F -150 Lightning Battery Pack Structure 

Kevin Hardy is a really great host for the show. Clear, smart, and gives great feedback. The titanic bulkheads hit the nail right on the head. We all were thinking it and it was cool for Kevin to mention it. Also how he compares it to the Mach E... This video was really refreshing 💪😎 Great job guys

Somehow Sandy keeps finding guys and gals that are way better presenters than he is, all super professional and intelligent, I really like these videos, way to go team!

I worked on this in 2018, cool to see it come alive

I really appreciate your final thoughts about speaking about your work and greatly enjoy watching and listening.

Excellent presentation Kevin. You and Jordan are the two best. Very easy going and relaxed style that makes watching a pleasure.

loved hearing the light-saber audio cue after Kevin mentioned his 'half black-eye'.

Excellent video. Love getting the industry insight; where compromises were made for time and material availability etc. Keep up the good work Munro! I hope these vids are expanding your reach and business. The production quality has definitely gone up!

The Lighting being a cab on chassis means the chassis is part of the suspension. This means there will be twisting put through the whole of the frame and the last thing those cells need is to be turned into a twizzler. This is most likely way the battery tray is not hard fixed to the frame as in the others which are uni-body and much much stiffer in the chassis than a body on frame.

This battery pack is basically a body- on- frame structure hung underneath the body- on- frame truck chassis.

The Force is strong with this one. Funny (subtle) reference to the Titanic too. Great study, considerations, and recap.

Ah! The old "lightsabre duel with my daughter" excuse! . 😁😉 Been there!

THANKS KEVIN ,YOU ARE DOING GREAT WITH YOUR LIMITATIONS 😁👍😎💚💚💚

Yes, nice style and comments on the topic.

I would expect the pack to be soft mounted because the pack is much more rigid than the frame, but it's not strong enough to actually handle the loads that the frame is supposed to handle. Thus, if the pack was hard mounted, the pack or at least the mounting points would get damaged as the frame flexed like it's designed to.

Great video Kevin. Thanks for the laugh "You're stuck with me and a half-black eye from a light saber dual with my daughter". LOL

Been waiting for this

30 sec in and you already got my respect, dad to fellow dad.

Crystal clear explanation from Kevin Harty. Always like his contributions.

Lol, I lost a similar dual with my son, providing great amusement for the emergency room staff. Looks like Ford did a reasonable job with the battery pack, pretty much in keeping with the frame construction. Thanks!

Well done.

Thank you Kevin - excellent engineering analysis!

excellent job

Another good one, Kevin. I assumed the battery isolation was to damp vibrations from the uneven surfaces pickups often traverse. It will be interesting to see where Ford goes from here.

Kudos to your video editor for adding in the Light Sabre sounds;-) And Kudos for being such a fun dad, Kevin!

Great video, thank you.

Well done, interesting, thanks!!

Well done itself!😮

Thank you!

The video itself is very informative itself. Greetings from Germany itself.

Essentially this was a great video.

New drinking game: “essentially” means DRINK! If you replay the video and down a shot with each “essentially,” I can only hope that you dialed 911 first. Beyond that, this was essentially a solid nuts to bolts review - essentially.

super breakdown! chevy has a possible competitor! the Silverado ev.....Ford's been a leading competitive force, for a long time! & it's nice to see a Rivian product, laid out as well!!

Love the analysis! Probably out of the scope of your tear down, but I'm curious how design of the SR and ER batteries compare.

hope to see QuantumScape batteries very soon in this amazing truck

thank you

Good job!

Very well done Kevin !

Thanks

Farazad interview was great!

Great video Kevin, thank you! Do you know how they sorted out EMI shielding with a SMC top cover?

On that massive cover, would there be limited suppliers regardless if the cover was stamped steel or aluminum as well? Great job on this video, Kevin!

Thanks for this. I love my Lightning but will never have this kind of access to what's underneath the covers and panels.

Excellent review as always. When you mentioned 'sealing', it dawned on me that when these battery packs are assembled the relative humidity can vary from day to day or week to week. Is there any evidence that a desiccant is used to prevent condensation in cold climates?

I'm really excited for this treatment of the Ioniq 5 / e-gmp (assuming y'all haven't done it already and I just haven't come across it yet)

Bring back Sandy for these videos, his thoughts and explanations are greatly superior

Kevin, good job. If you provided an over view; a simple graphic showing position in the truck so i could stop trying to assemble it in my head would help start with the right context. Is that the frame? Where over the double stack? Was that the frame on the table or subframe? And so on. Pack has crude almost homemake cobble together look of “let’s get it out the door now and optimize later”.

A nice presentation. It probably will not be long before Sandy has the entire crew of Industrial Engineers "Camera trained and ready". My way of writing a: "Well done". A nice execution by Ford as an early example of a light duty truck frame. One thing I noticed about this "Ford by Example" was the lack of background considerations of the existing plant. Once upon a time, the purchase of plant and equipment was a 20-year funding, now it is more often a 50-year funding. Bad enough to have unused machinery sitting idle for the last 5 years of a 20-year note, now the same situation would be unused machinery sitting around for 35 years. All of planing for a new vehicle is most likely a case of: "Do the job with the plant and equipment we have". Ford has a lot of plant and equipment. You can't expect them to be putting 9,000 ton Giga-presses into storage until the lease runs out. 😂 Maybe find some work job shopping Locomotives, Submarines and Tanks? Oh, wait, GM already does that.

Good video, off topic but I've seen reports saying it cost Rivian over $200k to build a truck, are you guys finding costing it anywhere near this?

It just isn't Munro without Munro.

Well done. I will be interested to see how the battery internals are assembled.

Could be that the extremely stiff frame design of the cybertruck was in part driven by the goal of eliminating the need for an isolated battery pack, given that a pickup truck frame is subject to higher loads and bending than a road vehicle.

Any thoughts of a follow-up video on the Lightning’s battery pack reliability? I’ve seen some videos claiming battery failures with no replacement stock available at the dealers to get the vehicle back in the road.

the battery is isolated not for NVH but rather for electrical integrity; body on frame trucks flex a lot and if you flex the battery you can break the bonds to the cells, or even damage the cells themselves

This is just amazing mindblowing!Ford is just the best!

Kevin is quickly becoming an essential part of the Munro team!

My Bronco has a steel skid plate under the fuel tank. My F150 Raptor has the plastic one.

Maybe they isolated the battery to avoid twisting it when the frame undergoes torsional load?

👍👍

Like the Mach E the high voltage high current conductors look small maybe 6AWG. From my single conductor in free air table that shows temperature rise at different currents. At 350amps fast charging there will be a 150DegC temperature rise. With this large temperature cycling over time the fasteners will become loose. Causing high resistance raising the temperature even higher. Note power is I squared R. This problem even gets worse at higher current loads at rapid acceleration. At 1000amps the temp rise is over 400degC Time will tell when this becomes a problem.

Did magna make the battery pack?

Question? Reason for the isolated battery pack, Is it because of crashes? OR Is it because it's the 1st generation, could they possibly be testing the isolated battery pack?

Thanks Kevin, great engineering analyses. To me I feel like Ford has rushed it a bit. Tesla appears to be light years ahead compared to the Mach E.

I just learned the battery costs about 36000 USD or 28500 USD for the smaller one. 😳

Pack probably isolated from the frame due to possible frame flex.

That's a lot of battery cells to buy and pay for, to make a legacy frame and body design work as an EV. I compare it in my head to the Tesla 4680 "structural" battery pack, and wonder how much weight they could offload with a cleaner design. Having an aluminum body in white and bed is a good start.

Re: Assumed Knowledge. 0:48 What is SMC (SNC)? 5:55 “Pickup” revisions (as in lesson learned improvements)? 6:36 You know (umm, then why watching?) 7:00 Bulkhead venting (so this has to do with containment of errant gases to deter fire potential, or something?) 8:00 NVH? (Oh right, who doesn’t know Noise, Vibration, Harshness) 10:43 conformability? comfort? familiarity? 11:15 Oh, got it. what does smc mean automotive: “Sheet molding compound (SMC) is one of the most widely used forms of composite material in the automotive industry, particularly in the US where output has grown from 65000 tons in 1990 to 125000 tons in the year 2000 (Automotive Composites Alliance, 1999).” Of course! (face slap). No worries, I thoroughly enjoyed all 11 relistens. You’re the best, Kevin!

How do you kinda come to the other side? 🤔

131kwh usable out of 144 is an oddly large buffer 😐

Best described as "Belt and Braces" construction?

About 2 decades ago, Volvo was criticized about a wiring harness that ran from front to back and the effect the em field would have on the passengers. How safe is it driving on a battery pack? I am considering an EV but is this something that we will find out in the future was dangerous for us?

👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

glad to see you also get to spend time with your Jedi daughter, hahaha

You mention KW, but how many volts are we talking about ? How about the number of AMPS going through those cables. Also we see the orange connectors and cabling. Is orange some kind of standard or just a new BEV tradition ? You mention cooling. What is the temperature of the battery pack, High, Low, Ideal. One would expect a temperature gradient as the coolant worked it's through the battery pack. Does the battery pack automatically shutdown to prevent damage at a high temperature.

"Itself!"

To replace the 300 mile battery back on a Ford electric F150 cost $35,000 and I think the smaller one is 27,000 and change

I guess the force is strong with your daughter 🤣

Transmission video please

Your daughter's a Jedi, she is. - (Yoda)

NVH? SMC?? Munro videos sound like internal company films, geared only to the cognoscente.

How do you “kinda” see a difference? Dude loves the word “kinda”.

144KWH battery. 131 usable KWH.

where are the batteries?

The Titanic? Did you say the Titanic? 🤔

Very "Diplomatic" from 11:00 onwards.

Please save Arcimoto.....

Reasonable analysis from Kevin, but excessive usage of "itself" distracts from the content.

I think Ford engineers are going to knock the all new clean-sheet-of- paper 2025 F-150 out of the park in a few years. I predict that Ford will still offer the the current version as a “classic” F-150 at a slightly more affordable price point.

Many on the forums are already citing contactor failures. Would love to see the HVBJB module in greater detail and see how many components are shared with the MME. Seeming like Ford hasn't learned its lesson.

All these small passage coolant loops. So many seams and joints for failure. I can see a "coolant plate" failure inside the battery pack whereby the pack gets flooded with coolant. Not an easy repair to a $35k battery pack.

That is a HUGE battery pack, surprised the range is so low. Ford has a long way to go but good to see they actually made the Lightning but obviously it's rushed. Battery pack frame seems awfully redundant to the ladder frame, just isolate the battery modules. Being compared to titanic isn't exactly.....good? LOL!

Itself

"essentially" "itself"

Quick update on demand (at least in eastern PA).. actual deliveries have fallen off a cliff. Many have cancelled / refusing to pay extortionist level mark ups. Local dealer has had a Lightening on the lot for almost 6 weeks now.. demand is unwinding fast.

Nice job Kevin. Great to see a nice Pilot watch on wrist. I’m thinking you may be the leading watch guy at Munro. Garmin and Apple make very useful but soulless tools.

Isn’t this feedback for LG and not Ford?

You guys do realize that F-150 lighting and Mustang Mach E are two totally different vehicles. F-150 lighting is meant for durability and tow over 10,000 pounds while mustang Mach E is meant for fun driving and drive people to different places. Some of things you said doesn’t make sense for trucks.

You said for this *Extended Range Battery Pack* : the 1st module is 11.95 kWh plus 8 modules with 16.44 kWh each. Makes a total of 143.47 kWh. Is the following correct? 1st module is 32 cells => 8s4p, the other 8 modules are 44 cells each => 8s 11s4p. The whole pack is 96s4p then, 143.47 kWh gross capacity, 131 kWh net capacity. Small module plus 5 big ones in the 1st floor. Then 3 big modules on top in the second floor. Confirmed visually. Cells are SK Innovation pouch cells, Hi-Nickel (9 Nickel, 0.5 Manganese, 0.5 Cobalt), nominal cell voltage is 3.66 Volt, nominal cell capacity 102 Ah, nominal cell energy: 373.32 Wh. So the small module (8s4p) would be 29.28V nominal, 408 Ah, 11.95 kWh. The large modules (11s4p) would be 40.26V nominal, 408 Ah, 16.43 kWh each. What is battery pack weight? The "Ford F-150 Lightning Battery Removal Guide" demands a lift table capable of handling 746 kg. Is that the weight of the Extended Range Pack? That would be 192 Wh/kg at battery pack level which is quite good. What is the corresponding data of the *standard range pack* then? This would be a 3p pack then. Neither 32 cells nor 44 cells nicely divide by 3. So they would need different modules. Known: 98 kWh net capacity. Could be 9 modules, 30 cells each, each with a 10s3p configuration, 90s3p overall, 270 cells in total. Nice weight distribution, however this would still require 9 module housings with each of them only partially filled and requiring extra compression on the cells - or with smaller outside dimensions.

oOoOO

SHOULD BE MUCH SIMPLER, LESS PARTS, THEY SHOULD MAKE IT SIMPLE RECTAGLE ALLUMINUM BOX.

Thanks for the inside look at the Pack, but who actually engineered it? seems doubtful Ford has that sort of expertise (does not look anything like legacy vehicle design)