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05 October
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Ford F150 Lightning Lariat EV Truck – We’ve Gone Green

Rob Alberti   |   Press Releases, Western MA Wedding DJ

Ford F150 Lightning Lariat EV Truck – We’ve Gone Green

Ford F150 Lighting EV Truck

Number of Miles So Far

18000

Without Buying Gas

Green House Gas Savings

10.7

Metric Tons of CO2

Gas Saved

1200

Gallons

Solar Panels Produced

2.41

MWh

From 8/22 – 5/23

Since Ford announced that they would be producing a full EV electric pickup – we were so excited! We immediately put 2 of them on pre-order. It has been more than a year and our pre-orders still have not turned into actual orders. We were in limbo with production from Ford well behind demand. I started looking for 3rd parties looking to sell them used. I reached out to a couple of local Ford dealerships in case they had ones that they had ordered directly. I got a call from Balise Ford of Wilbraham one day. THEY HAD ONE (2022 Ford F150 Lighting Lariat) that had been ordered by someone else but he couldn’t go through with the purchase. An hour later, I had taken it for a test drive and was signing paperwork to secure it.

A few days later, I took possession – had the truck cap installed, and ordered up my ladder rack. It took over a month before Ford caught up with the home charger (80 amp) so I had to limp by with the 220V home charger and local DC superchargers. My first misconception was that I was going to be able to use the Tesla superchargers all over the area. Tesla has not opened up their charging network to non-Tesla vehicles as of yet (but there is talk that they are considering doing this across the US). Not all chargers are created equal. Most of the chargers (Level 1 and 2 with J1772 connectors) are too slow – they are great to get a trickle charge while you are grocery shopping but you can’t really refill the battery with these (without sleeping in your car).

The key is to find a J1772 Combo Connector (Not AC Charger, but a DC Charger!). Again, not every DC Charger is equal. The Mass Pike Lee Rest stop has one, there is one in West Springfield at Cumberland Farms and then there are some at the Home Depot in Chicopee. The speed of charging is drastically different between these chargers. In less than 30 minutes, I went from 54% to 87%. Other DC superchargers, were less than 1/2 as fast. I was truly impressed with the Electrify America super DC charger and can’t wait to see the EV charger infrastructure expand in this area.

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You can’t beat the acceleration and torque of an EV vehicle. The fact that a full-size pickup truck can go from 0-60 in less than 4 seconds is just amazing. I can’t admit it, but I might have got it to over 100 mph on the Mass Pike in just a few seconds more. My 2016 Toyota Tundra didn’t have Android Play and didn’t have responsive cruise control. Both are included in the Ford F150 Lightning. Responsive cruise control is a game changer. It makes driving so much more relaxing. Android play lets me put the phone away (no more annoying phone mounting) and use the 15″ touch screen monitor for phone, audio, and navigation off my phone.

In the month that I’ve owned the F150 Lighting, I’ve pushed it to the limit of what the battery can handle for range. I wanted to see what I could and could not do with it. Towing drives my 300-mile range down to around 120-140 mile range. I’ve had to rethink how I plan my work schedule. I’ve learned to work around it – using just the truck if I can or dropping the trailer in a parking lot and picking it back up after making multiple stops to save range. It is a new tool and I’m getting to learn the ins and outs and will just plan accordingly. Sure, I might have to rent a gas truck some weekends if the EV range limits me or I’ll just assign that far away jobs to another work crew and keep more local in The Berkshires for me and the F150 Lighting.

In just over a month, I’ve put on 4,000 miles and it’s cost me less than $150 in electricity. In our busy wedding season, I was spending nearly $1,000 on gas and oil changes. Yes, I’ve replaced that with a new truck payment, but after you consider my mileage write-offs and the $7,500 tax break I’m getting this year, I figure I’m at least even. Once I get Sunrun to show up and install solar, I might be another $200 a month in my favor. (they haven’t returned my emails or calls and they no-showed to the first site visit at my house) I even complained to Ford directly about them, but still, no one has reached out to me. I had to call in my own electrician to install the Ford 80amp charger at the house (Sunrun was the one that was supposed to be licensed to do so through Ford)

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Bottom line – this is not the truck for everyone. I’m using it as a work vehicle. The $80K price tag wasn’t too far off of a new ToyotaTundra and the gas savings more than makeup for it. It’s not for the person who is driving 200 miles and towing their boat every weekend to the lake. It is a great work vehicle if you drive less than 200 miles a day and can recharge it overnight at home each evening. It’s been a month and no scratches or dings (only took me a weekend to ding and scratch my last new vehicle). The FRUNK saves me from storing too much stuff in and under the back seat like I used to do with my old truck. In the wedding off-season, I’ll do a bit more organizing in there and I’d like to get some seat covers and floor mats to protect all that leather from me and the crew.

Did I mention that it took a few weeks to get used to the fact that there is virtually NO ROAD NOISE in this thing? Once I installed the ladder rack, I at least have a little whistle now. It is so freaky driving such a quiet vehicle – on backroads or on the highway. It is just crazy quiet. I was a bit bummed that my magnetic door signs won’t stick on the doors of my Ford F150 Lighting. I might just have to get the truck wrapped for the business to work around that.

With the addition of our 44 solar panels on the house, we are producing MORE ELECTRICITY than we are consuming. That means we are literally running on the sun for my EV Pickup Truck, power for the office, recharging power for our uplights, pin spots, dance lights and our air conditioning.