RIDE THE LIGHTNING!

[Eye of the Tiger]

I have gone full grandpa three times before. It's not bad at all.

[MrH]

Your boss and two colleagues all have Ford Lightnings?  Or just 1/2 ton pickups?

Within 2 weeks, I bought the Lightning, my boss bought a Roush F-150 with the 5.0L V8, and another coworker bought a Raptor with the Ecoboost.

Feels like we should be filming an episode of Top Gear or something to determine the best F-150

Another coworker has a normal F-150 has the same tonneau cover too.

[veeman]

Within 2 weeks, I bought the Lightning, my boss bought a Roush F-150 with the 5.0L V8, and another coworker bought a Raptor with the Ecoboost.

Feels like we should be filming an episode of Top Gear or something to determine the best F-150

Another coworker has a normal F-150 has the same tonneau cover too.

That's awesome.

Where I commute to work (NYC) you rarely see full size pickups as personal cars. They're too cumbersome (long and wide) to parallel park on city streets and inside tight parking garages. Out in the rural burbs where I live, I see a fair number. Often they're owned be people who also use them for their work. I think being a commuter town to NYC limits their appeal.  Lots of Wranglers and Broncos though.

[MrH]

That's awesome.

Where I commute to work (NYC) you rarely see full size pickups as personal cars. They're too cumbersome (long and wide) to parallel park on city streets and inside tight parking garages. Out in the rural burbs where I live, I see a fair number. Often they're owned be people who also use them for their work. I think being a commuter town to NYC limits their appeal.  Lots of Wranglers and Broncos though.

In the midwest, crew cab, short bed trucks are pretty common for family vehicles.  Most live in the suburbs and don't parallel park or use tight parking garages often, if ever.  Tons of people have them that don't need them for work.  All my coworkers are just suburban dads that work in an office Probably 1/3 of vehicles on the road here are trucks.

I have gone full grandpa three times before. It's not bad at all.

Those shells are wild.  They're like $4k-$5k!  I can't imagine a world where that's worth it at all.  Just buy an SUV instead.

[Eye of the Tiger]

In the midwest, crew cab, short bed trucks are pretty common for family vehicles.  Most live in the suburbs and don't parallel park or use tight parking garages often, if ever.  Tons of people have them that don't need them for work.  All my coworkers are just suburban dads that work in an office Probably 1/3 of vehicles on the road here are trucks.

Those shells are wild.  They're like $4k-$5k!  I can't imagine a world where that's worth it at all.  Just buy an SUV instead.

I have never bought a new one. Used ones are usually 300 bucks or less.

[r0tor]

My dad and extended family all had caps on their trucks in the 80s/90s... Always looked terrible but was functional.

[AutobahnSHO]

Yeah a cap gives you closed cargo you don't care about getting dirty. Plus you can always take it off.

[MrH]

Love it!

I'm guessing more than the $400 for our regular soft rollup. (Fordpass points paid for half though)

MSRP is $1200.  Was able to get for $1020 through a Lightning forum because they're a sponsor.  Not cheap, but seemed worth it.  The retractable tonneau covers are pushing $2,000+, and the electric retractable ones are like $3,000

I have never bought a new one. Used ones are usually 300 bucks or less.

I looked briefly at used tonneau covers.  The people on facebook market place are delusional.  3+ year old tonneau covers for just 20% off a new one.  I'd rather pay the extra money than deal with someone on there.

[MrH]

The 80 amp charger is getting installed now.  It's like a cartoon.  Huge ass box.  I'll take a picture when it's done.

[MrH]

CANYONERO!  Whole neighborhood might dim when I plug in.

[CaminoRacer]

Nice, and you can still use that 240v outlet?

[MrH]

Nice, and you can still use that 240v outlet?

Yep.  I'm going to be close to hitting the max current for my whole panel if I use both + HVAC, etc.  Instead of totally scrapping the 240v outlet, I told them to leave it.  If the wife ends up getting a PHEV or EV, we could use that and just time them to charge at different times.  Or if my new monster charger stops working, I can use the 240 outlet in the mean time.

[veeman]

CANYONERO!  Whole neighborhood might dim when I plug in.

The person who installed it looks like they used their feet a lot in the installation process based on all the foot prints on the wall. Maybe that means the charger is nice and tightly attached to the wall :) 

[MrH]

Sadly, that was the previous owner of the house.  They would hang bikes on this wall I think, so those are all tire tread marks.

Eventually I'll clean up this drywall and paint it all, but it's pretty far down my list of things to do on this house

[giant_mtb]

10 minutes and a Magic Eraser. 🤘

[veeman]

The company that installed my EV charger said my city/electricity provider requires them to also put in a load management device. If city wide electricity load is too high, they can shut off power to my charger. The installer said he's never heard of them actually doing that yet...

[CaminoRacer]

The company that installed my EV charger said my city/electricity provider requires them to also put in a load management device. If city wide electricity load is too high, they can shut off power to my charger. The installer said he's never heard of them actually doing that yet...

My power company does that if you take their $200-300 rebate. I just paid for my whole charger and installation on my own so I don't have to worry about that.

[MrH]

The company that installed my EV charger said my city/electricity provider requires them to also put in a load management device. If city wide electricity load is too high, they can shut off power to my charger. The installer said he's never heard of them actually doing that yet...

Hellllll no.  I would never agree to that.  My electric company doesn't even have variable pricing based on the time of day.  If they want to balance the load on the grid, they can incentivize me to help them.

[RomanChariot]

Our utility company uses pricing tiers but they aren't based on time of day, just on how much you use. The first tier goes up to 500kWh, the second tier the next 500kWh and the third tier for everything above 1000kWh. Using AC in the summer months puts most of the bill in the third tier.

[Morris Minor]

Hellllll no.  I would never agree to that.  My electric company doesn't even have variable pricing based on the time of day.  If they want to balance the load on the grid, they can incentivize me to help them.

Exactly my situation.  We have appliances that can be set to time-delay operation. Completely useless here; I was given a firm  "nope" when I called the utility, she probably thought I was some kind of effete treehugger.

[veeman]

The installer for my charger said my city/electric provider requires it and so didn't give me a choice.  After they installed the charger and load management device, a few months later a town inspector inspected it. I felt like a third party to this whole process because the installer, via email, gave me a list of dates and times that the town inspector could come to take a look at it and to tell them which one worked for me. I didn't care though.  They installed it so I wasn't worried it wouldn't pass inspection.

Our electricity provider has a rebate program if you sign up to charge your EV during off peak hours (which are pretty generous) but it's not that big of a rebate and I didn't sign up for it.

[MrH]

On a whim, I checked Reddit while getting ready for work yesterday.  Someone posted on the Lightning subreddit that he discovered they opened the reservation list for the free Tesla Supercharger adapter.  Saw it like 15 minutes after he posted it.  I quickly signed up.

Press release goes out at 8:00 AM, website gets flooded and crashes.  At like 10:00 AM, it came back up and by 2:00, they were up over 10,000 orders, with delivery pushing back into June.  Now it's at 27k+ and into August

I'm order #122 with an April delivery.  I don't necessarily "need" it, but got lucky here.  It'll just be nice peace of mind that I can road trip and can use most of Tesla's network in addition to Electrify America etc.  I'll probably take a trip or two this summer with the truck that will require its first public charging.

[SJ_GTI]

On a whim, I checked Reddit while getting ready for work yesterday.  Someone posted on the Lightning subreddit that he discovered they opened the reservation list for the free Tesla Supercharger adapter.  Saw it like 15 minutes after he posted it.  I quickly signed up.

Press release goes out at 8:00 AM, website gets flooded and crashes.  At like 10:00 AM, it came back up and by 2:00, they were up over 10,000 orders, with delivery pushing back into June.  Now it's at 27k+ and into August

I'm order #122 with an April delivery.  I don't necessarily "need" it, but got lucky here.  It'll just be nice peace of mind that I can road trip and can use most of Tesla's network in addition to Electrify America etc.  I'll probably take a trip or two this summer with the truck that will require its first public charging.

You may already be planning this, but for something like that I'd try it out at least once before assuming it will work later on during a road trip.

[CaminoRacer]

I'd sell that thing for 3x profit and buy it again later this year.

[MrH]

Yeah, I'll give it a shot once the adapter comes in.

The software situation with Lightnings is kind of a mess though.  Everyone is on different releases.  It's the exact opposite of iPhone OS updates, which basically releases to everyone at the same time.

I never got a software update until a few weeks back.  That was my first, and then I got another about a week later.  I'm still probably 5-10 revisions behind the latest.  I don't understand their strategy at all here.  Sounds like it's a combination of being really risk averse and wanting to slow roll everything in case a truck gets bricked, and there was a situation where the car wasn't reading 12 volt battery charge correctly, so it was not allowing cars to download updates thinking the battery was too low.

I think I need to get caught up in order for the seamless pay to work with superchargers (you just drive up, and plugin and it charges through the Ford app).

[Laconian]

I'd sell that thing for 3x profit and buy it again later this year.

Why DCFC when you never have to?

Plus filling up that XXL battery at Supercharger prices, yeesh.

[MrH]

  It's just for road trips?  You think I would go drive to a local supercharger and use that instead of my home 80 amp system?

[Laconian]

  It's just for road trips?  You think I would go drive to a local supercharger and use that instead of my home 80 amp system?

Wouldn't the RDX be a great road tripper?

[AutobahnSHO]

Haha nice score!

[MrH]

Wouldn't the RDX be a great road tripper?

It's ok.  The Lightning is much more spacious and comfortable.  Blue Cruise is great for road trips too.  Depends on the trip.

Might need to haul some stuff back from my brother's place in Pittsburgh.  Also might be doing a guys trip with college buddies to the Bourbon Trail this summer.  For some reason, I'm one of the shorter ones in our group of college friends and I'm 6'2".  The Lightning would be preferred for those trips.