So wanted to follow the lead of a few others on here and give my review of the truck/learnings on EV road tripping after taking a 1400 mile round trip from northern NJ to Charolette and back last week during thanksgiving holiday.
The TL
R - on the truck, loved it but it can be improved as I think all will agree. On EV road tripping, follow the advice of those on here if you’re making a long trip: YOU NEED TO PLAN! I cannot stress enough how much easier this made the trip. This applies to any EV, you can’t treat the trip like you would in an ICE vehicle. But if you plan the trip, it can be (and was for me) rather enjoyable, at least as enjoyable as can be when behind the wheel for 11 hours.
On the Lightning itself - overall loved it. I’m coming from a ‘18 Jeep Grand Cherokee High Altitude (still have but the wife’s now), so bear that in mind as that is my most recent comp. The roominess of this truck made the trip so much more enjoyable. Wife could climb back and comfortably sit between the two car seats if the baby was getting antsy. Seats were way more comfortable than the Jeep. Ride was smooth as butter, no surprise to anyone here I don’t think.
I read on here that some didn’t like blue cruise, I can say I couldn’t disagree more. I basically had it engaged the entire way down on I-95. It wasn’t pulling me back and forth in the lane, though it did like to hug the left line a bit. Accelerated smoothly, decelerated smoothly even when I got cut off very short a few times.Never felt unsafe or nervous after the initial jitters of taking your hands off the wheel that first time. Not sure why others had worse experiences, maybe I’m lucky. But wanted to voice in case anyone else is looking at that as a reason to get or not get the truck. Made the trip so much more enjoyable to be able to take a sweater off or on, grab something outta the storage, etc without worrying about moving my eyes for a second or two.
made the trip back on only two charges (starting from full). Cut it close at 6% remaining when I arrived home, but following the info here and doing the simple math helped me realize I had more than the GOM said. To be fair, I now prefer the conservative nature of the GOM. Temp was 40-50’s on return trip for what it’s worth, was doing basically 70 on interstate. Which leads me to a benefit for me…it caused me to be a safer driver to slow down a bit to maximize miles. Didn’t materially add time, and took some getting used to lol but overall was fine being the slow driver.
other truckrelated observations:software needs updating. Some isn’t as bad for me as others, but the main cluster needs to be customizable more than it is. Main screen, I’m happy they will be updatingso you can use knob for temp and heated seats, using a slider was only not annoying when in blue cruise. Map could be better (Again coming from jeep they make it easy to zoom in and out with a plus-minus instead of treating like a touch pad, they also give a nice option of seeing what services are at upcoming stops which would be nice in the Ford without needing to click the icon). Too many sub menus that can be consolidated. But these are minor to me and are updateable.
overall though the truck was so smooth to drive it made the long trip a lot more enjoyable than I was used to with the ICE vehicle.
hopefully this is helpful to someone
The TL
R - on the truck, loved it but it can be improved as I think all will agree. On EV road tripping, follow the advice of those on here if you’re making a long trip: YOU NEED TO PLAN! I cannot stress enough how much easier this made the trip. This applies to any EV, you can’t treat the trip like you would in an ICE vehicle. But if you plan the trip, it can be (and was for me) rather enjoyable, at least as enjoyable as can be when behind the wheel for 11 hours.On the Lightning itself - overall loved it. I’m coming from a ‘18 Jeep Grand Cherokee High Altitude (still have but the wife’s now), so bear that in mind as that is my most recent comp. The roominess of this truck made the trip so much more enjoyable. Wife could climb back and comfortably sit between the two car seats if the baby was getting antsy. Seats were way more comfortable than the Jeep. Ride was smooth as butter, no surprise to anyone here I don’t think.
I read on here that some didn’t like blue cruise, I can say I couldn’t disagree more. I basically had it engaged the entire way down on I-95. It wasn’t pulling me back and forth in the lane, though it did like to hug the left line a bit. Accelerated smoothly, decelerated smoothly even when I got cut off very short a few times.Never felt unsafe or nervous after the initial jitters of taking your hands off the wheel that first time. Not sure why others had worse experiences, maybe I’m lucky. But wanted to voice in case anyone else is looking at that as a reason to get or not get the truck. Made the trip so much more enjoyable to be able to take a sweater off or on, grab something outta the storage, etc without worrying about moving my eyes for a second or two.
made the trip back on only two charges (starting from full). Cut it close at 6% remaining when I arrived home, but following the info here and doing the simple math helped me realize I had more than the GOM said. To be fair, I now prefer the conservative nature of the GOM. Temp was 40-50’s on return trip for what it’s worth, was doing basically 70 on interstate. Which leads me to a benefit for me…it caused me to be a safer driver to slow down a bit to maximize miles. Didn’t materially add time, and took some getting used to lol but overall was fine being the slow driver.
other truckrelated observations:software needs updating. Some isn’t as bad for me as others, but the main cluster needs to be customizable more than it is. Main screen, I’m happy they will be updatingso you can use knob for temp and heated seats, using a slider was only not annoying when in blue cruise. Map could be better (Again coming from jeep they make it easy to zoom in and out with a plus-minus instead of treating like a touch pad, they also give a nice option of seeing what services are at upcoming stops which would be nice in the Ford without needing to click the icon). Too many sub menus that can be consolidated. But these are minor to me and are updateable.
overall though the truck was so smooth to drive it made the long trip a lot more enjoyable than I was used to with the ICE vehicle.
hopefully this is helpful to someone
