Democrats have touted electric vehicles as the way of the future, but they have failed to address the setbacks of the still-developing technology. A new experiment has once again highlighted the problems leftists have failed to address.
Journalists from MotorTrend set out to test the towing capacity of the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck, and their findings were less than inspiring.
From the start, journalist Eric Tingwall was less than confident in the truck’s towing abilities.
“With the largest available battery pack, a fully charged 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck has less energy onboard than a regular F-150 with four gallons of gas in its tank,” Tingwall wrote.
Even with this knowledge, he wanted to test the electric truck for himself. He hitched the truck to a 2022 Grand Design Imagine 2910BH camper, which sleeps eight and weighs about 7,200 pounds.
He used the Platinum model of the Ford F-150 Lightning for the test, which costs $92,669.
Tingwall used MotorTrend’s usual methodology to determine the truck’s range, which consisted of setting the vehicle’s internal temperature to 72 degrees and turning the headlights and radio on.
That method, Tingwall wrote, simulates the way an average driver would use the vehicle instead of “reaching for the maximum possible range.”
Tingwall traveled an established 80-mile route, then extrapolated the energy consumption data to determine the truck’s range on a full charge. With the 7.2000-pound trailer, Tingwall found the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning could make it just 90 miles.
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He also repeated the test on the same route with two lighter trailers, and the results were not much better. The truck had a range of just 100 miles when towing a 5,260-pound trailer and 115 miles when towing a 3,140-pound trailer.
All of these ranges were much shorter than the Environmental Protection Agency’s estimated range of 300 miles for the Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum.
While Tingwall acknowleged this EPA estimate was for a mix of city and highway driving, for a vehicle with only the driver aboard and towing no load, he found the Platinum had a true highway range of only 255 miles.
This means that when towing even the smallest camper tested, the truck’s range was less than half of that when carrying only a driver. Since many motorists purchase trucks for the express purpose of towing things, this is a major setback.
The EPA’s estimated range of 300 miles may sound good, but in reality, it is misleading. If Americans want to use the truck to actually do the job of a truck, that range is cut significantly.
These findings were similar to those of a couple who used a Rivian R1T electric truck to tow a Ford Mustang Shelby GT on a flat-deck trailer in November 2021.
That towing load totaled a bit over 6,000 pounds, which was slightly less than the largest camper MotorTrend tested for the Ford F-150 Lightning.
The couple found the Rivian R1T could travel an average of just 100 miles before needing to be charged. They were forced to stop 20 times on the nearly 2,000-mile trip from Los Angeles to Sikeston, Missouri.
While these findings do not mean electric trucks are completely useless, they do prove the vehicles are not nearly as effective as gas-powered trucks.
Before auto manufacturers follow the Democrats’ demands to completely eliminate gas-powered vehicles, they must determine how to make electric vehicles more effective.
