I was hoping that was the case and that it’s the same system. Thanks.
As well as income test restrictions regardless of where it is built.
And they are building a battery plant in Michigan… hmmm… switching to a different product?
There is not a 23 Prius prime to be found yet anywhere. ……
A “car guy” YouTube channel talks about their experience owning a Lightning after years of Teslas. Takeaway was that the actual vehicle is great, but the Ford product is years behind Tesla in terms of their charging station app working reliably. “Completely reliable fifty percent of the time”, or something like that. So effectively, a variation on range anxiety just from that.
Well, there goes the neighborhood.
Our power just went out…again. The Tesla was fully charged before the outage. But it feels vulnerable to be so dependent on a power grid which just isn’t …well…dependable. Yes, this is due to storms, but we have many other issue as well.
So, while the X Plaid is a heck of a blast to own, drive and enjoy, we will keep the other two ICE vehicles around. And if those get to the end of their lives after CA has its ICE ban…we may have to go elsewhere to bring one back. We will always have at least one ICE.
Gasoline stations also use electricity to pump gasoline…
If more EVs offer house battery capability like the F-150 Lightning, they can keep the house electricity on during outages. They can even be driven to charging stations outside the outage area to bring back electricity to the house.
That’s interesting. We would totally go completely EV when we get done paying for college and are in the market for another car. We have a Chevy Bolt EV, a Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, a P.O.S. Honda Odyssey we are looking to dump, and have helped our kids out with plug-in hybrid Ford C-max energis. When the van began having problems we looked at the Kia EV 6 and the Hyundai Ioniq 5, but ultimately decided not to spend that money and got a great deal on a used Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid.
Next new car we buy will definitely be an EV, though. I can’t see us ever buying a straight ICE car again. We might buy another used plug-in hybrid if the price was right and the situation leaned that way, but never a straight ICE vehicle. Maintenance is so minimal on the Bolt. We did get the battery replaced with the recall (we had no issues with it btw), but other than that it’s just been things like rotating tires, and replacing wiper blades and tires occasionally. We have 90K+ miles on it now.
Charging has never been a big issue. We’ve had it for almost 6 years now, so have charged it a lot. We’ve driven it from NC to Florida and back, to Atlanta, to the Outer Banks, etc. We have not seen any noticeable battery degradation at all. The battery performance is a little less in very cold weather, but we don’t have that much of that in North Carolina.
It’s been pretty useful to us in power outages for charging and plugging in phones, etc, and when the Colonial Pipeline went down and all the gas stations had huge lines. If the weather is bad and we are cold or hot we can also just sit in the garage in the car and warm up or cool down. No worry about Carbon Monoxide build up in the garage. You can also get a power inverter for it so you can plug in bigger appliances like your fridge. We don’t have that right now, but might be something we invest in.
I love to drive it. I like it much better than any of our other cars.
I highly doubt typical F150 owners drive their trucks more than 200 miles a day. More like to and from a local job site.
I’d bet the “typical” 150 owner doesn’t even drive to a job site! (they commute to work like the rest of us)
The video centered on a family trip to mountains an hour away (i.e. a typical SoCal weekend getaway). Points made included the extent to which available range turned out to decrease with temperature at the destination, how being plugged in (even overnight) didn’t necessarily mean the vehicle was charging (app problems), and available range dropping off faster than distance actually driven. Not good when even after careful planning, you may get stuck in nowheresville (or somewhere outside of it) with the wife and kids along. Puts anxiety into subsequent family outings as well, knowing from experience how things can end badly and there’s not a lot you can do about it.
I’m also remembering their and other owner’s struggles with receiving the very important high-current charger. It’s part of the purchase, but shipped by a third-party supplier… who may not ship it for months after vehicle delivery even with lots of pleading, claiming their system still shows the vehicle as “in production” rather than delivered. Maybe they are actually behind on production? Until that item shows up, the 150 owner is somewhat in the position that an ICE owner would be if their tank could only be filled spoonful-by-spoonful.
You mean charging station that needs to be installed by an electrician? As far as I know, it is not a standard accessory sold with EVs. That couple was not smart… get a charger on Amazon and have an electrician install it. Takes 2 days to get the charger and whatever lead time it takes for the electrical work. The latter can be substantial if permits department is dragging its feet.
The F-150 owner has had extensive EV ownership over many years, so presumably they already had the home upgrade. The subject is an adapter – something carried in the vehicle. Sorry I was vague (or simply inaccurate) in using the word “charger”.
Can you at least name this “car guy” if you don’t have a link?
The adapter issue is not an F150 specific issue. Tesla stopped including those with its cars. If these guys were going on a trip and still haven’t received the needed adapter… Amazon is out there… should be plenty of J1772 adapters because it is quite standard.
It is true that Tesla went beyond other companies in making charging more convenient (both home charging options and on-the-road fast chargers that are generally considered more reliable and easier to use than the non-Tesla ones).
However, someone who has been driving Tesla EVs for a while should have some familiarity with setting up home charging (may need an adapter or different EVSE if the existing home charging setup is Tesla-specific – not hard to find). Setting up apps for the non-Tesla on-the-road fast charging is another step to do, however.
Absolutely. We use the Tesla-to-J1772 adapter everyday using our car charger.
It also begs the question why Tesla has one connector and seemingly all other cars have a different one?
And don’t get me started on the lack of standardization on very basic things. Why is Tesla’s charging port on the rear driver’s side, when MOST (but not all) EVs/PHEVs seem to have the ports in the front driver’s side. I have seen a few in the rear on the passenger’s side, though. It can make a difference to charging accessibility when charging at home etc.
We will never buy an ICE car again. Right now, we have a PHEV and an EV. For all the alleged power outages in CA that some try to portray as constant, it’s not. We are VERY happy with our two vehicles.
Edited: I transposed the locations of the charging ports for Tesla and other vehicles. Have now revised.
Historical reasons… also, the charge plugs in other parts of the world are different as well.
Which model? The Model 3 has the port in the driver’s side rear; its part of the taillight assembly. Ditto the Models Y, X and S. (Supposedly, Elon didn’t want it in front where it could be damaged by road debris.)