2022 Ford Lightning Discussion

[KP-Skagit]

Yeah, very simple mechanically compared to gas.  Unfortunately very complex electronically compared to gas.  In my mind you are trading complexity at best, not reducing it. 

The one thing that concerns me about EVs in general is that I can go buy a water pump and swap it out in an hour for cheap.  I can't go buy an aftermarket board on the $10k onboard charge controller or the computer that runs assisted driving or any of the 100 other computers needed.  Likely I couldn't even troubleshoot it even if I could.  All the critical parts now might be single sourced from the OEM, likely no aftermarket or any competition since it will all be patent and secret.  Single source guarantees $$$$ to maintain them.

Do any non dealer shops work on these?  Will the OEM provide factory service manuals or will it all be dealer only?

Best case you get aftermarket batteries, motors, simple stuff without much circuitry, but the big critical stuff could easily be kept proprietary by the OEMs.  For sure the scrap market will be red hot.

Either way, I think it will be a hit.  Even if they get quite a few things wrong, they can work them out.  Hopefully they will treat the first owners right.

Same crap that goes on with everyone's favorite electronic, the cell phone. Repair has fallen to replace.

[Stein]

This seems to show EV's are cheaper to maintain than gas, but they offset maintenance costs with fuel savings so it isn't apples to apples.  It also assumes you pay for the repairs using OEM stuff, not doing it yourself, so who knows.

https://www.consumerreports.org/hybrids-evs/evs-offer-big-savings-over-traditional-gas-powered-cars/

The study also found that maintenance and repair costs for EVs are significantly lower over the life of the vehicle—about half—than for gasoline-powered vehicles, which require regular fluid changes and are more mechanically complex. The average dollar savings over the lifetime of the vehicle is about $4,600.

I would buy an EV today if I was looking at a new vehicle and they had what I wanted, but the maintenance does make me nervous.  I haven't compared warranties, when the Lightning shows up it will be interesting to see if there are any differences in the warranty between the two technologies.

[lamrith]

Honestly ev are not any more complex than today's ICE rigs when you get down to it.  Rigs today are really complex.  Both features and mechanically.

 Changing that water pump many times means pulling intakes, timing chains and all.  I miss the old days of pull belts, unbolt and go.

Ev are less maintenance by a large margin.  No oil, fuel systems, emissions, transmission, exhaust, etc.


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[Stein]

You guys see the EV crate motor thing in Ford's new concept truck?  Sounds interesting and not as expensive as I would have thought.  Sounds like you might need two but they don't go into much detail on what it includes, just the motor or everything you need.

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2021/11/02/all-electric-f-100-eluminator-concept.html

[CP]

They should put one in an original F-100 Lightning.

[Igor]

They should put one in an original F-100 Lightning.

I think that would be considered sacrilege.................

[Stein]

I would be interested in putting one in my older Chevy..... For $4k you get a brand new powertrain and no fuel cost.  I'll just need to get me one of those A-dapter kits.

[CP]

I would be interested in putting one in my older Chevy..... For $4k you get a brand new powertrain and no fuel cost.  I'll just need to get me one of those A-dapter kits.

I think $3,900 only gets you a motor.

[Stein]

The extra $100 was for an extension cord, we only drive short distances most of the time.

So, you need a motor, battery, some sort of BMS, speed control, mechanical throttle interface, ignition interface, charging port, charger, bunch-o-wire and some way to mount it to the frame and patch it into the old drivetrain.  Hopefully it's an old truck or your existing computer is going to be rather confused.  Probably a few other things as well.  Now I understand why it was in a concept vehicle.

Or, you could make a killer side by side with some round stock, a seat and a good life insurance policy.

[lamrith]

I would be interested in putting one in my older Chevy..... For $4k you get a brand new powertrain and no fuel cost.  I'll just need to get me one of those A-dapter kits.

I think $3,900 only gets you a motor.

Exactly, that is motor assembly only no battery, controller, cooling, etc..  Plus then you need electric power steering, AC, heat, etc..

Al that negativity aside, it is very cool and I look forward to seeing what complete kits $ out at.

[CP]

Ford has stopped accepting reservations.  They have exceeded production capability through 2022.

[follow maggie]

Yeah- 200,000 reservations. That thing is selling like hot cakes

[lamrith]

Ford has stopped accepting reservations.  They have exceeded production capability through 2022.

If the rumored numbers floating around about year 1 production are correct (15K) they passed that in the first 10min of reservation banks being open.

I think it has less to do with any particular years production limits and more that the numbers are beyond anything they expected and current reports are saying ordering will finally start in Jan.  The build & price was showing some data yesterday like they are prepping to make that live very soon too.  They of course fixed their oversight now so the link no longer works.

I know I am pretty jazzed to get the process rolling.

[CP]

Batteries are the bottleneck. 

Jim Farley:
“We have a dedicated team right now just doing one thing: finding a way to double our capacity by finding batteries, whatever it takes, to double our capacity of Lightning,"

[lamrith]

Batteries are the bottleneck. 

Jim Farley:
“We have a dedicated team right now just doing one thing: finding a way to double our capacity by finding batteries, whatever it takes, to double our capacity of Lightning,"

True no doubt, but they are finding ways to produce 44k+ Mach-E a year so I do not think that is the holdup.?
I still just don't buy off that they plan/planned to only produce 15K lightnings the first year that honestly is a total failure if they can only make that many or planned to, it is not worth even producing and will cost them dearly in terms of customer trust/retention.  There has been so much BS info about this vehicle I literally do not believe 3/4 of what I hear.

They keep talking about doubling, doubling again and now again.  But no actual confirmable # aside from a single Reuters article claiming an unnamed Ford person said 15K.  If that was the number then they should be at 60K 1st year now after doubling a few times.  60K honestly makes more sense for an original target number, 40-60k is what I would have expected for 1st year given they made 44k mach-e being a brand new vehicle and the lightning being a F150 they already know how to build other than EV specific items.  Tesla is making Y's and 3's by the thousands, Rivian is starting to push out units so batteries are available and whlie they may not throw more weight than Tesla, they surely could bring enough weight to the game to get allocations before Rivian..  Rivian suddenly has units rolling off the line makes me wonder if Rivian did something to hose Ford hence the partnership ending..?