Why 150 KW Fast Charging Limit ?

[EVTruckGuy]

Why is the lightning limited to 150kw fast charging, when other EVs coming out over the next year are featuring technology such as 800v and 300kw DCFC capabilities? I'm really pleased with what the Lightning offered overall, but this is a bummer... Especially without a longer range battery option than the 300 miles offered.

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[dothedew]

Battery voltage. 150KW is 375A at 400V - There isn't enough cooling capacity for more than 375A and the charge cables can't support it because they would be way too thick.

 

[EVTruckGuy]

I hear you... But Tesla, Lucid, Rivian, Hyundai, Kia, and maybe others are able to charge at 300kw or some sort of proprietary 800v charging system that will allow super fast charging. There are already 300 kw fast chargers in existence. The lightning won't be able to utilize them while other vehicles will be able to.

 

[dothedew]

I hear you... But Tesla, Lucid, Rivian, Hyundai, Kia, and maybe others are able to charge at 300kw. There are already 300 kw fast chargers in existence. The lightning won't be able to utilize then while other vehicles will be able to.

Some of those brands are at 800V+ which halves the amperage requirement.

Tesla superchargers have liquid cooled handles and cables which solves the charger side heat issue. Electrify America also has a design with liquid cooled cables as well.

The problem then comes down to vehicle side cooling capacity. What's clear is that F150 Lightning engineering was not designed from a cooling perspective to support amperages > ~400 or so. Why - unknown at this point but probably packaging/supplier limitations. Tesla, Lucid, Rivian etc all have the benefit of designing their EV products from the ground up, where as F150 is an existing product that they had to fit the EV architecture into the existing platform.

 

[Vulnox]

It's also important to note that 150KW or 300KW or 50000KW is largely meaningless. It's a peak charge rate that in no vehicle made currently is maintained throughout the entire charge. Tesla or Porsche or Ford, they all have a charging curve which is far more important to actual speed of charge.

That isn't an excuse for Ford, I think the Lightning should be capable of at least 250KW, and maybe it is! They may just need more time to work out the curve and battery cooling logic and all the wiring and onboard charger capacity is there.

But if you charge a current gen Tesla Model Y on a 250KW charger, it won't be at 250KW very long, and your overall charge average may be 160-170KW. When you get above 80% of battery usually, speeds fall off a cliff. The Mach E has a pretty poor curve currently, holding 150KW for only about 10 minutes before dropping to 108. But it holds that 108 fairly well. The Tesla will still charge quicker, but it won't be 250KW the whole ride.

 

[Squatch]

I am guessing that the refresh or Gen15 version will have it or a technology beyond it. Only people in certain areas would benefit from that difference. Most people with EVs charge them at home.

 

[dingle87]

I know one thing... I need to educate myself on what upgrades my house might need to charge this thing properly and take advantage of the capabilities of this vehicle. If there are any resources anyone can direct me towards to bring me up to speed, it'd be appreciated.

Thank you ahead of time.

 

[Vulnox]

I know one thing... I need to educate myself on what upgrades my house might need to charge this thing properly and take advantage of the capabilities of this vehicle. If there are any resources anyone can direct me towards to bring me up to speed, it'd be appreciated.

Thank you ahead of time.

There are a lot of variables, good to talk to an electrician. In my current house (built in 1984) and last home (built in 2013), I had a line run for an EV charging unit. All that was required in both was a 50 amp circuit added to the panel and a wire run to the garage. How you terminate it at that point depends on if you get a hard wired charging unit or a plug in one. I am using plug in, so it has a NEMA 14-50R receptacle.

Ford has their own EV charging units, but you can use 3rd party ones like ChargePoint or JuiceBox (what I have). Ford also has their EV Charger Pro which is what allows the truck to power your house in an outage, my JuiceBox won't allow such things and I don't think any other 3rd party ones will be compatible there. But you also need a 100 Amp breaker setup, and I suspect an automatic transfer switch.

Anyway, it can be super easy to install if you just need a breaker, wire, and outlet. If you are out of room in your breaker box though, or have a lot of electric appliances (oven, dryer, furnace), and only have 150 Amp service, you may have issues with available amperage if the car is hooked up to charge and your furnace and oven are running. Our house now while older is almost all gas appliances, so we have a good amount of overhead available.

That's where I recommend talking to an electrician if you don't know your current demand and breaker capacity.

 

[Brian Head Yankee]

I am a recently retired electrical contractor and have experience installing residential and commercial chargers. Should we start a thread for chargers?

In a nutshell, your house will likely need an upgrade to a 200 amp service if you plane to use the fastest charger. Go out to your meter and look at the rating of the MAIN breaker. Also look for spare locations for breakers. If your main service is 100 amps or 125 amps and you want to add the 80 amp charger, you will be out of luck.

Ford's EV Pro appears to be all inclusive and is likely engaged by manually flipping the main over to the truck from the house in their panel. An ATS would be expensive. I have installed countless home gensets with the manual transfer system. It's easy to operate.


Side story: In Nevada, NV Energy was so worried about the load demand of EVs, they would make the homeowner pay to upgrade the power lines and transformer for the whole street. An 80 amp charger is consuming the same power as two electric dryers running for 10 hours!

 

[ChasingCoral]

Why is the lightning limited to 150kw fast charging, when other EVs coming out over the next year are featuring technology such as 800v and 300kw DCFC capabilities? I'm really pleased with what the Lightning offered overall, but this is a bummer... Especially without a longer range battery option than the 300 miles offered.

Where did you see that it is limited to 150kW? The tech specs give 150kW charging examples but never say that’s the limit. Watch this video and you’ll see Darren Palmer suggest 150kW is not the limit.

 

[Merccat]

I know one thing... I need to educate myself on what upgrades my house might need to charge this thing properly and take advantage of the capabilities of this vehicle. If there are any resources anyone can direct me towards to bring me up to speed, it'd be appreciated.

Thank you ahead of time.

One thing I did when we had solar installed is that I had them provide an upgraded inverter that is setup to supply an EV charger directly through the inverter. That way it will be using the same circuit the inverter is connected to wether drawing from the array or grid.

At the time I wasn’t sure if it would be something I would ever get any use from but at the rate EV’s are hitting the market and with one as interesting as the Lightning, we’ll probably have one in another 5 years or so.

 

[Solar_EE]

It's also important to note that 150KW or 300KW or 50000KW is largely meaningless. It's a peak charge rate that in no vehicle made currently is maintained throughout the entire charge. Tesla or Porsche or Ford, they all have a charging curve which is far more important to actual speed of charge.

That isn't an excuse for Ford, I think the Lightning should be capable of at least 250KW, and maybe it is! They may just need more time to work out the curve and battery cooling logic and all the wiring and onboard charger capacity is there.

But if you charge a current gen Tesla Model Y on a 250KW charger, it won't be at 250KW very long, and your overall charge average may be 160-170KW. When you get above 80% of battery usually, speeds fall off a cliff. The Mach E has a pretty poor curve currently, holding 150KW for only about 10 minutes before dropping to 108. But it holds that 108 fairly well. The Tesla will still charge quicker, but it won't be 250KW the whole ride.

Exactly right on the charging peak vs. the actual curve. One reason I bought the Ioniq 5 was the fast charging, but over 6500 miles I fast charged just once! I did get 149kW on the EA 150kW charger, and went from 50 to 80% in 7 minutes. Then it slowed down and another 7 minutes to 90%. For my use case of charging at home 99% of the time the rate is meaningless. I get a full charge overnight with the 40A cable that came with the Lightning plugged in to a NEMA 14-50 socket.

 

[LightningShow]

I know this is an old thread but after having the truck for a bit and DC fast charging quite a lot (due to several longer trips) I think this whole discussion is over pretty much nothing. Sure, I'd love 800V architecture and 300kW charging but in todays EV world this is more of a technical spec discussion than a discussion about the reality of charging. For one, there are almost no 350kW chargers out there. The great majority of DCFC hardware can't do over 200kW. Tom Moloughney’s recent Kia EV6 video showed the EV6 charging at an average of 108kW from 10-80% on an EA 150kw charger, and only ~155kw avg on a 350kw. The Lightning has averaged over 120kW-130kW for me in that SOC range. The real world charging rate just isn’t that much different unless you get on a properly working 350kw station. The big difference is that the Lighting’s battery is much larger not the charge rate.

 

[VTbuckeye]

I think the frustration for owners could be that the battery is big enough to safely (longevity, capacity retention...) charge faster. The battery is very large, but the limitation is the voltage x Amps. The charge stations can only deliver a finite amperage and by doubling the voltage the kw delivered can be doubled. The vehicle battery architecture is 400V, so it just can't be charged faster. The only hope is being able slow the taper as the battery is "filled" so that it can charge faster. Peak charging is not so important, but AUC (area under the curve) is what matters. Keep the charging as fast as possible, as long as possible and hope that the charge station is functioning properly so that it can charge at optimal rates.

 

[LightningShow]

I think the frustration for owners could be that the battery is big enough to safely (longevity, capacity retention...) charge faster. The battery is very large, but the limitation is the voltage x Amps. The charge stations can only deliver a finite amperage and by doubling the voltage the kw delivered can be doubled. The vehicle battery architecture is 400V, so it just can't be charged faster. The only hope is being able slow the taper as the battery is "filled" so that it can charge faster. Peak charging is not so important, but AUC (area under the curve) is what matters. Keep the charging as fast as possible, as long as possible and hope that the charge station is functioning properly so that it can charge at optimal rates.

I agree, people are using knowledge about “safe” DCFCing from previous EVs and expecting more from the Lightning without considering that the charging equipment can’t handle it.

But the reality is that it was never going to be much better than it already is on 400V. Rivian is trying to coax out the last little bit but their AUC is still pretty much the same as the Lightning. 10-80 in 40ish minutes vs maybe 45 minutes in the Lightning. That’s not huge real world difference. It will never be a Taycan. Even when they come out with an 800V truck it won’t be a Taycan, the truck is just too inefficient. I would consider is a huge step if they improved efficiency by 10% and charge speed by 20-30%. Maybe 2.6mpk and 180kw avg charge from 10-80. That gets you around 200 miles in 25 minutes. Maybe give it the capability for 250kw long enough to get 100 miles? It’s still no Taycan, or even Tesla, but that would be worth considering an upgrade for.

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