Ford's New Custom Electric Pickup Truck Is a Blast From the Past (cnbc.com) 182
Ford Motor unveiled Tuesday a custom truck that combines its past with its future electrification plans, including its highly anticipated F-150 Lightning pickup in 2022. CNBC reports: The "all-electric Ford F-100 Eluminator concept truck" features the retro-styling of a 1978 F-100 pickup with electric motors and batteries from the automaker's 2021 Mustang Mach-E GT Performance Edition. Its interior controls and screens also resemble the Mach-E electric crossover. Ford built the vehicle to showcase its new "e-crate motor" that's now on sale online and at its dealerships. Such "crate" engines or motors are assembled by the company but are available for general purchase for building, fixing or customizing vehicles.
"Our F-100 Eluminator concept is a preview of how we're supporting customers as they go all-electric and embrace zero-tailpipe emissions performance, even for our heritage vehicles," Ford global director of accessories and licensing Eric Cin said in a release. The concept pickup can produce 480 horsepower and 634 foot-pounds of torque, Ford said. It was designed and created by Ford Performance and built-in collaboration with aftermarket companies such as MLe Racecars and Roadster Shop. Each of Ford's e-crate motors produces 281 horsepower and 317 foot-pounds of torque and is street-legal in all 50 states, according to the company. Ford said the motor will retail for $3,900.
"Our F-100 Eluminator concept is a preview of how we're supporting customers as they go all-electric and embrace zero-tailpipe emissions performance, even for our heritage vehicles," Ford global director of accessories and licensing Eric Cin said in a release. The concept pickup can produce 480 horsepower and 634 foot-pounds of torque, Ford said. It was designed and created by Ford Performance and built-in collaboration with aftermarket companies such as MLe Racecars and Roadster Shop. Each of Ford's e-crate motors produces 281 horsepower and 317 foot-pounds of torque and is street-legal in all 50 states, according to the company. Ford said the motor will retail for $3,900.
More than a century ago (Score:2)
A blast from the past indeed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
What about the batteries? (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's the batteries that matter the most...price, storage capacity, reliability, volume, weight, degradation rate, recharge time, etc.
Electric storage technology is our big challenge.
For vehicles, for grid storage, and for other uses.
Once we can efficiently store and release gigawatts of electricity at reasonable cost we can make serious moves away from burning carbonaceous fuels.
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EV-capable batteries are already available. For instance, anyone could get the exact same Panasonic NCR18650B cells used in early Teslas. Today there are even better ones you can buy off the shelf.
The selection of suitable motors for the homebuild crowd isn't great. An automotive motor, engineered for that purpose, could be much better than an off-the-shelf industrial motor. I'm eager to see what the hotrodders can do when they get their hands on this.
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Of course manufacturers are scrambling to double production every year. This will always be hard. But on the other hand they only need to keep doing this for less than 4 years
Re:What about the batteries? (Score:4)
To be clear: There is a huge demand for lithium cells and nowhere near the necessary supply. Yeah, you can buy a few dozen from your favorite retail vendor, but when it comes to buying millions of them for both transportation and grid storage use, good luck.
That's one good point, but it misses at least two other good ones. The first is that making it easier for hardware hackers and automotive hobbyists to build electric vehicles lowers the entry bar and gets lots more people working on solving the associated problems. That includes more people working on new battery technologies. It also might include work on alternative localized charging infrastructure for the 'short haul' runs that constitute a lot of private citizen car use. That might allow older, easier-to-get-and-use battery chemistries and chargers to make a significant contribution to fighting carbon emissions.
The second point is that taking old gas-guzzling vehicles and converting them to electric will allow for more rapid EV adoption, because electric vehicles will suddenly be within reach of average families. That in turn will cut manufacturing-driven carbon emissions by reducing demand for brand new vehicles, both IC and EV. As an added bonus, the availability of EV's built on IC carcasses might be one way of having an EV that isn't a rolling bundle of spyware and privacy invasion.
I don't often praise big corporations, but I think Ford is doing everyone a solid here. I actually find this kind of exciting.
Batteries not included. (Score:2)
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It would be nice to see someone take a cue from what apple did with their batteries; make it all custom segments allowing you to distribute centrally and low . . . if it wasn't for Tesla trying to pretend that 'range anxiety' is just people being crazy instead of a real thing, they could have done it by now. That's like saying rain isn't a concern for motorcycles and convertibles
I saw the first co
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Actually it is a lot of factors.
Part of the problem is we are mostly slapping in Electric Engines, and replacing the the Chassis with an electric skateboard. Where the car and trucks shape is dictated based on what was done, when you needed a hot running engine, powered by thousands of explosions per minute. Especially for trucks a lot of the aerodynamics was lost, so you can have a big grill to cool the engine, the chassis from the body and bed, needs to be high enough to allow for exhaust pipes, and a tr
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Tesla and other EV makers are switching to LiFePO4 batteries which are half the cost, safer and offer more cycles... not to mention that they don't require Nickle, Cobalt, Magnesium, etc., just very abundant, cheap minerals. Slightly lower power density is only downside but they can routinely be charged to 100% so that improves range.
Good (Score:4, Interesting)
I like this - I hate the appearance of modern cars and this seems nice. The bigger question is did they make the body of thicker metal, like it used to be done in the past. Thicker metal takes longer to rust and does not bend as easily.
I'm probably going o convert my car to electric, well, once the battery technology is good enough. It would be compliant with the pollution laws at the time, while avoiding all the complexity (keyless entry, computer controlled everything) of modern cars and having a bit thicker steel.
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Which shows that battery technology right now is limited. Hopefully it improves somewhat in the future and it would be possible to have a heavier, less aerodynamic car and still have decent range.
Though for range I would be OK with very fast charging or battery swapping. Waiting for 45 minutes or longer to charge would suck, but swapping empty batteries for full ones in, say, 10 minutes or less would be good enough if 1) the range was at least 400km and 2) the "gas stations" were about as frequent as gas st
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Well, except for pickup trucks which are just build to look bulky. So it might be the right type to test retro-styling on. Not like there is a lot of aerodynamic improvements to be lost.
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
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And even when they park, the ass of their trucks goes beyond the parking space, they're practically parking in the middle of the fucking street.
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The idiots with the Harley Davidson edition trucks really give me a good laugh. They paid a ton of money for that fancy badge and the truck bed isn't even big enough to haul a motorcycle.
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The idiots with the Harley Davidson edition trucks really give me a good laugh. They paid a ton of money for that fancy badge and the truck bed isn't even big enough to haul a motorcycle.
Harleys are heavy AF and most people who own them can't get them into a pickup bed anyway. The HD edition trucks however, at least in the 11th gen, are all wheel drive. That's a compelling reason to buy one even if you don't give two fucks about a motorcycle designed to compromise power and efficiency in order to make more noise. Most people don't need 4WD (locked transfer case) let alone 4LO ever, and would benefit far more from full-time AWD. The mileage compromise is apparently minimal.
I'd like to put th
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So the truck makes as much sense as a Harley Davidson edition toilet plunger.
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Ramps aren't magic. You either have to ride up which is dangerous, or push the cycle up the ramp which is hard if it is heavy.
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or push the cycle up the ramp which is hard if it is heavy.
The weight of the bike isn't the problem here. The length of the ramp is.
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A trailer does usually make more sense though, much lower.
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Well,
the old streets in my town in Germany are mostly bi directional. With some agreement, two cars can pass each other.
A few days ago, I saw a pickup and an SUV stuck in the middle. The two drivers to stupid to realize that one has to give up and drive backward to the beginning of the road.
The cars were so big they could not pass each other in the middle. And granted: from the license plate your could see both a "city dwellers". I doubt any of them had a "real use" for the car, as in hauling something. But
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But well a SUV here in Germany is basically an oversized passenger car anyway.
Isn't that the equivalent of a US crossover vehicle?
(pedantic portion of post) "The two drivers too stupid to realize..." emphasis mine. It's rare that one gets the opportunity to use all three of the two/too/to or there/their/they're in a proper sentence, but should probably spell it right. I can presume, based upon your post English isn't your first language, but this is of note.
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Really? You would spell that with two o's?
Why? Does not really make sense to me.
I'm German, btw.
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
Too comes from a root word meaning roughly "a larger quantity" - so "I like that too" (where I am the additional quantity), "That is too bad" (where the quantity aspect is more like 'more than you would like'), or "they were too stupid to realize" (more stupidity than allows for a resolution) and so on. "Two" is related to "duo" and Dutch "twee". "to" is mostly directional/positional, including in time (to-morrow, to-day).
The spelling changed from "to" to "too" in the 1500's. I think the word used to be stressed differently from "to".
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Interesting!
I so far used "too" only at the end of a sentence, as in "I was on the party, too".
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Interesting!
I so far used "too" only at the end of a sentence, as in "I was on the party, too".
You don't need that comma. And you probably mean that you were at the party rather than crowd-surfing on it :)
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"as well", yes, never heard it is used as "excessive" too :P
So I write it wrong since 35 - 40 years, lol. And you are the first pointing it out!
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Hm, so I have to write: "It is too high to jump over?" - sorry, that is really odd for me.
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All EV's need to be aerodynamic for range, but trucks are designed deliberately to be blocky and with poor drag coefficients for dick measuring. He needed a way to get an efficient design, but to still make the truck look masculine and blocky. Folded stainless steel, with t
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Is more momentum more of a 'disaster' for a battery vehicle than it is for a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle? Momentum slows down the change of velocity for everything. Actually, if you have regenerative braking you could recover some of your energy (thinking of the definition of energy as 'change in momentum'). So, in that regard at least, it would be a little bit less of a problem. Also, internal combusion engine vehicles require a complicated transmission, and it gets more complicated if they have a lot of momentum to deal with. Think of the complicated gear shifts on big trucks for instance. So in that regard also, more momentum is an even bigger problem for conventional gasoline and diesel engine vehicles than electrics.
While momentum is important during acceleration (and can be recouped some with regenerative breaking), I think weight and the resulting tire friction, along with drag, is more important once already moving. The less weight, the less friction, the less power required to maintain speed.
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Not at all, aerodynamic drag is a much bigger issue for maintaining speed. Rolling resistance and various drivetrain losses are pretty marginal components at highway speeds, and don't increase as rapidly as drag.
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Not at all, aerodynamic drag is a much bigger issue for maintaining speed. Rolling resistance and various drivetrain losses are pretty marginal components at highway speeds, and don't increase as rapidly as drag.
Agreed, but I was looking more at how the mass of the car impacted the energy needed. Not that I was particularly clear.
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The bigger question is did they make the body of thicker metal, like it used to be done in the past. Thicker metal takes longer to rust and does not bend as easily.
Huh? Maybe it's not the same in the USA, but in the rest of the world the 'thinner metal' was a result of the move to advanced high strength steel alloys [worldautosteel.org], rather than the 'muck metal' used in old vehicles. And modern hot-dip galvanisation is a much better fix for corrosion than trying to buy time with more material.
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'thinner metal' was a result of the move to advanced high strength steel alloys, rather than the 'muck metal' used in old vehicles.
Thinner metal was a result of the move to recycled American steel. We literally crushed cars (and washing machines, and so on) and sent at first the recycled steel and later just the crushed stuff to Japan, and they made thinner cars out of them because every time you recycle steel it gets harder. You can put stuff into it to try to combat this but you just naturally get a harder product. And that means it's actually stronger, but it's also less ductile. That's why early Japanese cars had simpler body desig
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'thinner metal' was a result of the move to advanced high strength steel alloys, rather than the 'muck metal' used in old vehicles.
Thinner metal was a result of the move to recycled American steel. We literally crushed cars (and washing machines, and so on) and sent at first the recycled steel and later just the crushed stuff to Japan, and they made thinner cars out of them because every time you recycle steel it gets harder. You can put stuff into it to try to combat this but you just naturally get a harder product. And that means it's actually stronger, but it's also less ductile. That's why early Japanese cars had simpler body designs than their American counterparts. It's also why they're lighter weight. The down side is that the thinner, harder steel is harder to repair. Now all cars are made out of higher strength steel for weight reasons, so less can be used, and everything but pickup trucks is made unibody so it's not worth repairing after any significant accident... which will tweak the whole body, not just the impact area.
As for modern hot-dip galvanization, the galvanizing layer is too damn thin. Consequently we're seeing rust problems being a big problem again.
Doesn't seem like that should always be the case if companies take the time to do things right (not that companies do that often...): https://phys.org/news/2017-08-... [phys.org]
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and they made thinner cars out of them because every time you recycle steel it gets harder.
That is non sense. To make steel harder you have to add carbon (or other metals - depending what you want to achieve). And recycled steel is nearly exclusively recycled with electricity.
Also if one would use coal to do it, he would just remove the excess carbon by blowing it out.
You can recycle steel basically into every form you want, exactly as you would by making steel from ore.
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It's anecdotes, not real statistics, but a few mechanics I know have seen some newer cars that were badly corroded, worse than my old car. Though it could be manufacturing defect.
Maybe modern steel is stronger than the older steel and thinner sheet is just as strong as an old thicker sheet, but for some reason modern cars get really messed up from low speed impacts. I understand that if you hit something at 100km/h there'll be trouble, but even at 20km/h it seems that a modern car can get messed up, where o
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but for some reason modern cars get really messed up from low speed impacts
The reason is collision testing, and car buyers' (quite sensible) desire to drive a car that scores well in collision testing -- meaning a car that protects the people inside it.
In order to absorb the damage from high-speed impacts and protect the occupants, rather than transferring all of the force of a high-speed crash to the occupants as a more rigid body would do, modern cars are designed to crumple in a specific way. This isn't because they're weakly-constructed, it's because they're engineered to be
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Ford has been making its domestic-production pickups, F-150 certain and other models I believe also, with aluminum bodies. This is not a particularly recent change. A big deal at the time, GM went whole hog challenging the durability and cosmetics, but Ford's commercial fleet customers got aluminum bodies for quite a while as tests, undisclosed, and among other things asked about the coatings and finishes, since these trucks didn't rust... And they don't dent so easily when you throw your tool case in the
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Some cars, and some parts of some cars are made out of Aluminum. It doesn't rust (in normal conditions), but it's difficult to repair.
Cars now are much stronger than in the past, but some parts (the front especially) are made to bend and crumple in an accident.
The battery technology is good enough now (performance and capacity), but it's still expensive. It still compares unfavourably to internal combustion engines that have hundreds of high precision, extremely temperature-resistant, corrosion resistant mo
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The bigger question is did they make the body of thicker metal, like it used to be done in the past
Ford doesn't have the tooling to stamp out F100s any more, and hasn't for decades. They made the whole truck out of a truck that was made in the past. If they had to buy any new replacement body panels, though, they are certainly made out of thinner modern steel.
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I think it is interesting how Ford is doing e-crate engines. This will make things easier to convert vehicles to EVs. It is sort of the best of both worlds. An older car that has some style, plus the ease of upkeep of an EV.
When battery technology gets better, where we get within an order of magnitude of gasoline or propane, there won't be any reason not to move to EVs, other than access and availability to charging stations... and that is more of a chicken and egg scenario than anything else.
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Gas has the advantages of cost, range and refill time. Range seems to be OK with EVs too, but recharge time sucks. While waiting 30 minutes to charge may not be that bad (though still worse than the few minutes to fill the gas tank), waiting in line for the other guy to charge his car for 30 minutes and then charging mine for 30 minutes, well, that would not be so great.
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If you actually own an EV, you're never going to a dedicated charging station. You plug it in at home, and charge overnight.
The gasoline paradigm where you fill up once a week or so doesn't work for EVs, and there's little reason to try to make it work. But that paradigm is what we've been using since cars became mainstream, so people have trouble letting go of it. Until they own an EV.
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The bigger question is did they make the body of thicker metal, like it used to be done in the past. Thicker metal takes longer to rust and does not bend as easily.
This seems to be just an old body plonked on top of a new drivetrain.
Reasons not to use thicker steel:
1. actual rustproofing is a much better method for preserving the body than increasing the thickness. Galvanize the body and be done with it.
2. thicker steel = more weight = inefficiency.
3. old bodies used to be thicker than they needed to becaused they lacked the analysis tools we have now. Now we can make the body as strong as it needs to be and save weight where no strength is needed.
4. you want the body
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5. Thinner body will be irreparably damaged in low speed accidents (where the forces would be survivable with no injuries in an old car anyway) requiring the purchase of a new car, thus increasing the demand and profit.
If I had to buy a new car (as in recently made), I would probably look how I could reinforce it, so I do not have to spend lots and lots of money to straighten it out after slowly hitting a lamp post or a wall. Maybe welding a piece of rail in place of the bumpers would be enough
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It's the price we have to pay for not killing quite so many people on the roads each year. Sabotaging that by welding in big hunks of metal is criminal.
1978 indeed (Score:3)
Is that a freakin' hand crank for operating the side-window? I'm ok with the retro style, but this is an actual 1978 truck with a tablet strapped on the console. Seriously, Ford?
Re:1978 indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never had a manually-opened car window stop working. I've seen multiple power window failures over the years, both in our own cars and the extended family's.
(my Escort obviously had manual windows)
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Doesn't hurt to have both, yeah.
Re:1978 indeed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Hand crank starter. ...
Manually operated windshield wipers.
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Motor tech (Score:2)
But manual {...} transmission {...} are ultimately more reliable than their electric counterparts are more cost effective to fix in the unlikely event they need some type of repair.
The others: Yes.
The transmission: depends on what you imply by "electric counterparts".
A manual transmission vs. one of those modern automatic transmission used by ICE cars? Yes, indeed it's simpler and more robust.
Compared to an EV? Lol, no. You're comparing a complex gear shifting mechanism with a relatively simple electrical motor that has an entirely enclosed/seal single ratio reduction gear.
That's a huge advantage of EVs: compared to the marvelous but complex ballet of extremely precise mechanical part
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I have long legs and haven't been in a car since I was a kid with hand-crank windows where the crank didn't poke me in the knee when I let my leg rest to the side. That's my only real complaint about manual windows.
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Sounds like tha glue that holds the glass into the lift strip came unglued. An easy fix with a $5 epoxy, versus potentially $100+ (and that's the price from a wrecker) for a busted electric lifter.
Having said that, I just sold my '04 Ford Focus for something far more modern and I do miss the frantic cranking of the window. It used to be a bit of a game, lean over and see how fast I could crank the passenger window up or down. I'd highscore the shit out of any electric window that wanted to step. Plus thread
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Is that a freakin' hand crank for operating the side-window? I'm ok with the retro style, but this is an actual 1978 truck with a tablet strapped on the console. Seriously, Ford?
If you think that is an actual 1978 truck, go ahead. Dent the fender. Tell me how it only cost you 100 bucks to replace it. That luxury leather-wrapped steering wheel dripping with buttons and armed with airbags costs more than the entire chrome package on an actual 1978 truck.
And calm down. It's a concept vehicle. We all know hand crank windows would elicit a multi-trillion dollar class-action lawsuit from the Voice-Activated Generation. No way in hell is that torture device making it to production.
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Is that a freakin' hand crank for operating the side-window? I'm ok with the retro style, but this is an actual 1978 truck with a tablet strapped on the console. Seriously, Ford?
The picture is pretty low res [cnbcfm.com] but I think the "hand crank" you're seeing is actually two buttons with some stitching in between.
As for the tablet being a bit more detached I don't mind that since it makes the tablet component easier to replace, and I expect the tablet to break down / go obsolete much faster than the rest of the vehicle.
Torque (Score:2)
634 sounds good but thats direct from the motor, unlike an ICE engine which goes through gearing and a diff which multiplies its torque up to 10 times at the wheel in 1st gear. Though obv an ICE can't do it from zero rpm but even so, the huge torque figures with electric motors needs to be put into context if you're thinking of towing.
As for the design, some 70s vehicle designs are cool, not sure this is one of them though. YMMV.
Re:Torque (Score:4, Interesting)
Electric motor also has gearing; It's typically a fixed ratio, usually in the region of 8:1. And if you only have one motor, or one per axle, then you have a differential.
Contrast so an ICE transmission which might have a ratio of ~3:1 or maybe as high as ~7:1 "granny gear" for heavy towing. Basically an EV always starts in "granny gear" but with the benefit that it doesn't need to switch gears above walking speed.
tl:dr; If you're thinking of towing, basically nothing beats an electric motor.
=Smidge=
Re:Torque (Score:4, Informative)
tl:dr; If you're thinking of towing, basically nothing beats an electric motor.
Yes, but sadly, if you're towing nothing beats diesel fuel for range. I expect this to improve but we are not even close yet.
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Yes, but that torque figure is for the motor unit output which is usually directly coupled to the driveshafts.
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> which is usually directly coupled to the driveshafts
It absolutely isn't.
If their "e-crate motor" is really the Mach-E rear drive unit as some writeups claim (and photos suggest that's exactly the case), then the motor is connected to the differential through a planetary reduction. Everything is inline for compactness, with the final drive shaft going through a hollow motor shaft.
Unfortunately I can't readily find anyone who mentions the gear ratio, but I'm willing to bet it's in the 8:1 to 9:1 range. Y
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"Though obv an ICE can't do it from zero rpm but even so, the huge torque figures with electric motors needs to be put into context if you're thinking of towing."
But you haven't done that.
ICE has a narrower power band than electric, that's why a multi-ratio transmission is important and why your attempt to suggest that it superior for towing is wrong.
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If the gearing allows you to remain in or near the engines torque peak then there isn't a problem. Anyway, I'm not refering to the practicalities, I'm simply saying you can't directly compare the quoted torque figures for electric vs ICE.
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634 sounds good but thats direct from the motor, unlike an ICE engine which goes through gearing and a diff which multiplies its torque up to 10 times at the wheel in 1st gear. Though obv an ICE can't do it from zero rpm but even so, the huge torque figures with electric motors needs to be put into context if you're thinking of towing.
The transmission gearing is maybe 3:1 but the diff is typically somewhere in the 3-4:1 range, so you can have even more torque multiplication than that before you get to the torque converter which provides about 2:1. However, the ICE makes 0 TQ at 0 RPM, while the electric motor makes its peak torque there or near there. Peak torque is needed most when launching, so that's ideal.
Re: Torque (Score:2)
Yes. But at least it was a stick shift.
I like it (Score:3)
I could definitely see myself owning one of these trucks...
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At first when I saw it i thought it looked odd,
But honestly I like the retro style, i was thinking of converting an old truck to EV,
but it's not easy to place the batteries in the right position to keep the weight balanced,
So that truck could be an option, but i'm happy with my Tesla M3 for now. The Cybertruck is way too big for Switzerland car parks,
Yeahbut (Score:2)
Yeah, but does Ford still bend the metal with hydraulic pistons to align the wheels, rather than - I don't know - USING A SCREW to adjust it?
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Yeah, but does Ford still bend the metal with hydraulic pistons to align the wheels, rather than - I don't know - USING A SCREW to adjust it?
The F100 uses tie rod end adjustment for toe and has non-adjustable caster. The camber is adjusted by bending the twin I-beams for 2WD trucks, or by changing spacers on the TTB for 4WD trucks. So as long as you don't have a worthless 2WD pickup, you don't have to bend anything. And as long as you don't have TTB (which Ford has long discontinued) you don't have to bend anything. If this truck retained the TTB then it also retained the lack of a camber adjustment, but it rarely has to be adjusted anyway. Most
So you're saying (Score:2)
Ford has brought back ill-fitting body panels which rust out in a year or so, interior panels which come loose, and electronics which fail at random times.
Good to know.
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Ford has brought back ill-fitting body panels which rust out in a year or so, interior panels which come loose, and electronics which fail at random times.
Brought back? All that sounds like a modern car to me.
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That and a stiff suspension with hard vinyl bench seats. Old trucks were utility vehicles, comfort was second.
Okay, but do they have a speed controller yet? (Score:2)
When they first announced this motor they announced that it would come without a speed controller. Are they providing one of those yet? Because it's really dumb to use this motor without matching electronics, and it's even dumber to expect us to do it.
Having to come up with your battery is no big deal by comparison, you probably will need to in order to make it fit.
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There's a better article on The Verge where this is addressed.
"The motor is just the first in a series of EV building blocks Ford says it plans to sell, like battery systems, motor controllers, and inverters, all of which would make it easier to retrofit internal combustion engine vehicles with all-electric drivetrains."
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/2/22759825/ford-electric-crate-motors-mustang-mach-e-gt-performance [theverge.com]
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So IOW no.
I get why they are offering it while not offering batteries, but not offering the speed controller at the same time is wholly senseless. That's like selling a crate ICE and not offering the PCM for it.
I get that they're experiencing a shortage, but that just means the time for this is later, not now.
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I agree. Instead of half-assing it now they could have waited and done it all properly.
That said, there are full electric crate powertrains available now.
https://electricgt.com/gte-motors/ [electricgt.com]
For real authenticity ... (Score:3)
It needs a napalm tank inside the cab behind the bench seat.
From "The sixth generation F Series" [wikipedia.org]:
"To increase safety, the fuel tank was moved out of the cab (to below the pickup bed)"
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It needs a napalm tank inside the cab behind the bench seat.
From "The sixth generation F Series" [wikipedia.org]:
"To increase safety, the fuel tank was moved out of the cab (to below the pickup bed)"
These days they just turned the chassis into the fire bomb. Much as I like battery technology, I'd really like to see these issues fixed and soon...
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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Yup. Examples of electric vehicle spontaneous combustion are easy to find on the youtube.
Current battery tech stores ginormous amounts of energy behind flimsy thin wall barriers. All is fine until it isn't.
Interesting that the new tech makes ancient gas tank safety look good.
Re:For real authenticity ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yup. Examples of electric vehicle spontaneous combustion are easy to find on the youtube.
Examples of gasoline vehicle spontaneous combustion are far easier to find, because gasoline vehicles are far more likely to spontaneously combust, whether in motion or parked.
Current battery tech stores ginormous amounts of energy behind flimsy thin wall barriers. All is fine until it isn't.
Current gasoline tech stores even more ginormous amounts of energy behind flimsy thin wall barriers. In fact most fuel tanks are made out of plastic now, so you're storing hydrocarbon fuel inside a hydrocarbon tank. The fuel lines themselves (the flexible ones anyway) are also made out of hydrocarbons, as are most of the fuel system seals (although they are transitioning to fluorocarbon-based seals, specifically Viton(tm).) The gasoline vehicles have to have a lot more energy in storage because of how inefficient an ICE is.
Interesting that the new tech makes ancient gas tank safety look good.
If you don't know what you're talking about in the slightest, it can seem that way, but it's actually ignorance doing that in that case.
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It is hard to find instances of spontaneous gas vehicle fires but there are plenty of examples of electric vehicles burning up while just sitting there.
OTOH, ICE vehicles starting on fire while in use is a different matter. Small comfort but usually there are obvious indicators (odor, leaks) prior to ICE vehicle events. Gas or electric, the vehicle has to be maintained in order to be safe.
more and more.. (Score:2)
They don't talk about range/hauling capacity (Score:4, Interesting)
I clicked through a few articles and they don't really talk about range. I've got a small popup camper, about 1300 lbs empty. Will I be able to get to the campsite (3 hour drive) on 1 charge? Will I be able to get home without charging, or do I have to get an electric site or find a charging station? Right now they are talking about the styling, but if they want to sell these things, they need to talk about the capability so that different users can determine whether or not this truck will is going to work for them.
Re:They don't talk about range/hauling capacity (Score:4, Informative)
Ford has talked about the unladen range in great detail, but very little about the towing range. Some estimates put it at about 150 miles while towing a sizable trailer (say 9k) which is not so hot. Eventually there will be charging facilities that you can pull through with a trailer, but until then long-range towing will be essentially unworkable with an electric pickup.
However, most people don't do any of the truck stuff with their trucks. Out here where I live (Humboldt) trucks are used like trucks, and the towing range actually matters. Ranchers and farmers are actually using their trucks as trucks. In cities though, where most people live, none of that is relevant, as people use their trucks as big ugly cars that have more content for the same money, and then they pay for the privilege both at fueling time (since they get half the mileage of a similarly appointed car) and at registration time in some states. e.g. California, which has the most vehicles and the most vehicle-miles traveled, assesses pickup trucks as "commercial vehicles" so they can charge higher registration fees. If you "permanently" (i.e. with bolts) attach a topper ("camper shell") to your pickup you can with some effort get it registered as an automobile and get the registration fees reduced, because apparently carrying stuff in your pickup is commercial activity even when you're just moving your own stuff around. If you add in enough of the characteristics of an RV you can get it registered as such and your registration and even your insurance decreases, even if you've added stuff which is a potential source of fire like an LP system.
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It would be cool if they made this [thedrive.com] which is a generator in a pickup tool box format. On the other hand, it's not 1-man portable. Maybe having it in the trailer would make more sense.
Also running any g
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I clicked through a few articles and they don't really talk about range. I've got a small popup camper, about 1300 lbs empty. Will I be able to get to the campsite (3 hour drive) on 1 charge? Will I be able to get home without charging, or do I have to get an electric site or find a charging station? Right now they are talking about the styling, but if they want to sell these things, they need to talk about the capability so that different users can determine whether or not this truck will is going to work for them.
There? I think you'll make it just fine. There and back? Not so sure. It looks like the F150 Lightning Range is about 300 miles with the larger battery pack. Towing a similar sized camper a similar distance last year (with my 3.5L Ecoboost F150), my gas mileage went down to 17 MPG (vs 19 MPG unladen).
So if the lightning's range is impacted by that load in a similar fashion, you're looking at a range closer to 268 miles. That looks about like 4 hours of driving to me, though maybe 5 or 6 on back roads.
(YMMV
What Would Really Be a Blast From the Past... (Score:2)
... is if Ford still made cars. They're just an SUV/Pickup company now. And no, the Mustang does not count. Talking Taurus, Focus, Fusion again. I've switched to Honda because of that crap.
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They keep making pickups more expensive and people keep buying them up. I don't understand it either.
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Focus was a decent car, Taurus and Fusion not so much. (All compared to price.) You should have switched to Honda earlier anyway. Ford is selling what sells, and these days that's CUVs. CUVs ARE cars though, they're just shapely station wagons.
How about fix your supply chain! (Score:2)
I can't get a hybrid F-150 hybrid where I live unless it's a Lariat starting at $70k. Why not start by making more hybrid F-150s!
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This isn't a mass-production truck. This is a one-off custom truck to help Ford market their crate electric motors.
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The statement that plenty of lefties love trucks has no bearing on the parent.
Just as the statement "Some girls like programming" has no relevance in a discussion of the predominance of male programmers.
But the left don't get this simple math.
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The trick is to also win over the righties, which is what Ford is working on.