A family who attempted to take their Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck on a 500-mile road trip learned the hard way that the infrastructure in some parts of America is not yet ready to support a full switch to electric vehicles.
The family, known by the name “All Electric Family” on YouTube, documented the trip from Lincoln, Nebraska, to Denver.
According to their website, the family consists of mother Katie Krivolavek, father Steve Krivolavek and three children under the age of five. They drove the Ford F-150 Lightning and towed an Airstream 30FB camper behind it.
The family made two successful charging stops without any major issues. But when they stopped for the third time in Ogallala, Nebraska, things began to go south.
When the Krivolavek family pulled up to the Electrify America charging station in Ogallala, Katie said all the chargers read “unavailable.”
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Steve called EA, who attempted to reboot the charger. Even after the reboot, it did not work.
In addition, Katie said neither Kampgrounds of America sites in the area had car charging available. She and her children decided to walk to a nearby restaurant, and Steve planned to drive 30 miles down the road to find a charger.
The family had to leave their camper unhooked in Ogallala because the truck did not have enough charge to pull it 30 more miles. The video then cut to a completely different scene in which the Krivolavek family explained the Ford F-150 Lightning eventually had to be towed after the 12-volt battery completely died.
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In a separate YouTube Shorts video, Katie further explained the events that led up to the towing.
“We knew Electrify America was having some issues,” Katie said. “We were able to get our first two charges without any major issues, and then we made a mistake.
“There were two locations that EA said one station was working. One of those stations happened to be North Platte, [Nebraska,] where we were not able to get a charge on our last trip. So we didn’t trust the station, and we decided to skip that one.”
Yet as we saw in the above video, Katie said the Krivolavek family arrived at the Ogallala charging station to find that none of those chargers were working, either. She said Steve then drove to Julesburg, Colorado, which was the station 30 miles away from Ogallala.
“When Steve got to Julesberg, he had 0 percent,” Katie said. “Eventually, we had to call a tow truck and have the truck towed back to Ogallala to a J1772.
“And it was also 100 degrees, so we could not stay in the trailer in the Walmart parking lot. We had to go across the street and get a room in a hotel.”
Katie said the truck had enough charge to get to Julesburg in the morning, and the family was ultimately able to continue on their way. But she had a warning for fellow EV owners.
“In the end we made it, but beware of EA’s chargers and have a backup plan,” she said.
Once again, this story shows how unreliable electric car chargers can be in some parts of the United States. Before pushing everyone to ditch their gas cars for electric ones, the Biden administration needs to ensure the infrastructure to support such a transition is in place throughout the country.
