F150 EV vs ICE "Fuel" cost

[MotoGary]

Wife showed me a post on FB the other day of a guy left his house with a fully charged electric f150 towing his center console boat, was dead in 50 ish miles.

Anyone who buys a Lightning to tow a large boat for more than 50ish miles didn't do their research and deserves to be stranded at the side of the road.

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[Xman]

What is the power source to mine rare earth minerals? What are the environmental impacts of getting all those rare earth minerals out of the ground? One needs to look at the total picture not just when we drive.

BTW, most folks charge their EVs at night when the sun doesn't shine. I also read that there is too much solar power being feed back into the CA grid during the day that its causing issues, and folks aren't getting very much payback.

 

[TaxmanHog]

 

[TheRat]

Anyone who buys a Lightning to tow a large boat for more than 50ish miles didn't do their research and deserves to be stranded at the side of the road.

Maybe, or maybe not... In the spirit of data comparison pls see this 2-person F150 Lightning coast-to-coast trip account done while towing a 1,500 pound teardrop trailer:

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...port-summer-of-2025-ev-great-adventure.30563/

 

[XLT22]

Its amazing how many dreamers (people) think solar power, wind power, and EVs are the future. There aren't enough rare earth metals on our planet to accomplish that dream. When the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine, there is no power. It was coal that got Texas out of the winter storm that darkened the state a couple of years ago (BTW, coal plants are now clean). The current wind power is an ecological disaster as the turbine blades are not recyclable, so they just bury them at end of life. Do you see how many wind turbines are inop when you drive cross-country. Wind has to be 20+ mph to generate sufficient power and they have to lock the turbines when wind is 50+mph. Oh, one hail storm can take-out a solar farm. Recycling is still an issue for EVs. And those that think EV will displace long-haul 18-wheeler trucking are real dreamers. To convert our truck fleet to EV would require a 40% increase in electrical power output. Our nation's electrical grid can't even grow fast enough to accommodate the current needs sans more EVs. Boston's goal of only EVs is a joke that will not happen in our life-time. Everything has its place. Diversification is goodness. EVs have their nich. Where they are king like Amazon deliveries they rule, but not everywhere. I hope EV technology will continue to improve. BTW, where I'm spending the next three months in Wyoming, an EV just doesn't cut it, unless there is an F150 PB nearby.

Pass out the pop-corn, please!

As has been said before, America isn't special in our challenges. China has already figured this out and then some. We can move ahead or be left behind. Simple as that.

 

[B177y]

Here is a thread with a video from the F150LightningForum that is the counter to this thread. Interesting to me that both of these threads are recent and quite active. The opinions of each are worth the read to see the different perspectives.

Why isn’t the Lightning getting more of the gas F150 market?

 

[moritzes]

Here is a thread with a video from the F150LightningForum that is the counter to this thread. Interesting to me that both of these threads are recent and quite active. The opinions of each are worth the read to see the different perspectives.

Why isn’t the Lightning getting more of the gas F150 market?

Enjoyed that thread, thanks.

 

[tomcaudell]

What is the power source to mine rare earth minerals? What are the environmental impacts of getting all those rare earth minerals out of the ground? One needs to look at the total picture not just when we drive.

BTW, most folks charge their EVs at night when the sun doesn't shine. I also read that there is too much solar power being feed back into the CA grid during the day that its causing issues, and folks aren't getting very much payback.

As a Northern California Resident, I’m on PG&E originally PG&E would credit your account kw for kw for your overages now they have a peak use cost/price paid and a off peak cost/paid. The off peak summer is around 39 cents a kw and they pay .06 per kw and .06 delivery =.12cents off peak and We pay 69 cents per kw during peak and get 18 cents per kw and 22 cents for delivery. = 40 cents per kw for overages. But they take a past use multi year average and a small percentage more for the max solar system you can install. I have a system that was installed during the second phase of the pricing and get the kw for kw. I don’t have enough to cover my annual use so at true up I still pay 6-7 hounded bucks a year depending on how much I have to run the AC. Buy the way I retired the year after I installed the solar 6 years ago and use ac and work in my shop more then ever now. Air compressors and Welding machines aren’t cheap to run. During my career I worked 10 years decommissioning a Nuclear Power Plant and the cost to get rid of the exotics was astronomical. The hazardous material in the plastic electric cars are buried just like the stuff from the plant. In my opinion the environment is impacted with them just like fossil fuels maybe. There is no savings in driving an electric car. The cost of my solar system was over 30k and the cost to do the maintenance and specialty work on them doesn’t work for me. The utility I worked for for 30+ years bought electric busses from US Electric car to promote electric vehicles. After less then a year they were shelved and years later scrapped. The electric company couldn’t afford to keep them on the road. I still think in the Midwest where electricity is 10 cents a kw and you like the idea of electric cars it might pencil out for you. I know this is a rant but in a state that are taking away our gas generators, and lawnmowers as well as leaf blowers and chain saws. They want you to charge your batteries at 69 cents a kw. LONG LIVE the American V8.

 

[tomcaudell]

TL;DR - adding solar power might make it worth it financially, but might get you into trouble with your spouse

California and Hawaii electric rates are definitely too high to make electric cheaper than an ICE.

But, back of the envelope math, it could still make sense:
Would need to add some solar to the house, which would probably work nicely in CA and HI--maybe 3kW worth of panels (installed for about $6000 dollars on 150-200 sq. ft. of roof). If you drove 12,000 miles/year @ 20 MPG, and gas is $4, that's $2400 of gas cost per year. With an efficient electric car you use maybe 3,000 kWh per year to drive 12,000 miles (more kWh for a Lightning, though). Say 250 days of good sun in Pine Grove. You would need 12 kWh of charging each of those 250 days, or about 4 hours of sun hitting those 3 kW panels. Pays for itself in 2.5 years? And if you're getting more power than you need, which you would (because you would average more than 4 hours of good sun/day, and you get some sun on those 115 extra "non-sunny" days we didn't count), you might be able to sell it back to the grid and make some cash to use to pay for electricity when you're not generating.

This would not work as well in NE Ohio, where I live. We average only 164 sunny days a year, well below the national average. But even here we average 3.75 hours of sun/day over the course of the year, so with a slightly bigger installation... (but don't tell my wife you're going to hang solar panels all over her house).

Read my comment on the following pages on this topic. Thanks Tom

 

[XLT22]

As a Northern California Resident, I’m on PG&E originally PG&E would credit your account kw for kw for your overages now they have a peak use cost/price paid and a off peak cost/paid. The off peak summer is around 39 cents a kw and they pay .06 per kw and .06 delivery =.12cents off peak and We pay 69 cents per kw during peak and get 18 cents per kw and 22 cents for delivery. = 40 cents per kw for overages. But they take a past use multi year average and a small percentage more for the max solar system you can install. I have a system that was installed during the second phase of the pricing and get the kw for kw. I don’t have enough to cover my annual use so at true up I still pay 6-7 hounded bucks a year depending on how much I have to run the AC. Buy the way I retired the year after I installed the solar 6 years ago and use ac and work in my shop more then ever now. Air compressors and Welding machines aren’t cheap to run. During my career I worked 10 years decommissioning a Nuclear Power Plant and the cost to get rid of the exotics was astronomical. The hazardous material in the plastic electric cars are buried just like the stuff from the plant. In my opinion the environment is impacted with them just like fossil fuels maybe. There is no savings in driving an electric car. The cost of my solar system was over 30k and the cost to do the maintenance and specialty work on them doesn’t work for me. The utility I worked for for 30+ years bought electric busses from US Electric car to promote electric vehicles. After less then a year they were shelved and years later scrapped. The electric company couldn’t afford to keep them on the road. I still think in the Midwest where electricity is 10 cents a kw and you like the idea of electric cars it might pencil out for you. I know this is a rant but in a state that are taking away our gas generators, and lawnmowers as well as leaf blowers and chain saws. They want you to charge your batteries at 69 cents a kw. LONG LIVE the American V8.

California's challenges are a unique offshoot of the Enron scam/crisis and not necessarily reflective of current legislative priorities. Until PG&E is broken up y'all are stuck unfortunately. People in the state could very easily continue to have small gas powered off road engines, but American companies staunchly refuse to bring products to market that would comply instead dumping all their cheap crap on us at a premium. Patriotism long ago got thrown away in the interest of greater and greater profits.

I work in the energy industry now and it's amazing how much misinformation there is about EVs. It's truly mind boggling, and one would think the nation that put a man on the moon would not be so quick to believe the charlatans. EVs will continue to progress as technology rapidly improves. What's coming out of China is downright scary how far ahead of domestic manufacturing they are. Range, charging speed, tech, etc are all outpacing us. A certain Korean OE has been running around Chinese electric pickups on their proving ground near me and the grapevine says they're spectacular.

 

[tsigwing]

Anyone who buys a Lightning to tow a large boat for more than 50ish miles didn't do their research and deserves to be stranded at the side of the road.

Using a truck for truck things. How dare they.

 

[tsigwing]

What is the power source to mine rare earth minerals? What are the environmental impacts of getting all those rare earth minerals out of the ground? One needs to look at the total picture not just when we drive.

BTW, most folks charge their EVs at night when the sun doesn't shine. I also read that there is too much solar power being feed back into the CA grid during the day that its causing issues, and folks aren't getting very much payback.

Didn't Cali issue warnings last year about not charging vehicles during the day?

 

[jakgal04]

Some of those public chargers are a complete rip off. It costs me $25/month to charge at home, the gas equivalent was around $250.

 

[Xman]

jak, looks like you are one of the lucky ones. City dwellers link in Boston who have to park in a different spot every night and those living in apartment complexes are not so fortunate.

 

[tsigwing]

Some of those public chargers are a complete rip off. It costs me $25/month to charge at home, the gas equivalent was around $250.

Makes road trips quite the adventure.

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