = potential between two points on a circuit.
  
  
• Charge rate is also the Voltage times the Current = VA = Watts, but we're usually talking in thousands of watts, so we abbreviate it as kW.

When we talk about battery size, we talk about kWh, which can be thought of as a the volumetric size of an energy container (it's not volume, and it's not constant--that explanation is for the AMA thread).

If I multiply the power the battery receives (or provides) in kW by the time it's providing that (in hours), I get the total energy received (or provided).

For example, Ford provides us with a history of charging events and I can pull some information to get an average power (charge rate) from that:

In Kettleman City, we charged at an Electrify America for 31 minutes (0.51667 hours). In that time, we received 69 kWh (probably a bit more or less -- the precision is to a whole kWh). That gives me a charge rate of 69 kWh / 0.51667 hours = 134 kW.

At the supercharger south in Grants Pass, we charged for the same amount of time (31 minutes, 0.51667 hours) and received 68 kWh, so nearly the same charge rate of 132 kW. For the precision of the energy provided in this record, that's effectively the same charge rate.

For the quick charge on the supercharger, we got 25 kWh in 9 minutes. That's 167 kW charge rate. This higher charge rate is because we were only charging for the time period when the truck accepts a much higher power than the average power over a longer time period. No, don't only charge for 10 minutes at a time. The overhead of getting off the freeway makes this not worth the effort.

 

[Chaz26]

A lot of people believe the brand-T chargers are faster and that's what makes them better. For most of the chargers out there, they're not faster because the cars can't accept a faster charge rate. The V3 superchargers max out at 250 kW, and a whole lot of the CCS1 chargers on our routes can hit 350 kW with the right cars. There are just more chargers at most stops for brand-T, so you're more likely to find an open post. The brand-T chargers that are out there right now will not give a much faster rate to the Scouts than the Lightning gets because they operate at 400 volts. The Scout will benefit from the higher voltage EA chargers more, but they'll have to compete for space at the stations.

For example, while the T chargers max out at 250 kW, they will only provide the Lightning with 160-165 kW. I can get the 180-200 kW from EA's 350 kW chargers.

I agree with this, I think the reason most people like the Tesla chargers is because there are a lot more of them and in better locations close to highways, and in terms of stations, typically Tesla have a lot more chargers at a single location than their competitors. At least near me, they are also more reliable as well. As you mentioned, the sacrifice for those with 800 volt cars is it won't charge as fast as 350 kW EA stations for example. I believe once the version 4 cabinets start to become more common that shouldn't be as much of an issue but there are very few of those around at the moment. They should also charge at 350 kW and support up to 1000 volt vehicles.

 

[IHScout]

I don't always grab a charge plot like the one I posted in the comment above. I can, however, pull the average charge rate from the kWh provided to the truck and the time on the charger.

A note about terminology (this is NOT full-on EE precise, and it's not meant to be):

• Charge rate = Power = how fast does the battery charge. This is measured in kilowatts (kW).
  
  
• Energy = battery capacity is measured in kWh or Joules, but we'll keep it in kWh because that's what you'll see on the window sticker of an EV.
  
  
• Current = Amps = the rate at which electrons flow.
  
  
• Voltage = potential between two points on a circuit.
  
  
• Charge rate is also the Voltage times the Current = VA = Watts, but we're usually talking in thousands of watts, so we abbreviate it as kW.

When we talk about battery size, we talk about kWh, which can be thought of as a the volumetric size of an energy container (it's not volume, and it's not constant--that explanation is for the AMA thread).

If I multiply the power the battery receives (or provides) in kW by the time it's providing that (in hours), I get the total energy received (or provided).

For example, Ford provides us with a history of charging events and I can pull some information to get an average power (charge rate) from that:

In Kettleman City, we charged at an Electrify America for 31 minutes (0.51667 hours). In that time, we received 69 kWh (probably a bit more or less -- the precision is to a whole kWh). That gives me a charge rate of 69 kWh / 0.51667 hours = 134 kW.
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At the supercharger south in Grants Pass, we charged for the same amount of time (31 minutes, 0.51667 hours) and received 68 kWh, so nearly the same charge rate of 132 kW. For the precision of the energy provided in this record, that's effectively the same charge rate.

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For the quick charge on the supercharger, we got 25 kWh in 9 minutes. That's 167 kW charge rate. This higher charge rate is because we were only charging for the time period when the truck accepts a much higher power than the average power over a longer time period. No, don't only charge for 10 minutes at a time. The overhead of getting off the freeway makes this not worth the effort.

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@SpaceEVDriver appreciate all the graphs and math. Our goal is to pickup our Scout at the factory. Valuable information for our first road trip! The EA vs T-Charger max flow on the Lightning is interesting. I have read some challenges at EA stations. What is your experience?

 

[LastDayScout]

@SpaceEVDriver appreciate all the graphs and math. Our goal is to pickup our Scout at the factory. Valuable information for our first road trip! The EA vs T-Charger max flow on the Lightning is interesting. I have read some challenges at EA stations. What is your experience?

Challenge is a kind word. Nearly every EA charger I have encountered is either out of service or puts out way less than advertised.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

@SpaceEVDriver appreciate all the graphs and math. Our goal is to pickup our Scout at the factory. Valuable information for our first road trip! The EA vs T-Charger max flow on the Lightning is interesting. I have read some challenges at EA stations. What is your experience?

We have had a few challenges at EA chargers. A few times we have had to wait because a charger was down, or someone was charging to 100% or something similar.

We've also had to wait at 8-post brand-T chargers.

My experience is that there's little difference in reliability, but at the 50-post charging station I'm at right now, some charging posts being down doesn't impact the accessibility except during peak times. When one charging post is down at any 8-post charging station, that's a 12.5% decrease in availability. But there would need to be 6 or 7 down at a 50 post charging station for a 12% decrease and it still wouldn't directly map because charging many vehicles in parallel with different needs means higher likelihood of short waits.