A farewell to ICE

Brons2

Brons2

Joined
Sep 16, 2003
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Well the Navigator in my signature has been having transmission problems. Thought about trading it in but ultimately I sold it to my brother in law who has a used car lot in the area. He gave me a very fair price considering the issues with the vehicle, and there were multiple things I kept kicking the can down the road on besides the transmission.

Had no car the week before Christmas but I was definitely on the lookout for something. Spent a lot of time on Autotempest and Leasehackr, along with some other car sites and some local dealer sites. Was hoping for a good deal on a BEV, but might have accepted a hybrid.

Then a deal popped up that I could not refuse on Leasehackr. A low mileage lease on a 2024 F150 Lightning XLT Standard battery for less than $300/mo through a broker. MSRP of $65,950 with only the first lease payment due at signing. It seemed to be too absurd to be real at first, but everything checked out and it's now in my driveway.

I ended up having it shipped to my location for $375 extra, just wasn't practical to go to a dealer 4+ hours away on the week of Christmas. It showed up at 5:15 on Christmas Eve at my door, 100% charged to boot.

I love this truck. I'm 6'7" 300 lbs and this is the most comfortable vehicle I've ever owned. It's missing a few niceties that the higher trim levels have like BlueCruise and the 15" screen but I couldn't possibly care less, there is still plenty of tech. It's not as fast as the versions with the larger battery but I don't care about that either, it is fast enough that it will peel out on all four wheels at low speeds if you floor it. It will put you seriously back in your seat if you want it to. It's also at the same time very quiet at any forward speed, almost serene. I took my parents to the airport yesterday and they both commented on how quiet the cabin is.

The efficiency is not great compared to other EVs, it's hard to get much above 2.3 mi/KWH. But compared to the 13mpg I was getting in my Navigator, it's really not bad, especially at our electricity prices in the 10-12 cent per KWH range. A bonus is that it seems to charge faster on standard 120V than our Mach-E does, so far, that's the only charging that it's had.

It does feel bigger than the Navigator when driving it, which I wasn't expecting, but is not really a big deal in practice. Just sometimes it takes more than one cut to park it. I'm sure with time that I'll get more used to it.

I can't really see ever going back to ICE for my daily driver. It's been a great journey since I was 16 until now (50 something) with ICE cars, but we love our EVs and our use cases don't require the ability to fuel with gasoline.

I would like to have a car for weekend use and cruising that was ICE, but it's not a high priority at the moment, retirement goals I guess.

I'll post some pics but I need to edit out the EXIF location data first.

Also look for a post in the For Sale section, I will be selling off my oil stash.
 
Congrats! The modern F150 is pretty big. It's the same size as the 2017 5.0 I had. I strongly considered this truck when I thought I wanted another truck. I do use them on occasion for work. The Lightning is great. It's the best riding version F150 I've ever ridden in. The Raptor may rival it with more travel and tire sidewall, but they're really close in ride quality in smoother off road conditions.

Efficiency might not be it's strongest suit, but this is a size thing more than a design issue. The EV trucks are power hungry. They're just heavy. It just takes having enough battery to get some range. I believe the standard range is rated to 230 miles which really isn't bad considering the benefit is that it is a bit lighter than the standard range. Great price you got too, I think I would have jumped on that one too.

As far as the oil stash goes I don't know how much you have on hand, but my mower and snowblower are getting full synthetic soon due to the leftovers from the GTI. They've both been PYB users since I got them. They'll be set for years.

I'd definitely love to see some pictures of the new truck.
 
Brons2 said:
Well the Navigator in my signature has been having transmission problems. Thought about trading it in but ultimately I sold it to my brother in law who has a used car lot in the area. He gave me a very fair price considering the issues with the vehicle, and there were multiple things I kept kicking the can down the road on besides the transmission.

Had no car the week before Christmas but I was definitely on the lookout for something. Spent a lot of time on Autotempest and Leasehackr, along with some other car sites and some local dealer sites. Was hoping for a good deal on a BEV, but might have accepted a hybrid.

Then a deal popped up that I could not refuse on Leasehackr. A low mileage lease on a 2024 F150 Lightning XLT Standard battery for less than $300/mo through a broker. MSRP of $65,950 with only the first lease payment due at signing. It seemed to be too absurd to be real at first, but everything checked out and it's now in my driveway.

I ended up having it shipped to my location for $375 extra, just wasn't practical to go to a dealer 4+ hours away on the week of Christmas. It showed up at 5:15 on Christmas Eve at my door, 100% charged to boot.

I love this truck. I'm 6'7" 300 lbs and this is the most comfortable vehicle I've ever owned. It's missing a few niceties that the higher trim levels have like BlueCruise and the 15" screen but I couldn't possibly care less, there is still plenty of tech. It's not as fast as the versions with the larger battery but I don't care about that either, it is fast enough that it will peel out on all four wheels at low speeds if you floor it. It will put you seriously back in your seat if you want it to. It's also at the same time very quiet at any forward speed, almost serene. I took my parents to the airport yesterday and they both commented on how quiet the cabin is.

The efficiency is not great compared to other EVs, it's hard to get much above 2.3 mi/KWH. But compared to the 13mpg I was getting in my Navigator, it's really not bad, especially at our electricity prices in the 10-12 cent per KWH range. A bonus is that it seems to charge faster on standard 120V than our Mach-E does, so far, that's the only charging that it's had.

It does feel bigger than the Navigator when driving it, which I wasn't expecting, but is not really a big deal in practice. Just sometimes it takes more than one cut to park it. I'm sure with time that I'll get more used to it.

I can't really see ever going back to ICE for my daily driver. It's been a great journey since I was 16 until now (50 something) with ICE cars, but we love our EVs and our use cases don't require the ability to fuel with gasoline.

I would like to have a car for weekend use and cruising that was ICE, but it's not a high priority at the moment, retirement goals I guess.

I'll post some pics but I need to edit out the EXIF location data first.

Also look for a post in the For Sale section, I will be selling off my oil stash.
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Hope you took over the lease and not buy it!
 
Torrid said:
Efficiency might not be it's strongest suit, but this is a size thing more than a design issue. The EV trucks are power hungry. They're just heavy. It just takes having enough battery to get some range. I believe the standard range is rated to 230 miles which really isn't bad considering the benefit is that it is a bit lighter than the standard range. Great price you got too, I think I would have jumped on that one too.

I'd definitely love to see some pictures of the new truck.
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I will agree with you on the relatively low efficiency being a size issue, I've seen the reviews of the other large EV pickups and the large SUVs like the R1S and EV9 on places like Out of Spec and they are not any better on efficiency.

One thing I can't believe I forgot to mention is that the Lightning has a fantastic frunk! And even on the XLT it is remote-opening using the fob. We put all our Christmas gifs in the frunk before heading over to my SIL on Christmas Eve. And to my parents' house on Christmas morning.

Pic - chose white because I live in Central Texas, could have gotten black also but they are hard to keep clean. This was snapped around sunset last night, I'll take some more sometime today. The stock wheels are kind of charcoal gray. The selling dealer put a coat of carnuba wax on it before delivery, I could smell it upon first inspection off the transport vehicle. It got rained on in route from the dealer and again yesterday morning, but it's still relatively shiny.

lightning-sunset.webp
 
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wwillson said:
Xenforo always does that automatically.
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That is the BITOG message forum software? I'm on my LinuxMint VM on my work PC, searched the repositories and didn't find that package. A web search said it was "Internet Forum Software" so I'm assuming you meant the BITOG forum software.
 
Pelican said:
Hope you took over the lease and not buy it!
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I'm not sure what you mean. I am the original owner, was delivered with 33 miles. I'm not about to take over someone else's expensive lease, I'm paying $299/mo on the lease on this truck. It's a low mileage lease - 7500 mi/yr - but I don't drive a lot anyway. I only drove my Navigator around 30,500 miles in 4 years and 3 months.

Probably will not buy it out as the residual is pretty high (IMO) but I'm open to it if they come down quite a bit on the price. Otherwise I'll toss them the keys back when the lease is up.
 
jcy said:
i believe in irfanview you can batch remove exif
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Not available in my Linux distro's default package manager.

I have used Irfanview before on a Windows box and I liked it, but, I force myself to use Linux most of the time to keep my skills sharp for work.
 
Snagglefoot said:
I like the 2.3 miles per kWhr. People need to get used to the kWhr designation. After all it’s in their monthly electricity bill. Ultimately you can calculate miles per dollar, just as you can with gasoline.
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2.3 mi/kwh is actually good, across our Christmas driving I only averaged 2.3-2.4mi/kwh in the Prologue and it's a smaller, slightly less brick shaped, slower vehicle.
 
Snagglefoot said:
I like the 2.3 miles per kWhr. People need to get used to the kWhr designation. After all it’s in their monthly electricity bill. Ultimately you can calculate miles per dollar, just as you can with gasoline. Then you can compare the two.
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Excellent point. At 2.3mi/kWh at my residential power rates (avg 11 cents per kWh year-round) and the mileage I drive, using 7500 as a basis for comparison, about $359/yr in electricity.

To compare some direct fueling options regardless of fuel type,

At 13.3 MPG in my Navigator (assuming $2.50 a gallon) about $1410/yr. A new transmission and timing job *might* have helped that recover to around 14.5MPG around town which is what it was doing the first couple of years I had it.

The cost of keeping the Navigator going was going to be significant, which is why I started looking for options for an exit. Transmission, timing job, ABS pump rebuild, passenger door lock regulator, rear glass not latching, yada, yada, yada. And my time - I would have most likely fixed the Navi items other than the transmission in my younger days but I'm married with a family these days and my spare time outside of work is much more limited. Basically I would have had to take leave from work to do all this. And there's a cost to my time as well, which is getting more real as I get closer to my first retirement, as I will be paid out for vacation time in the bank. I figured all in to take it to "somebody else" to fix all this stuff probably would have been equivalent to a short term lease on something else and then I still have an old car with with which other things can potentially break like the AC that would have a large cost. So keeping the Navi was "not an option" at the end of the day.

I tried and liked a Toyota Sienna Hybrid for a 10 day rental on Spring Break 2023. I averaged 35mpg in LA/SF traffic and also on the wide open freeway, carrying that forward, a Sienna Hybrid would cost $535/yr for gas using the same assumptions, ignoring any payment, lease, or maintenance factors which would have certainly been a consideration.

A more direct comparison might have been acquiring another, more efficient EV. A brand new Model Y was available for $350/mo lease with a similar drive off cost from the local Tesla dealer to what the Lightning cost plus shipping. I figured 3.5mi/kwh for the Model Y and came up with a cost of $235/yr. Considering the higher lease cost of $600/yr (50/moX12) it did not make sense, that's leaving out the fact that I hated the model Y the last time I drove it 6 months back and also the fact that we might have used the MY more given that it was a 10Kmi/yr lease. (A 10Kmi/yr option on the Lightning was $326, still cheaper on a lease cost+electricity cost basis than the MY).

There are some other EV lease deals out there this month on smaller EVs that I just wasn't going to consider, like the Nero EV that can be had for under $200/mo supposedly. I'm just too big for that. I would have strongly considered a 3 row EV9, but, there didn't seem to be the fire-sale lease deals on those that were out there earlier this year. There were some one-pay deals on Leasehackr on Blazer EVs that would have been less than the Lightning on an effective $ per month from another dealer in Houston, but I just wanted the Lightning more. There was also the question of how I was going to do the one-pay on the Blazer, probably a personal loan from my bank or try to get a no-interest for 12 or 18 months credit card.

A used EV outright purchase of a 2022 or 2023 model was a consideration, I was looking at some Ariyas for sale for less than $25K with less than 5000 miles on them, and finance for the length of the battery warranty, probably could have gotten payments in the same range most likely, but again in this case the Lightning was just more desirable for the lease cost.

The problem with a purchase in general in my mind that EV technology is evolving rapidly. I saw the YouTube video where Out of Spec Motoring cannonballed a Porsche Taycan EV across the US from NY to LA in less than 40 hours. The Taycan can charge at over 300kWh at a capable station and hold it deep into the battery pack, even holding 180kWh between 60-80%. That capability would be something I would be interested in buying and holding, but, a Taycan EV costs $125K. Not in this lifetime.

So it's the Lightning lease for now.

I can't see taking the Lightning on a long trip unless I need to carry something in the bed, because our Mach-E has BlueCruise and the Lightning does not. BlueCruise is a game changer on the open Interstate, it's just so much more relaxing. Plus the fact that the Mach-E's lease has 15Kmi/yr whereas the Lighning is 7.5K. But if I was going to buy and hold EV xyz, I would really want it to have awesome hands-off driving features, that really narrows your possiblities to FSD, BlueCruise or SuperCruise, at least, in models that are somewhat affordable. BMW has excellent driver assistant tech as well but those are out of my price range.
 
dogememe said:
2.3 mi/kwh is actually good, across our Christmas driving I only averaged 2.3-2.4mi/kwh in the Prologue and it's a smaller, slightly less brick shaped, slower vehicle.
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In fairness, 2.3 is driving it fairly conservatively, not jackrabbit starts and keeping it around 70 on the freeway.

The kids dared me to "go fast" yesterday after we saw Sonic 3, which means punching it off the stops until my wife starts complaining, and then I was doing 80-85 into the wind on the toll road (speed limit 75) on the way to drop off the step-grandson, at one point on the toll road it was in the 1.5 range lol. I slowed down after we dropped off (did not turn the vehicle off which means same trip for calculations sake) and put the cruise on the speed limit on remaining the toll roads and drove conservatively on the surface streets, I think I got it back up to 2.0 by the time we got home haha.

I did some backwards calculations, and for the fuel cost of the Lightning's at home charging to be equivalent to a Sienna Hybrid @35MPG @$2.50/gal as calculated at $535/yr in a prior post, I would have to average 1.54 kWh for a year. Of course some factors may vary. I don't really think I'm going to average 1.54kWh, but I'm going to leave at least one of my trip odometers un-reset from new to see what I am averaging over time in kWh/mi consumption. I'm a technologist and I love data.

Of course the Sienna would be way cheaper to take on a road trip, but as I already mentioned in another trip, I don't anticipate doing road trips in the Lightning as I love the driver assistance tech in the Mach-E.

BTW - I did try to take a run on a Prologue but could not get any dealer below $335/mo on the lease, and I called several in the Austin and Houston areas. The Boss put a limit of $300 a month on this search with no cash down, and I'm quite happy I stuck to my guns on it. She eventually agreed to the 375 shipping fee on the Lightning after a couple of days back and forth. Happy wife, happy life. And I love my Lightning way more lol.
 
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