Will Ford do a PHEV Powerboost?

[Samson16]

Because I never lose a stoplight race (even if its just against myself) and I generally travel 75+ on the highway. The Powerboost is quick!

I believe you! The only way to achieve 16mpg average with a PB is on purpose
Same way Dino can cut his range in half, floor it everywhere you go

Sponsored

 

[HammaMan]

I think it's quite obvious a PHEV F150 would be very interesting for a lot of folks. The problem with all PHEV ever made tho, is the EV portion of their battery is always significantly smaller than we always hope they would be.

While a PHEV F150 with ~100 miles of EV range would be fantastic, the huge reality is that we would be lucky if it came with~40 miles of pure ev range.

100 mile range is for EVs under current tech. The average commute is 20 miles or so. A 40 mile range at 60 MPH would be good goal for all PHEV to shoot for. Ubiquitous EVSE deployment should be encouraged. I think for employers they should offer up 10-15 amps of 240v whereas govt should encourage at least circuits supporting 25 amp service be common place for ALL future residence construction regardless of density.

To qualify for peak taxpayer funds PHEV needs 16kWh capacity. For the F150 I think it should be at least 20kWh. Even with a 15% reserve that's got a 35-40 mile potential at f150 lightning efficiencies. Ford really loves to disappoint though. The 1.4 kWh batt of the PB with 60% of the batt walled off is a great example of such. All of that work to just be meh about it? Some of it is compartmentalization, but at the same time the head of the project should really dig in for some aspects. That also comes down to that person in general. Ford doesn't put their best and brightest where they need to be; they're more interested in having diverse-looking managers to appease the globalists.

 

[HammaMan]

Neither is my powerboost! My lifetime average (excluding towing) is about 16.5 MPG.

I haven't checked mine recently, but the last I saw it was 14.x
It's got quite a bit of 1k RPM idling and remote starts though. It's currently suggesting that oil change #4 should occur despite it having only been changed once w/ 7k miles on it.

 

[astrand1]

The 2025 RAM Charger seems to have it dialed. 130 miles of EV range.

145 is what I have been seeing but either way not bad. Will be perfect for my needs.

 

[Dinozero]

I was able to find the data that concerns me with the ram charger.

545 miles on a 27 gallon generator is the claim by Ram.

Thats 20 MPG. If that’s best case scenario, that could be a little disappointing.
130-145 miles of EV range is also probably best case scenario.

So you may have 70-80 ev miles followed up with 16-18mpg in the real world.
Not sure how great that will be.

 

[Samson16]

Thats 20 MPG. If that’s best case scenario, that could be a little disappointing.

I doubt that V6 could get 20mpg the old fashioned way. I do hope I’m wrong

 

[HammaMan]

I was able to find the data that concerns me with the ram charger.

545 miles on a 27 gallon generator is the claim by Ram.

Thats 20 MPG. If that’s best case scenario, that could be a little disappointing.
130-145 miles of EV range is also probably best case scenario.

So you may have 70-80 ev miles followed up with 16-18mpg in the real world.
Not sure how great that will be.

Its full power rating is with the ICE running as well. If that's their highway 55mph test, that's bad. PiggyBoost is doing 24mpg+ at that speed.

That's not really the crux of the RC. It's the fact that in most conditions it's just going to be carrying aging ethanol gas. I suspect they're going to have to create some type of reminder / or low fuel regime. Hell I've still got 6 gallons of fuel in the powerboost I put in back in early december (93e0). If it were a PHEV, it'd still have 27 gallons due in part to a trip up to the smokeys.

 

[Dinozero]

Its full power rating is with the ICE running as well. If that's their highway 55mph test, that's bad. PiggyBoost is doing 24mpg+ at that speed.

That's not really the crux of the RC. It's the fact that in most conditions it's just going to be carrying aging ethanol gas. I suspect they're going to have to create some type of reminder / or low fuel regime. Hell I've still got 6 gallons of fuel in the powerboost I put in back in early december (93e0). If it were a PHEV, it'd still have 27 gallons due in part to a trip up to the smokeys.

I’m pretty sure all of the major plug-in hybrids now have a thing where they will burn all gas occasionally just to keep everything moving good.

 

[amschind]

I've posted WAY too many times about my desire for series hybrid cars/trucks. In particular divorcing wheel and engine RPM means that 1) there's no drivetrain to break and 2) the engine can operate in its happy place/BEP. The thing that killed the DD -71 series as a trucking engine was the VERY narrow powerband, which required either a skilled driver, a highly automated transmission with 20+ gears, OR to be run as a generator with electric traction motors. A slightly different prime mover like the 1 cylinder opposed piston engine OR the Napier Deltic can turn in absolutely insane efficiency numbers. Achates Power built an F150 3 cylinder demonstrator that got 37 MPG with gasoline and 41 MPG with diesel when bolted to a regular 10R80, but that's the worst case for that engine. Meanwhile, the RamCharger is a worst case for a series hybrid because the ICE is too big and not super efficient.

A series hybrid with an opposed piston generator (which, again, we already know can get 37 MPG by itself) paired with hub motors might approach 50 MPG in town, though it will probably be a bit less than 37 on the highway unless they were able to downsize the ICE even more. Call that 43 combined with the Lightning's torque curve and numbers. If you could get a 36 gallon tank, that's 1500 miles per fill up.....i.e. change the OIL every third time that you put gas in your truck.

The other big benefit is that all of the threads on "my differential exploded, my CV shaft died, why did my kid find my axle bolt laying in the driveway, my transmission sounds like a dryer with pocket change in it, Ford says a piece of insulation is gonna saw my driveshaft in half, et c" all vanish with the adoption of hub motors because there's nothing left to break. Motor, bearing, hub. Those hub bearings are gonna be wear items, but because there's so little there they should be easy/cheap to replace every xxxxx miles. Each hub motor just has a power wire and coolant in/out lines which can get tucked out of the way. The added bonus is 4 wheel instant traction control, which some folks say more than makes up for the extra unsprung weight even for race cars.

SAE on Hub Motors
Achates Power 2.7l F150

 

[Suns_PSD]

Any less than about 80+ real world miles on the batteries alone isn't worth the trouble of plugging in every night.

 

[HammaMan]

Any less than about 80+ real world miles on the batteries alone isn't worth the trouble of plugging in every night.

You'd run into packaging constraints with that size battery. For the F150 there's just enough room for a 20kWh battery opposite the fuel tank. It'd require an entirely new design to find the space. The simple task of full regen braking combined with enough power to get back up to speed on electric alone would significantly boost range in all operation modes sans flat-out highway driving. Sub 55mph, 20kWh would be good for 50 miles. With my power rate, putting 18kWh of energy into the vehicle would cost me 63 cents, reducing fuel costs 90%. Plugging in daily takes about 10 seconds. With ford pass's departure times, the vehicle would precondition (bring everything up to temp) using AC power. Charging times also allows for the vehicle to only take power during certain hours to take advantage of time-of-day usage rates.

Hell just tripling the PB's little batt plus doubling the motor's power would make full regen and electric only acceleration possible, drastically changing its 'city' mileage. If ford didn't always default to the COTS approach, placing the motor into the tail shaft (or integrated it into the transfer case) and changing the starter/generator into a 10kW HV motor for generation would have removed the 10r80 limitations from the equation and made for a more robust vehicle.

 

[Suns_PSD]

There should be no transmission, probably a NA V6, no driveline, fuel tank about 12 gallons, no differential, etc... Plenty of room for a real battery pack.

Also, they need to get away from the Li-Ion batteries that only like 20-80% charge curves because in this duty cycle it's all about 100% charge and using all of it every day. Cheap battery packs that don't mind 0-100% charge cycles. The battery pack isn't huge anyways, the trucks aren't light either, and cheap replacement cost is important.

Also, when you consider that a less dense cheap battery that goes from 0-100% charge day after day, you can simply have less of it.

Sponsored