You guys realize what it’s gonna take to wire that charger into most of your houses. I’m in the process of building a house and I’ve specifically located the panel in the garage, mostly for aesthetics, but it did make for a shorter run to wire the charger. I’m an electrician. Unfortunately even with the panel in my garage I have to run the wire to the opposite side. I have to do some more research into the wires and obviously I don’t have the specs of the unit yet but it looks like 2-2-2-4 ser is going to be the best option for most people. God for bid your run is over a certain distance and you have to size the wire for a voltage drop. Let alone how much of your house you may have to open up for the install. Frankly it’s going to be a motherfucker for most people and expensive as all hell
Exactly ... and this is where efficiency makes a big difference in the everyday livability of the product. I currently own the most efficient car ever made by mankind (Model 3 SR+) which gets about 135 MPGe. In perfect conditions, it does 300+ MPGe. So with a NEMA 14-50 on a 60 Amp, 6-3 copper it charges easily for daily use in less than 4 hours a night. Even at a campground that only had a single 15A GFI breaker, a full night gave us plenty of range to easily make it back to the supercharger network ... in other words, low power use makes the thing super easy to live with.
Ford played it smart (I think) by going with two Permanent Magnet motors. The trend in earlier Tesla and Rivian's truck is to use Induction Motors which can be powered down (coasting). The Rivian powers down it's back motors (making it a FWD truck) and Tesla mixes them with a front induction motor which is easily switched off and a PM motor in the rear.
The Lightning is a true all the time 4WD.
But, in the Mach E Ford's suppliers limited Ford's ability to build Tesla-like efficiency. Parts of the HVAC system are really oversized. EV don't have nearly (like practically near 0) excess heat in normal operation. This accounts for 15% to 20% or more of a EV's energy use. Nobody has any idea how Ford engineered this in the Lightning. Probably uses a heat pump, but those can fail in extreme cold and we know Ford builds their trucks for a wide extreme of conditions.
Rivian set a pretty low bar for efficiency. Ford's Lightning is lighter (aluminum) and Ford puts a lot of work into Aero. In the pre-production Lightnings I've seen the fit of the front hood and that light bar has been bad enough that I think it would be draggy. I expect Ford will tighten up production (and they need to since a misaligned bright light really stands out). I think Ford's aero will be close to Rivian's. All the EV truck builders are using factory Tonneau covers except for Ford.
Overall Ford has built an electric F150 instead of a EV truck. The F150 is such an optimized design that it might work well. But, if this gets ~25 MPGe it will be a pain in the arse to charge. I am expecting somewhere close to 75 MPGe and hoping for better.
The Electrify America charging network is sketchy, unreliable and inconsistent. That is not a problem if your vehicle doesn't need that much power. With the Lightning I think we are going to actually need those 150 KWH chargers to all be working. There is also the cost, while a lot cheaper than gas (talking >$12.00 for a typical 20 to 80%) a Tesla M3 SR+ is < $6.