Ford F-150 Lightning Charging Curve! I Share Ford's Charging Strategy From 0-100% (Extended Range) 

A good 15% to 80% curve which most users will gravitate toward. Great job‼️

Super interesting video! I have my F-150 lightning coming in November and this is what I wanted to see as I plan to drive this across the country next year.

For the next lightning that you bring in for testing, you should get the smaller battery pack as that's going to be the one that most people purchase (me included). I'm interested in seeing how the charging curve for that truck compares to this one.

Intriguing charging curve. Thanks for doing this, Kyle!

Agree, it is an interesting curve. Good work Kyle. I love the "nerdy" stuff! (Must be the engineer in me.)

To expand on and clarify my previous comment, I will point out some of the salient characteristics that must be considered in the design of any rechargeable battery pack. I neglected to mention that Ford is likely using some thermal protection algorithms to reduce battery temperature increases from the high current portion of it's charging cycle as well as BMS. Some lithium battery characteristics (will vary with the cell's chemistry): Vmax = 4.20 Vco = 2.85 V50% = 3.70 Internal Resistance: - less is better but it can vary widely in cells of the same size, capacity and chemistry from the same manufacturer. Higher internal resistance generates higher resistive losses during both discharge and charging. Batteries lose capacity at lower temperatures. Optimal temperature for discharge and charging varies but is usually somewhat above room temperature. Warm but not too hot. Ideally battery packs are made of cells/pouches with similar internal resistance values (the better matched the better their combined performance). A pack can be made with numerous combinations of series and parallel connections. The Lightning for instance might use 88 cells in series to get 369.6V at the capacity of a single cell. - This unwieldly string would them be parallel connected to a sufficient number of identical strings to get the desired pack capacity. Many other combinations are possible. Typical balancing schemes: - bottom, top, passive and active. Each has it's place and purpose and I suspect a number of algorithms are used by Ford in this vehicle. Typical charging follows a CC/CV pattern. Charging at a constant current when voltage is low and then tapering the current near the top of the curve by holding a constant voltage. Limiting the charging current periodically allows for some cell balancing and also limits resistive heat losses in other components: - individual cells, high current contactors, high voltage wiring, onboard charger limits etc. This is by no means a totally comprehensive list of factors. No doubt Kyle will keep playing with the variables. We need some Porsche Taycan, Rivian and Lightning owners to graciously total their vehicles without damaging the charging components or the battery packs so that some enterprising companies or individuals can do a deep dive into the pack construction to provide a clearer picture of what is going on. None of manufacturers are likely to provide full schematics for their systems.

I suspect the periodic reduction in charge current could be the BMS needing to make some balancing adjustments between the highest and lowest cell voltages in the pack. Once balanced again, it accepts higher charging current until the cells get out of tolerance again. Above 30% it appears they have a more conservative charging algorithm to keep the cells more equally balanced. Above 75-80% one might as well go home and finish with level 2 charging to 100% if that is needed for the start of a trip. No doubt this curve will be refined as more user data is collected by Ford.

28 minutes and all of it was very, very interesting

Look up Dr. Horatio Jackson. In 1903 he was the first person to do a road trip across the U.S. in a fancy new contraption called an automobile. San Francisco to Vermont. Almost no paved roads, no maps, repeated struggles to find gas, mechanical problems galore, nervous sponsors, rivals trying to beat him to the punch, you name it. He even brought his dog, Bud, on the journey. Sound familiar?

Love that test, thank you very much for going through all of this, I was wondering why even on "350kw Ultra Fast Chargers" from Electrify America I couldn't get more than 167kW......I hate it :(

13:46 Charging voltage wouldn't necessarily improve charging speeds if the cells themselves are already being maxed out, which we can tell they are because the truck is only pulling 466 A on a charger capable of outputting 500 A. Essentially, if Ford split up this pack like GM is doing with the HUMMER EV, it might be charging at 690 V, but it would only be drawing 233 A from the charger, resulting in an identical peak charging rate. The only time it makes sense to increase the charging voltage of the EV is when that EV can draw more current than the charger can provide at 400 V to 500 V.

Great Review!! I really hope you do a review of the Cadillac Lyriq soon!

Looks like max towing is an option to have If you're doing frequent road trip just for extra cooling

How about paying a visit to Ford. Maybe they can give you and us some behind the scenes on how they charge and program their batteries

Kyle do you use the data recording feature in Car Scanner? If so check it out because then you can plot out any variables you have recorded into pretty nice little graphs. Super helpful for your videos I would think. ;)

Thanks for all the Lightning Videos. I'm a reservation holder for a Lightning, but based on what I see, I think I am going to convert that to a regular F150, likely with Powerboost. I tow fairly frequently, and sadly this isn't going to cut it for what I'd like to do and where I go.

Wow, this makes me happy to have a e-gmp car. 😂

would love to get that entire log. can you please upload that as well?

Hi Kyle, What is the OBD sensor that you are using to pull this data? Until ford updates the software to show the current charging rate on the screen, I want to put this on my Lightning so I can monitor and see all the stats you show here.

Drifting around a track you say? heh heh. Love it!

Excellent job Kyle. Love the details. Don't understand how an extra compressor in the vapor compression cooling cycle could gove more cooling capacity if the mass of refrigerant stays the same. Maybe it doesn't in this case. Just a thought. I could be having a GCE as my instructors at power school called it. A gross conceptual error.

Can you do an extended range test of the F-150 Lightning, while plugged to 240v inverter generator. For example every time the F-150 battery reach 5% you should start the generator and keep driving while it charges at the same time.

Sounds like a charger shortfall in current delivering capability, it should be designed (and easily could be) to deliver maximum usable energy in KWH's to every vehicle. Moreover, the difference between a 400 & a 460 volt battery system is only a 13% difference and not very significant.

Interesting information.

Kyle, please provide weblink for your OBD app software. Thank you.

So if you can get 175Kw peak, should you use a 350 kw charger, some people thing you should not block that charger.

i wonder, will you guys ever do a road trip with the EQS580?

Can you add time stamps in the description ?

Like you mentioned towards the beginning of the video I would love to see a dedicated video on volts and amps to helps us noobs get up to speed on knowledge

Thanks! What does the curve (or line) look like when charging at home with Level 2 charger? 7kW all the way to 100% ?

I still have a hard time getting an intuitive understanding of the interplay of pack voltage, amperage, and kilowatts. Can you recommend a source that explains this thoroughly, In relatively layman’s terms? Cheers.

15:23 This appears to be a limitation based on the charging socket and harness, rather than any battery limitation. Essentially, the socket is rated to accept up to 500 A for a set period of time before it needs to be derated long enough to cool down before being pushed again.

The pack voltage of the Lightning is about the same as the Model 3, for me that’s ok.

Thanks!!!

IS the dip triggered by a temp sensor? Did you have carscanner running to see if temp jumps?

Any recommendations for best OBD2 app and dongle for EV purposes for iOS?

The truck looks great. When is Ford going to build their charging network? Relying on public chargers will be fine when entering the market, but not long term.

Need for E-Transit please!

Very interesting. Love the nerdy stuff. I have a Kia EV6 and don’t understand why charging is anywhere from 80-180 kw. I cannot precondition, cannot see battery temp and it doesn’t tell me anything wrong. Would love to understand all going on here.

Is there an OBD parameter in the data stream for battery degradation? It would be nice to be able to see battery degradation before purchasing a used truck. Thanks for the video, very interesting.

This is the pain of rushing products to market.

Does the lower pack voltage increase the longevity of the pack?

gas power vans come to charge you EV with gas power generator. Saw this on I-15 yesterday

Strange temperature values. While the coolant temperature stays at 30°C the whole time (at least till 80%) the cell temp never rises over 45°C. BTW, what was the ambient temperature during charging? 45°C is a relatively low temp for an NMC Cell, so I would imagine that they know that the real temperature value is higher than that. And I don’t understand, why do they put a second compressor for towing, if they don’t even use one while charging? Maybe they don’t trust the thermal capabilities of the inverter electronics🤷‍♂️ Regarding the battery voltage, a Li-Ion cell has always the same voltage, the system voltage depends on how many cells you have in series, 370v should be something like 103s.To go to 400v you need 111s. If you have a 103s3p configuration (309 cells) but you want to step up the voltage, you can only go to 111s2p which are in total 222 cells which means a much lower capacity or 111s3p with a much higher capacity and more space needs. This is one of the few advantages of using small cells like the 2170. You have more than thousand cells making it easier to find the right parallel/series combination to reach the system voltage you aim to.

I watched it twice so far already. Not sure what that says about me ;-)

Pretty awful with the Ioniq 5 and EV6 blows passed this.

This is just unacceptable. Needs to be 800v. The Silverado ev should destroy it at charging

12:30 is when any charging info starts

A lot of missed opportunities by Ford.

Terribly slow. 6 year old teslas charge at this rate…

Wow that is some seriously slow charging for a modern EV.

This trucks charging curve is trash, the MEB platform is going to catch up quick and blow it away. over 30 minutes to go another 140ish miles.

Almost 14 minutes of your video was not needed, you need to cut your videos down, like myself many are just clicking thru it.

GOD!! YOU TALK TOO MUCH

I'm holding out for hydrogen fuel cell EV. Battery needs too much down time to recharge. Hydrogen you gas and go.

What is this editing setup??🤮

Dude ...you talk waaayyyy too much.

Can't wait till 1/4 of country has ev you're goings to wait in line for hour's to get to charge yore EV.