Follow These Electric Vehicle Cold Weather Tips From Ford And You’ll Be Fine
Electric vehicles have been in the news lately and not necessarily for good reasons with this deep freeze that much of the country is in some electric vehicle owners are struggling with the range reduction that you get with electric vehicles when they’re very cold and also with public charging stations
And that’s an inevitable fact EVS don’t perform as well when they get very cold but there are plenty of things you can do to offset the range loss and to mitigate the issues you have in the cold now I put out a video last year on this
Topic and I talked to Ford’s VP of electric vehicle operations Darren Palmer and also one of the very first Ford F-150 Lightning owners that lives in Alaska so he knows a little bit about driving in the cold I thought this might be a good opportunity to revisit that
Video and talk about the challenges electric vehicles have in the cold weather so one of the things I did was charged my F-150 Lightning to 85% % and I sat it out in my driveway overnight and a night where it was about 10° fah overnight and when I got in the vehicle
In the morning the estimated range was showing that I had about 203 mil of driving range so I drove the lightning that day and that night when I came and plugged it into my charger I also set the preconditioning feature so that the vehicle was set to as a departure time
For 7:00 in the morning when I was planning on leaving so the battery was fully charged and it was also warmed because preconditioning your batter is one of the best say weapons you have against the cold and when I got in the vehicle the next morning it was now showing it had
261 miles of driving range that’s almost 30% more than what it was showing the day before at the same 85% state of charge now I might not be able to achieve that 261 Miles because as I’m driving the battery is going to be cooling down but still it just
Demonstrates that you can have significantly more driving range if you can precondition your vehicle for departure not everybody can some people if you live in an apartment or a multif family dwelling where you can’t plug in at night and charge overnight you can’t you don’t have that option uh but if you
Do live in a single family residence like I do or if you have level two charging where you park your vehicle overnight I always tell everybody please set your preconditioning when it’s cold out have your battery in your cabin nice and warm for departure and you’re going
To go a lot further and you know what your your winter Eevee life is going to be a lot better so with this video that I did last year in addition to those two interviews that I did with Darren Palmer and the lightning owner in Alaska I also
Posted Ford’s tips for extending your electric vehicle driving range in the winter months and I think this is a good opportunity now that we’re countryes kind of in a deep freeze to revisit those tips and this isn’t just specific to for for vehicles I mean the video talks about Ford vehicles but honestly
Vehicles of all make really can benefit from these same tips now we go over how you set preconditioning for departure for Ford vehicles it’s going to be a little bit different for your other vehicles um but the features are there for most electric vehicles allow you to precondition for departure um and that’s
One of the best things that you can do that maybe slowing down a little bit if you’re on the highway those are my two biggest tips for extending your driving range okay so now I’m going to jump over to the video that I posted last year so
You may have seen this video on my channel already but it is relevant for what’s going on in the country right now with this deep freeze and it’s a good reminder on the things you can do to help extend your driving range during the winter Months now that winter has arrived and it’s about 15° fah out here in in northern New Jersey my F-150 Lightning is totally useless it won’t even go 50 mil on a full charge wait a minute wait a minute that’s not correct um and I forgot for a second I’m not one of those
YouTubers that will say anything to get clicks make outrageous claims and even spread fud just so they could make a couple bucks what we do here at state of charges I try my best to offer honest content that helps people learn about electric vehicles now I’ve been driving
Electric vehicles for 13 years now I’ve gone through 13 Winters here on the northeast driving my EVS through New York New Jersey Connecticut Massachusetts Maine Vermont and you know what I’ve never been stranded I’ve never needed to be towed I’ve never run out of charge on the side of the highway and
Have a snowplow push me into a tree like some of the things you hear out there there’s actually a lot you can do to better prepare yourself for winter driving now make no mistake electric vehicles all electric vehicles including the lightning don’t go quite as far when
It’s cold as they do when it’s warm but that doesn’t mean that you can’t live perfectly fine with it you have to understand how range works you have to understand the effects of cold weather and there are things you can do to minimize the effects of cold we’re going
To talk about that here today and I also have Darren Palmer Ford’s VP of electric vehicle programs he’s going to come on and we’re going to have a little chat about some of the things he thinks you can do to better prepare yourself for the winter I also have an F-150
Lightning customer that lives in Alaska and he’s been driving pickup trucks his whole life and uh he said something really surprising about the lightning that you’re not going to want to miss but first please don’t forget if it’s your first time here at stateof charge click that subscribe button and ring the
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Business owners by following the link in the description of this video all right so before we jump into the video I just want to have a quick word about some of the things I said earlier about other content creators there are plenty of fantastic journalists and YouTubers out
There that really do a good job talking about EVs and combustion vehicles and explaining how they work and so forth but there’s definitely some out there that like to sensationalize things and you know they take artistic Liberty I think to align with the narrative that they want the video to have
You know truth be damned so just pay attention to who you follow out there and uh get opinions from a bunch of people before you form your own so in any event um let’s talk about cold weather and the effects on electric vehicles and particularly the lightning
So yeah cold weather does hurt the range of electric vehicles I mean the battery it can’t use the energy as efficiently as it does when it’s warmer and then you have the heater use uh electric vehicles don’t get waste heat from their engine that’s how combustion engines heat the
Cabin and that’s why you have to wait a while for the car to warm up before you get heat with electric vehicles as soon as you hop in it you can you turn the heat on heat starts blowing out most people will use their their app and turn
On the heat before they even get in the vehicle uh but that uses even more energy but uh that’s the difference so it uses energy just to heat the cabin and the battery um and in the winter the air is more dense so there’s more wind resistance when you’re driving down the highway
Particularly at highway speeds you’re driving on snow ice slush road salt sand whatever they put on the roads to to help people get better traction that increases rolling resistance so all of this conspires to make your vehicle less efficient I mean it happens with combustion vehicles too they’re less
Efficient when it’s cold also but you don’t notice it as much because they typically have longer ranges and when you’re out on the Road they can refuel faster so it’s not as big of a problem but uh as I said earlier even though Eves have less range if you prepare
Properly you can really overcome it now it’s not going to be for everyone and I always say use the right tool for the right job electric vehicles really have only been around for about a decade now and they’re getting better every year they go further they charge faster but
They’re still not for everyone you might be somebody that for your specific use case a combustion vehicle is better if you need to tow 7 or 8,000 lbs many hundreds of miles frequently you know what as big of an EV supporter as I am the lightning might not be the best
Truck for you you might want to get a diesel or gasoline F-150 or a pickup truck for another brand so you know there’s still things that EVS have to catch up with but to be honest with you they do most things extremely well and if you prepare properly you’ll be just
Fine through the winter months so what I want to do first is Ford recently put out their tips they offered eight tips for lightning owners on how to prepare for winter so let’s take a look at Ford’s recommendations first number one on Ford’s list is an easy one park your
Ford F-150 Lightning in a garage whenever possible pretty simple and easy to understand advice in most cases garages are a little a little bit warmer I know my garage here is attached to my house it’s usually 20 to 30° warmer than it is outside and that means the batter
Is a little bit warmer to start off with and you’re ahead of the game rather than cold soaking it overnight outside now a lot of people can’t do that that’s why they added whenever possible okay number two keep your F-150 Lightning plugged in when parked another pretty simple one
Well why would you want to do that well it’s going to keep charging and it’s going to make sure the vehicle is always fully charged and ready when you need it number three if planning a longer commute precondition your vehicle using departure times to warm the battery
While plugged in by using the Ford pass app or your truck’s Center screen preconditioning is really important and it’s great with EVS what that does is while the vehicle is plugged in it will warm up your battery and the cabin depending on when your departure time is
Set so let’s say you have it set for eight8 :00 in the morning what’s going to happen is maybe 7:00 or 7:30 at some point shortly before you leave the vehicle is going to wake itself up and it’s going to warm the cabin and the battery while it’s plugged in that way
It’ll be using the energy from the your electric service not the battery and what that means is you’ll leave warmed up with 100% charge now number four if equipped use the heated seats and steering wheel as primary heat to reduce energy consum Med by HVAC now this is
One of the things that one of the other YouTubers that I was referring to earlier kind of mocked Ford about and he said that well the Ford’s telling their customers they can’t use the heat what you know this is crazy it’s the winter that’s not what they’re saying here
They’re saying using it as primary heat what I do with my EVs and it works so well is yes I have the heated seats on and this heated steering wheel and they really do a great job warming your body up but I also have the cabin heat on the
Thing thing is you don’t need to have the cabin heat on as high and blowing as strongly if your seats warm and your steering is warm so they’re there just to complement the cabin heat not replace it you don’t have to shut off your cabin heat you just maybe turn it down a
Little bit more and it saves a little bit of energy adds back a couple of those miles you lost to the cold temperatures okay number five when charging turn off the heater if possible or lower the temperature enough to remain comfortable and and then they say
Here especially when using DC fast TR I really think that that’s almost exclusively when using DC fast charge and the reason what they’re saying is while your vehicle is charging if you’re sitting in it and waiting which doesn’t happen all that often unless you’re on a
Road trip some of the energy that you’re getting from the charging station is going to be used by the heater if you’re in the truck heating it up so the truck’s going to take a little bit longer to charge because you’re taking some of that energy this to me is kind
Kind of something that isn’t too important and I would not stress about this unless you’re in a total rush and you have to get to where you’re going as fast as possible leave that heat on and keep yourself warm while you’re charging it’s not going to add much time to your
Charging trust me okay number six if your F-150 Lightning is covered with snow brush off all the snow before driving to eliminate extra weight and drag okay I’m going to rewrite this number six I’m going to take out if you’re F-150 Lightning I’m going to say
If any car you’re driving is covered in snow brush all of it off before driving in many states it’s illegal to drive if you’ve got snow packed on your roof or your windshield or whatever I mean you can’t even see if you don’t remove it from the front of your vehicle it’s a
Safety hazard it can blow off if you’re on the highway if it’s ice it could break the windshield with a vehicle behind you so this is kind of a frazy recommendation in my opinion uh that six there that should regard anyone should follow those directions don’t drive if
There’s snow and ice on your vehicle okay number seven keep driving speeds moderate in cold temperature as high speeds use more energy this is a big one especially in cold weather I mentioned earlier the air is is more dense so there’s more resistance and uh you know speed always reduces range if you’re
Driving on the highway if you just slow down an extra 5 or 10 miles an hour you’d be amazed at how much further you can go now you want to maintain a safe highway speed but if you’re not in a rush to where you’re going knock it down
5 or 10 miles an hour and you’ll see your range increase dramatically and as I said it gets even worse when it’s cold so uh that’s a huge one that’s probably the best way to extend your range in warm or cold weather is simply to just
Slow down a little bit uh number eight Ensure your tires are at the proper pressure this is a big one also as we know dense air you know contracts the uh tire pressure goes down a lot of people get their tire warning uh lights when uh
The first cold spell of the winter keep an eye on your tire pressure make sure it is at the proper pressure I know some people that own EVS that even um make it a little bit higher than the recommended tire pressure because it does increase your range I’m not recommending you do
That I recommend that you put it at the proper tire pressure but just keep an eye on it because throughout the winter it’s going to reduce and I’m telling you just dropping it a couple pounds per square inch lower than what it’s supposed to be set at is going to knock
Range off your vehicle so that’s an important one next up I have Ford’s Global VP of electric vehicles Darren Palmer on to talk a little bit about the F-150 Lightning and cold weather driving but before we do there’s one of the things I want to talk about that we just
Mentioned in that list and that’s preconditioning I have a lot of my followers reach out to me and ask me about battery preconditioning Tom do you do it every day you know is it needed every day and I stance on that is no it’s not and I don’t precondition my
Battery every day as a matter of fact I rarely precondition the battery and that’s because I’m not pushing the edge limits of my vehicle’s driving range uh when doing that when I’m going on a long trip for instance my in-laws live up in Vermont and it’s about 225 miles away so
During the winter months whatever EV that I drive I set the preconditioning and before we leave I’m at 100% charged the battery the cabin’s nice and warm and that helps to extend my range but for daily driving I don’t uh precondition and you really don’t need
To unless you think that you’re going to be pushing the limits of the vehicle’s range and one of the reasons why I don’t is it does use extra energy while you’re preconditioning you know you’re pulling more electricity from the wall and if you don’t need to warm the battery up to
Extend your range every day it’s really not necessary to do so what I do is cabin pre-warming all the time in the winter I’m always hitting that button and getting my cabin nice and warm for me but I don’t set the preconditioning every day I really only do it unless I
Need to squeeze out every mile possible now every utaker has a different way of enabling and setting the preconditioning features on their EVS so let’s take a look at how you set preconditioning on Ford’s electric vehicles for most of America it is cold and getting colder and no matter what
Type of electric vehicle you drive cold temperatures can limit battery power and power is exactly what you need in order to keep your cabin cozy and your windows defrosted in the winter months preconditioning your 4 EV preheats your high voltage battery to an optimal temperature using the charger for Power
And saving your battery power for where you need it most on the road maximizing your overall range the first step to preconditioning your vehicle is setting the departure time this can be done either using the Ford Pass App or the sink screen in your vehicle if you’re
Already in the driver’s seat select the home button on the SN screen then select charging next press the departure and Comfort button now go ahead and adjust the days of the week the time as well as the ideal cabin temperature to your schedule and your preferences finally
Remember to save your settings you can also do this with the Ford Pass App just open the app find the vehicle tab at the bottom of the screen and tap on departure time then select add departure and from there you can adjust the time days of the week and cabin temperature
To your schedule and preferences now it’s time time to set your preferred charge level which tells your vehicle how much you’d like to charge when it’s plugged in to set your charge level using the Ford Pass App open it up and go back to the vehicle tab located at
The bottom of the screen then choose charging followed by selecting the charge settings drop down and then choose preferred charge times select the location you want to manage and then using the sliding bar adjust the charge level if you so choose you can also change your charge times from the screen
As well and once again don’t forget to save your settings once your charge times are set go ahead and plug in your vehicle now with your Ford Pass App you’ll get an alert letting you know when your vehicle has reached its preset temperature allowing you to drive off
Comfortably and without having used any unnecessary battery power and that’s how you precondition your Ford electric vehicle stay warm out There all right so now let’s let’s check in with Darren Palmer see what he has to say okay so I’m here today with Darren Palmer Ford’s VP of global electric vehicle programs we’re going to talk F-150 Lightning in the winter driving it in cold weather and uh so Darren thanks
For coming on I appreciate it this isn’t your first time here on state of charge thanks for being a uh repeat guest great to see you all again you know I follow everything you do so it’s a privilege to be here thank you well thanks okay so
Let’s talk a little bit about F-150 Lightning in cold weather and I know Ford recently put out their cold weather driving tips for lightning owners so I thought it’ be a good time to to maybe uh reach out to you and get some of your thoughts on this subject um one of the
Things I’m I’m interested in is obviously when electric vehicles driving in cold weather they need different uh you know engineering Dynamics than ice Vehicles do could you talk a little bit maybe about what what are the challenges es on engineering an EV to survive cold Winters absolutely um now F150 is a very
Versatile product made for customers all over the country and and they of course enjoy huge variations in conditions so this truck had to be built for tough and the number one they just given was that it had to be ready for absolutely anything so it’s been tested with the
Most extreme that you can imagine both real physically and also in our Labs so way down to 40° and and in snow and ice and pack snow and rock and Ravines and rivers and you everything so we put it through our nor our entire F150 Suite
Whether or not we think it matters for EVS we just did it anyway just like we did with Towing we did it on every possible whether or not we think that would be an extreme for an electric or gas and it turns out during that testing and we mentioned this when we were
Talking about Towing and highspeed towing and then Towing in traffic as well there are some conditions that are not that challenging for Ev for for gas but are very challenging for EVS just because of the cooling and how things works so we just put it through the
Whole test anyway because then we may find things that we didn’t expect so part of this is can it do it and of course you use durability testing to make sure it can do it so it can do it the other part is what does it do to
Your range and every day and everyday usability for customer these things are really really important and some of this is just education of customers on how EVS work and I know you you guys are really at the Forefront of that that’s a huge subject and we knew coming into
Winter that’s when we get lots of questions from customers some of them have bought these products and have just used them exactly like gas and haven’t moved over haven’t learned about it and all of a sudden they get a surprise and then now they’re interested and they
Want to know about how it works how what is preheating and I didn’t even know there was preheating and I never said it and and all of those things you know and then how is charging affected and even can I charge in the rain and what
Happens at C so all of those so those things are what we had to go and find and then try to get in front of how to educate customers nobody will read a manual anymore and they barely read a notification that pops up and and so
We’re using every trick to show them but trying to do it when they need it um and that’s what we working we’ll talk more about that later but some of the challenges that you mentioned so for example when a battery gets cold it has less space in it to store its power so
The same battery when very cold will actually have less range at the same time usually when it’s really cold that’s when people want more heat and that’s when they jump in the in the vehicle and maybe turn it to maximum um and so they may or may not be aware that
Both the batter is down and they will use more heat and therefore it’s a double hit and our policy has been we want to make sure they they never surprised or never let down because we know a lot of customers are going to be really new to the product and and if we
Overestimate the range then it could put them in a position where they have less than they expected and they have a surprise and so we have been on the side of ction there to make sure they don’t get into that because we also know in a
Truck you may also Tow and the last thing you want to do is get into a towing situation be half down the halfway down the road and it’s using more than it said it would and then you get in trouble so our vehicle also detects when you hook a trailer to it
And it adjusts all of its range for that as well but all of that just amounts to us trying to help the customer understand what they’ve really got and I’ll say really we probably we’re a little bit too conservative in some ways and so we’ll talk about it but some of
The things we’ve been doing is as we’ve learned more about real use we have been adjusting our estimates up a little bit and and there’s even there’s a cloud-based system on the truck that is learning from Real Life customer experience and then we can make real time adjustments to people’s trucks for
When we learn what really happens and what’s happening that week and what’s happening in that particular Hill in that area we can adjust their ranges so that we can give them the most security that they can but they’re some of the first things that we had to had to do with so
I one of I noticed in your um uh advice to to uh you know maximize your range in cold weather you talked about preconditioning the vehicle which is you know that that always helps EV range when you plug in set a schedule you know you’re going to leave at 8: a.m. have
The vehicle warmed up and ready to go but one of the other things I noticed that you said was always keep the vehicle plugged in when you’re not using it um you talk a little bit about why that might be important oh yeah absolutely so for not everybody can do
It but a lot of our buyers can we can see that data and a lot of them can so if you keep it plugged in the vehicle will do the work for you it get it tries to be ready for you so if you if you
Keep it plugged in it will keep the battery at a range that uh it’s ready for work so it keep it above Zer degrees C and and it’s ready for work you know if most people so even if you just go and grabb the vehicle at any point drive
Off it’s going to have a reasonable range and it’ll be ready for its fast charging and so that’s why we say plug it in also um if you’re using a vehicle um in the a pro way Pros will leave it plugged in they’ll set a departure time and actually it doesn’t matter the
Departure time because it will prepare the vehicle and the battery and and it loses about one degree an hour so even if you you don’t know what time you’re going to leave and a lot of people’s lives are like that now if even if you don’t know
It doesn’t matter we set it for 6:30 a.m. when electricity is still cheap and get it to pre to prepare it will prepare the vehicle cabin and the battery and it will stay the right temperature for hours and hours even if you don’t leave till 10 or 11 it doesn’t matter and if
You get in then um and and then you have the you conserve energy a little bit the vehicle learns you and you will maintain a very healthy range all through the winter no matter how cold it is outside and that’s what we’re explaining to people I don’t think we’ve explained
Well enough that It prepares the battery and we and we’re preparing to tell them a little bit more about that because people want to know why just telling them to plug it in is not enough it seems you got to tell them why and so we
Have been telling them to plug it in on on the display but it seems a lot of them can ignore that still and say hey I don’t know why so we that’s education that’s what we we’re going to try all different methods to help educate customers yeah AB absolutely you know I
Mean it would be obvious well keep it plugged in because you’re going to recharge it and it’ll always be topped off but then the other side of the coin is in addition to being fully charged it’s going to automatically keep the battery at a temperature as to help ex
You know expand the range so um that’s something that you really haven’t communicated and um you know I’m glad that that we’re bringing that out now I’ll make sure that my followers are aware of that yeah especially especially that that uh setting up the time before
You leave in the morning they might not realize just set it for some random time in the morning usually even even better when the electricity is still at low rate and it and it will prepare the battery they probably didn’t know that and so they they tend to say to me I
Speak to customers every week they say well I don’t know what time I’m going to leave and then I say I got you just sell it for 6:30 then and they didn’t know that and then they write back to me afterwards and say ah it’s made a huge
Difference like okay so good that’s educ ation we’re learning we we’ll get the word out and another thing about education I I find it interesting uh you know I’ve been driving EVS for a long time and um most TVs don’t even give you any information on um where your energy
Went to uh but some of them do they’ll break it up and they’ll say you know 88% went to propulsion and 12% went to you know auxiliary use but the lightning and I believe the Maki also actually breaks it up even more they split up the climate use uh the energy used for
Climate use and then there’s a a separate line for uh exterior temperature which uh I in my the way I took this is that you’re trying to help educate people that look here’s your battery you know this chunk of it went to went to um draw propulsion this was
For your heater and your radio and all that stuff and then over here this is the energy that you lost because it was too cold or or too hot and so the battery wasn’t operating at it maximum capacity is that the reason why you did
That oh yeah so we we knew early on people are going to say where’s all my power gone and why and and it’s not super simple so we added that feature and it’s a under energy usage on the app draw and then you can I’m obsessed with
It I gamify it every day so um I you know my my my best I and and I talk to customers about it every time I call them and some of them don’t know haven’t seen it or don’t use it and so for example if I heat the car and then I get
In it’s toasty warm I set the temperature 3 degrees lower than like 68 f i put you know I drive off and and and it’s it’s already warm the car actually automatically closes the Reser vent to stop cold air coming in it’s got with smart heating I think we call it and
Then it will maintain and by by the time I got to work I didn’t change the temperature and I looked at that bar and I I used about 4% on heat and then and on the right because I preheated and because the battery is warm I have hardly any effect for cold weather
Because a lot of that cold weather effect is the battery temperature and because mine’s Optimum I hardly get any on the right I hardly get any on the left and I’ll achieve probably very very close to the 300 miles EPA of the vehicle even on a cold day um and if I
And I’ve also tried every other if I just forget it leave it soaked to let it get down really cold use maximum heat and drive off when I look I can use you know up to 15 20% heat and I’ll also see on the right hand side the the the
Cold temperature coming in because the battery’s cold and you’ll see how that has reduced you know on a given ride how much of it have you used up because you heated too much and because um of the cold battery that’s what it’s for and I
You know I can’t give too much away I’ll get in trouble but people love that function so we’re going to expand it further and give you even more information see they’re very good I’m a big proponent of giving people more information if some customers don’t want
To view it that’s fine but put it in there in the settings somewhere and let the people that want to view it view it another thing I love about the preconditioning feature uh on my lightning and I own F-150 Lightning as well as you know um is when I turn on
The pre when I pre-warm it through the app uh which I’ll do if I’m at a restaurant you know 10 15 minutes before I’m going to leave I turn it on it automatically turns on my heated seats and my heated steering wheel uh I also have a rivan r1t I’m pretty sure you
Know that but when I turn on the preconditioning it just turns on the cabin air it doesn’t turn on my seats and my my steering wheel which uh I you know I’ve driven through 13 Winters now with EVS this is going to be my first
Winter with my lightning but so I I I’ve I’m a pro at this cold weather driving stuff um I’m big fan of using the heated seats and the heated steering wheels over the cabin heat because they don’t use that much energy so it’s and that’s
One of the things on your list on how to maximize your range that you put out was you know use the the the heated seats and the heated steering wheel so I love the fact that when I when when when I press that you know pre-warm the truck
For me I get out the seats warm the steering wheels warm and then when I get in the truck I I turn the the heat off because I don’t need it the the air is already warm and now my seat my steering wheel’s warm so good job on that did you
Notice that you can set don’t have to set hot cabin either you can set the cabin less uh when you do the preheat as well so that if you for example in your case you say I don’t I want to heat the cabin even less just get it off of cold
You can set that as well so you use even less energy okay well I’ll I’m going to play around with that I’ve just been using it at the setting that I’ve had so you know uh it’s been a a Love Fest so far and I’m I’m talking about how much I
Love my lightning and everything but now I have to ask the hard question why didn’t Ford include a heat pump in the lightning because that the heat pump systems tend to make EVS more efficient in the winter and extend their range so please tell tell us why that wasn’t
Included yeah so we we looked at the system we we’ve got we we know all about heat pump systems and and and what they can do um and and we look we looked at a performance tradeoff versus cost uh for the customer and what it gave and we we
Gave a lot on the M on the lightning I think it’s one of the best value EV products on the market I believe um and so we took a value decision for it and we also found they’re good in some circumstances and they’re not so good in other circumstances so they’re not
Universally better they they give a bit more on one end than the other um there’s also other technology um I won’t go into now but a type of heat pump technology that’s much more efficient and we decided we want to put our money into a much more efficient system um so
We had to take a choice there so that’s why but as you say with a little bit of um of this preparation you can get a very efficient use out of the truck for what it is for the size of the truck it’s really efficient for against its
Competition and everything out in the market it’s very competitive and and its range in Real World um gives a good range versus the EPA because we’re a little bit conservative on it so we we want the real world to be close to what you the customer bought so you know that
People have been very pleased with that as I say I think we our estimation can can be a bit less conservative we’re working on that I think we take the range down a little bit too much but we’re on the safe side at the moment but
A pro using it could definitely get more out of it yeah I’ve I’ve been you know driving around town uh over 300 miles uh you know pure highway it’s a little bit less obviously that happens with all EVS but I’m I’ve been very happy with my
Range so far and I I can easily meet the EPA range rating now it hasn’t got really cold here in New Jersey yet uh you know that’s that’s coming so we’re going to be able to do some good cold weather testing coming up soon and I’m
Actually going to speak to one of your Alaskan customers next and about their experience driving the lightning up in Alaska so um you know I appreciate your time here Darren thank you very much for coming on stateof charge again I I I do appreciate that you come on here to talk
To the state of charge community and uh give us the inside scoop on Ford electrification projects thank you and we’re listening every day I have always on teams they’re called now on the lightning and on the um on the Mac e and soon to be the E Transit and we’re
Listening and watching every day what’s happening and helping customers we if we see people with problems we try to treat them like family we can’t be perfect but we can try and treat them perfectly so that’s what we’re trying to do we learn every day that’s it and and we’ll keep
Learning and we’ll keep improving um as we go and software we’re really getting into our stride now on software we committed to continuously update these vehicles with cool stuff and we’re going to do it so you’re you’re going to start seeing it coming through now we we did
Deliver blue Cruise handsfree with um over thee a which was a major major update but we got some more coming which I’m not allowed to talk about yet but we’ll come to our customers and I mean all of them everybody bought Mai and lightning from the start they’re all
Going to get it so I’m really pleased about that and um great to see you again thank you and before before we leave talking about the software updates just today I received my software update so that I can use my phone as a key for the lightning which I was really waiting for
And uh I haven’t I haven’t actually paired it yet because I’ve been busy with the electricians here today we’re doing our our upgrade here at the house now for Ford intelligent backup power system I’m doing my full install this week so there’s going to be content coming out on that very soon Darren
Thanks again for coming on I appreciate it it’s good I want to hear when you get the next softare updates we’ve got some we’re cooking up some good stuff so I want to hear from what what you think of those as well thank you can’t wait well that was interesting sounds like Darren
And his team have been working on some updates that lightning owners may be seeing soon next up we’re going to talk to Jeff headed of Anchorage Alaska Jeff and is Wife Tammy took delivery of their lightning over the summer right around the time that I did now Jeff has a
Unique perspective because he lives up in Alaska and it’s already been very cold up there they’ve already had a lot of snow so we’re going to talk to Jeff about his experience with his lightning driving around up in Anchorage Alaska all right so we’re here today with Jeff
Headed Jeff is a Ford F-150 Lightning owner up in Alaska now it gets cold in the winter here in New Jersey but not Alaska cold so I thought I’d talk to Jeff a little bit about his experience so far so jefff why don’t to tell us a
Little bit about you and your lightning and how cool it is up in Alaska sure so uh again my name is Jeff headed uh I live in Anchorage Alaska I’ve been in Alaska you know uh almost 60 years uh so a long time uh came up here with uh my
Family when uh we were in the military um uh I’ve got my lightning in July uh have thoroughly enjoyed the truck on on all levels um obviously I got it uh during the summer months when the days are quite long uh now the flip side of that is true days are much shorter
Temperatures are much colder as a matter of fact uh yesterday I we are in the throws of a cold snap and yesterday um I believe when I drove in it was eight below zero um so uh getting to experience uh uh the truck during the winter months
Um and uh as I said previously uh uh I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the truck in the time that I’ve owned it okay so um you know there’s interesting things I’ve driven EVS through many Winters here I’ve been driving electric vehicles for 13 years now so you know we get we get
Decent Winters here in New Jersey again nothing like you know8 below uh it might get below zero a couple of times but just barely one or two degrees below zero um but it’s cold then we get ice have you noticed like some EVS uh struggle a little bit when
They’re on ice because you know the regen regenerative braking how the the the vehicle slows you down when you lift off the accelerator sometimes the the regen struggles with the anti-lock braking system and you might get a little skidding how’s how’s the uh the lightning been on really slippy Sur
Surfaces well let me answer that question in two parts uh first of all uh I did the regenerated breaking in the one pedal driving um uh in the summer I honestly have not used it in the winter all right um I was during the summer
Months when I did use it I was uh apprehensive uh in how it would work uh I found that I was able to adapt to it quite easily um I will admit that uh this is my first EV so I’ve been burning gas since I was at 16 um and so uh now
That you mentioned that I would like I I want give it a try uh in these road conditions but the second part of the answer to that question is that um I have been a Ford owner a Ford truck owner an F-150 owner for uh I don’t know probably 15 years is
Um the the truck I had private prior to this was a 2015 F-150 Platinum uh I actually still have that truck but I find that uh my F-150 Lightning is a subst stantially more shooted vehicle in inclement in inclement in inclement road conditions it gets around well in the
Ice and snow much more so than my previous F-150 Platinum does and I don’t know what to attribute that to I know that the truck is on balance is heavier I’m not sure if if that helps but I will tell you that the all-wheel drive system that the lightning has is superior to
The auto all-wheel drive system that is on my gas powered f 150 substantially so I feel much more comfortable driving in Slippery on slippery roads and in snow in the new F-150 Lightning interesting and are you running with the stock tires the allseason tires or did you put uh
Specific I put an allseason i put a I put a bzx I would imagine you’re familiar with that brand Bridgestone Bridgestone bliz X it’s a a winter non-ed winter tire um and again uh I have not had and other than glare ice my experience with those as a as a Tire
Choice uh has been they’ve worked well and so I’m experiencing the same thing with this how about your range now we know all EVS lose range when it’s really cold right um would you be able to Ballpark how much range you think uh you’ve you’re getting less uh I would
Say probably about between 10 and 15% probably um now I I do there is a there is a uh a means to check the power usage what percent of the power usage is going to the various Services driving climate uh that sort of thing temperature yeah
Yeah and I so I’ve paid more attention to that as the as the weather has changed and it doesn’t appear to me that the outside temp is uh seriously changed the usage from that perspective how about deep snow have you driven it in deep snow recently yet or
Uh I’ve driven it probably 10 inches of snow and um and again I would say uh I have had a handful of all-wheel drive vehicles and um and there are some that just get around much better uh in that kind of weather than than others and I
Find this to be you know in the top 5% of of those vehicles with that function that i’ I’ve experienced that’s I mean you’re experienced Ford truck driver you live in Alaska you should know how your different Vehicles handle in the winter you know I’ve I’ve I’ve always had
Pickup trucks uh not Ford pickup trucks though i’ I’ve gone for the smaller ones I I had a lot of Toyota Tacomas in the past and the interesting thing is you know you would think that you know Toyota would build on like every model would be the the same or better but that
Isn’t the case through the years I’ve had had certain ones that were much better in snow and ice and then I get the next model I’m like it’s going even be better than the last one and it’s terrible and then you know the next model I get four years later was back to
Being good so you know it’s not every four-wheel drive vehicle doesn’t act the same way some of them do outperform others and it’s interesting that you as a Ford truck owner are saying that the lightning seems to outperform the other Ford trucks that you’ve owned in snow and and and inclement weather that
That’s interesting um and I I haven’t had a chance of driving snow here in New Jersey yet it’s just starting to get cold here you know we really get snow in January and February but I’m I’m I’m looking forward to trying it out um do you have any extra parting tips for
F-150 Lightning owners for the winter that you want to share well um for those people that have been reluctant I would say and I I’ll fall into that category um reluctant to adopt the EV because of apprehension around uh uh the amount of distance that they can get um I think
Those are misplaced uh uh worries uh and as uh the infrastructure that supports EVS is more robust I think uh they as an option will just be much more you know widely adopted and I I think I’m I’m glad to be in front of that wave uh as
Opposed to in the middle of it so um I would say don’t don’t be afraid don’t be afraid Well w wise words I’ve been telling people that for quite some time now but you know you have to experience it it’s it’s it’s easy to tell somebody oh go
Get an EV you’re not going to have range anxiety it’s going to be able to get you to where you need to going to be go but you know everybody has to do it when they’re ready you know and uh but it’s good when you have a friend or somebody
You know like you know that that you trust because people you they’re not trusting the commercials Ford saying oh Drive our F-150 Lightning it’s great you know what they trust they trust you they trust me people that are owners that say Hey look you know we’re just everyday
People here we’ve got these electric pickup trucks and they’re awesome and you you should uh you should consider it so um listen thank you very much for coming on I appreciate this I’m sure the uh F-150 Lightning Community is going to be very happy to hear your words and uh
Talking about how well the truck performs in the winter glad I can help all right I’d like to thank Jeff again for coming on state of charge and sharing his lightning experience found it really interesting when he said that he thought the Lightning’s all-wheel drive system is superior to the allil
Wheeel drive system on his conventionally fueled Ford pickup truck really interesting there I’m going to be able to test that out myself soon we’re scheduled to have some snow in a couple of weeks so I should be able to do some firsthand reporting on that soon all
Right so let’s do a quick recap as far as winter driving with your F-150 Lightning trying to extend your r range making sure you’re getting the most out of the battery there’s some just basic things that you can do that can really dramatically improve your winter driving
Range plug the vehicle in even if you’re at 70 80% state of charge if the you’re near a charger just plug it in that’ll top off the battery and also if the vehicle decides that the or if the vehicle determines that the battery is getting too cold it’ll start warming it
Up and have it ready for that next drive and even keeping it at a warmer level prepares it if you do need to DC fast charge once you get out on the road if you’re going on a long trip it’s better to have that battery warmer because
It’ll be able to take in more power use the preconditioning feature uh if you think that you’re going to be driving very far as I said you know for daily use you probably don’t need that but if you think you’re going to be kind of stretching the range make sure you
Schedule precond conditioning your vehicle will be nice and toasty warm the battery will be warm and ready to go as far as you need it to make sure your tire pressure is set properly that’s really important in the winter months you could easily Knock 10 15 miles a
Range off your driving range if your tire pressure is just a couple pounds low use the heated steering wheel and heated seats if you have them on your lightning I’m not saying shut off the cabin heat but you can definitely use less cabin heat which was going to use
Less energy just by keeping your seat and your steering wheel nice and warm your body’s going to feel nice and warm the big one here is slow down you don’t need to get somewhere that extra 2 minutes earlier so take it easy it’s safer especially with ice and snow on
The roads you know you could have black ice on the highways and you don’t even see it knock your speed down just a couple miles an hour and it’s really going to make a difference with your range that’s you know EV 101 speed kills
And we used to say you can go go fast or you can go far but you can’t go both and it’s it’s true especially in the winter you know if you really need to get every mile out of your Lightning’s battery just knock that speed down a little bit
And you’ll make it there no problem now one of the things we haven’t talked about here today that I think’s really good feature on the lightning and it will help you increase your range is use that brake coach Ford has the regenerative braking brake coach and it tells you what percentage of your
Braking was done with regen versus using the friction brakes use that to coach you to improve how you use regenerative braking you want that to be 100% every time and if that’s the case you’re recovering as much energy as you’re possibly can and that can add another 5
Or 10 miles per charge to your driving range if you use your regenerative braking properly even more but you know I’m I’m assuming your Baseline is going to be lower than 100% if you if you can improve from 80% all the time up to 100% all the time when you use that uh
Regenerative breaking break coach you’re going to add some miles to your driving range well that’s all we have here today I hope you enjoyed the video I hope you found it informative if this is your first time here at state of charge please click that subscribe button and
Ring the notification Bell so you don’t miss any upcoming EV news and reviews and as always thanks for Watching oh
All electric vehicles lose some of their normal driving range in the colder winter months. In this video, I explore the different things that owners can do to minimize range loss when it’s cold outside. I’m joined by Darren Palmer, Ford’s VP of electric vehicle programs as well as one of the first people who lives in Alaska and took delivery of a Ford F-150 Lightning in 2022.
This video is powered by Qmerit, North America’s leading provider of installation services for EV charging, home energy storage, and other electrification technologies. See how Qmerit is making the energy transition easy for home and business owners: https://qmerit.com/ev/charge
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
7:10 Why is the winter range lower on electric vehicles?
9:44 Ford’s cold weather recommendations
15:48 Do you need to precondition the battery every day?
17:39 How to set battery preconditioning on Ford electric vehicles
20:01 Interview with Darren Palmer, Ford’s VP of electric vehicle programs
38:20 I talk with Jeff Head, an F-150 Lightning owner who lives in Alaska
47:22 I recap the winter driving tip
51:05 Outro
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