When you’re towing with an electric vehicle, it’s easy to feel stressed out about the driving range, as it can vary a lot based on how much weight a vehicle is pulling, the kind of terrain, climate, and other variables. Luckily, Ford recently claimed that the 2022 F-150 Lightning reduces range anxiety as it can accurately determine the remaining vehicle range while factoring in real-time conditions.
Three in-house Ford technologies are designed to work together to accomplish this: Intelligent Range, FordPass Power My Trip, and the optional Onboard Scales. Such features help F-150 Lightning customers use improved vehicle range estimates that are based on real towing experiences and evaluations of real-time energy expenditure. And that’s not all – your Trailer Profile remembers the trailer specifics so the vehicle can figure out the energy use for each trailer being towed.
The new Intelligent Range feature is improved to work with the particular needs of electric truck owners, collecting essential vehicle data to evaluate how much electrical energy drivers need in real time. This factors in traffic speed, ambient temperature, available battery energy, plus driver habits, climate control use and route topography.
This innovative system also uses cloud computing to access data from multiple sources, like other Ford electric trucks that have towed on similar roads with similar trailers, which makes the estimates and calculations more accurate over time, according to Ford.
"Whether you're towing with a gas-powered or electric truck, range degradation as a percentage is basically the same – determined primarily by overall cargo and trailer weight at low speeds and by the aerodynamic profile at higher speeds. That's why we expanded the capabilities of Intelligent Range on the F-150 Lightning with the available Onboard scales to also measure the load effects of trailers and cargo to further refine range calculations when towing,” said Linda Zhang, chief engineer of the F-150 Lightning.
To support drivers better with planning their trips, Ford now also provides the FordPass Power My Trip online mapping system. After a driver inputs their trailer information into Trailer Profile, they can type in the destination into the Sync 4/4A navigation system or smartphone via the FordPass app, the Power My Trip automatically maps their towing route using Intelligent Range; the feature also provides charge points along the way, if needed.