At a Ford dealership lot, I recently came across the new 2023, Ford 150 “Lightning”. It’s a big good looking truck, a crew cab model, with a short bed. It looked just like all the other new Ford 150s on the lot. The difference is the “Lightning” has no gas tank or fill cap. It was, as its name suggests……all electric. There is no growling, big v8 engine under the hood, only more storage space up there behind the shiny front grill .
I peered through the tinged glass at the information sheet taped to the inside of the passenger window. Price: $98,000.00 and with the sales tax and other charges I mentally calculated that you would have to fork over well over $100 Gs to drive this truck home.
The information sheet also indicated that the battery-driven Lightning had a range of 230 miles! Not bad on one charge. So I thought.
I imagined myself in the Lightning taking the “Great American Road Trip”. Like taking my family up to see my mom in Buffalo. Not possible! Buffalo is 380 miles away. Too far for the Lightning. I could imagine the vehicle slowing down and coming to a dead stop on some barren stretch of highway. Then what?
What about taking my daughter up to Binghamton College? I could pack all her clothes, books, shoes, her tiny refrigerator, cardboard boxes, and other “necessaries” for a college junior in that capacious short bed. My smiling, happy family would fit neatly in the commodious crew cab. Binghamton is only 181 miles away. That’s doable! So I thought.
On arrival at Binghamton (If I could somehow afford a Lightning), I figured (230-181 = 49) I would have only about 49 “miles” left on the battery!
The truck salesman, seeing me at the Lightning window —mistaking me for a well-heeled potential customer—sidled up.
“Looking at the Lightning eh? It’s a great vehicle,” he opined.
“That’s quite a good distance on one charge…” I said, pointing to the window sticker.
He smiled, “That there ‘230 mile range’ is only an estimate”. Don’t depend on it.” Adding, “You might make the 200 miles, but don’t use up too much electricity on air conditioning, radio, wifi, and all them “creature comforts” in that lux cab, and certainly don’t turn the head lights on, if you don’t need ‘em.”
So I figured I’d probably make it to Binghamton, if I started very early in the morning. No headlamps required! But I would need a quick recharge someplace. Where could I get to in Binghamton, with less than 20 miles left. Even finding the nearest McDonald’s or Burger King might use up that much battery power.
I turned to read more on the window sticker . “Oh! I see here a full recharge will require 11.9 hours at a standard 120 volt recharge station”.
“Yeah if you could find one” added the salesman.
I wandered off among the lanes of shiny new trucks in deep contemplation.
I wondered about availability of recharge stations in Binghamton. Were there any up there? I checked on this using my iPhone Google. I discovered there are 11 charge stations in Binghamton. But the “likes” comments on the “net” were not too reassuring.
Users up there reported that cables at some stations were frayed. The surrounding locations at others were too dangerous (crime happens all over) to sit around for hours waiting for a recharge. A common complaint was availability! Many of the charging stations at a site were in use too often.
With many parents traveling to this location and local student’s and other folks up there driving electric automobiles as well, the likelihood of finding an open charge point carried with it a large “uncertainty” component that would make any traveler uneasy.
Even if I could find an open charge point, where was I going to stay (and the happy family too) for the near 12 hour recharge?
Obvious conclusion: Amazing technical achievement for Ford. But for me: ‘Lectric’ too expensive, too uncertain recharge, too short a range.
Another thought too. If you were motivated to buy an all electric vehicle because you are committed to “save the planet from global warming”…think again. At the present time 80% US electric power is produced by burning fossil fuels. Only 20% is generated by renewables like hydro, wind and solar. So wherever you go to recharge you will be using energy to run your vehicle that has been largely produced by fossil fuel anyway.
Any of that 20% carbon savings you are making this sacrifice for the “planet’s health” would be complicated and compromised in this way.
1.Your old fossil fuel truck—had a big carbon footprint just in its construction and transport phase—abandoning it and replacing it with a “new” vehicle which has at least as large a construction carbon footprint is simply doubling your impact on the planet’s carbon load.
2. Then too there are the batteries. Those lithium batteries require a huge amount of fossil fuels to produce—(and 80% are made in China, which uses mostly coal as a fuel). The construction of one Tesla auto battery results in dumping 16 tons of carbon into the atmosphere. While driving a Ford gas or diesel truck might add about 5 tons of carbon to the atmosphere per year. You would have to drive the new electric four years to come out ahead.
3. But this calculation ignores the old abandoned fossil fuel truck still on the road with another owner, burning fossil fuels and still dumping its resulting 5 tons of carbon per year. Or it might be rusting away as an eyesore in some abandoned field as it slowly oxidizes away.
Saving the planet is more complex than most folks think.
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