Ford halts production, shipments of F-150 Lightning over possible battery issue | Hacker News Reader

Ford halts production, shipments of F-150 Lightning over possible battery issue

reuters.com

63 pointsmfiguiere45 comments

Off topic but I’d really love an electric truck that does away with the drunk and moves that space to the rear, pushing the passenger cabin forward, like the old Japanese “trucks”. I’m a Ram owner and I think it’s ridiculous 1/3 is wasted on the engine up front, 1/3 on passengers in the middle, and only 1/3 remaining for actual utility.

Also, while we’re at it, the way the old Japanese trucks allowed you to fold down all the sides around the bed to turn them into flat beds… chef’s kiss

The Frunk is useful for crash safety though.

There has to be other solutions. Vans have far less up front and perform fine

My truck was supposed to be delivered last week and mysterious got pushed back three weeks. That explains it.

They are also recalling packs in the field, my truck is currently at the dealer getting a new pack.

"We are not aware of any incidences of this issue in the field," Ford spokesperson Emma Bergg said in an email.

I am not sure what you are trying to say. My f150 pack did not explode (presumably what an 'incidence' would be in this case) but is still being recalled.

Would you be willing to provide the recall number from NHTSA based on your VIN? Exposing your VIN is unnecessary. Ford might have provided it directly in their communications to you.

BMW replaced my battery pack to analyze the cell chemistry where the "incident" was rate of degradation (2014 BMW i3 pure electric in this case), so it's not necessarily something dramatic, but might be just engineering analysis and iterative improvement.

How are you liking it? I got to look at one recently and really really liked it. Lot more than I expected. Unfortunately I need to make about 3x what I currently do to ever be able to justify buying something like it for my use cases lol.

I love the electric part, infinite torque and practically infinite electrical power without concern of draining the 12v battery. It is basically a full sized generator which is always with you. On occasion I charge my other EVs from the onboard inverter (30a/240v charge rate using a normal j1772 charger, occasionally this makes sense to avoid paying peak power rates) which brings me great joy.

Moving from my 10 year old ICE f150 I am not a fan of the all digital dash, but you get used to it.

If it was half the price I would recomend it to everyone...

The charging other EVs cracks me up.

I’m still no where near being able to have a 100% EV only existence but something like that would be really nice as a secondary. dreams

Thanks for the response.

I wonder what the new Ram 1500 REV is going to be like?

Certainly not premature.

Not a HEMI, that’s for sure.

HEVI

Back to the Future was right.

If only there was a company with experience in electric cars..

Thank god for the free market and competition, choice is in the interest of consumers.

You mean the one that famously has terrible quality control?

Is this the same car that is famously about to be best seller even tho it's 2-3x the price of the current best seller?

Slow down the oblique shots have gotten so vague I've lost track.

Post-production QA is an industry problem in general - the difference between systems is who does the QA.

In the dealership model - after transit, they do a once over and post-production/transit repairs before the car appears on the lot. So much so that most states wrote legislation to limit repairs allowed while still being called "new". (often ~5% of the retail value of the car). Note that dealers also pay wholesale rates on the cost estimate for that, so this can be quite large repairs.

The T* direct-model should put the SC in that same spot. Bug is they're not doing the work - probably the emphasis on throughput incentivizes the wrong behavior. All too often the the SC tries to palm-off problems and/or the consumer has to do drive QA. Fixing it means the customer is on point - obviously YMMV.

IMHO this is a huge gap and flaw. Unfortunately OEM dealership behavior is so predatorily atrocious that even this flaw isn't enough to overcome the otherwise positive T* sales experience. I now know how few signatures are needed to buy a car in my state. I have zero intention of participating in the "sit outside of a finance office for an hour, no I don't need Scotchgard, interest rate manipulation" routine ever again.

Dealerships often talk about "relationships" - this BS sales talk - we're just prey to them.

Doesn't matter if you like or dislike the T-word or EM-himself. Fact is they have built one hell of an experienced/industrialized muscle in this field. That experience is priceless right now - Ford, VW, GM etc. don't just need to run-as-fast, they need to run faster. All the while not repeating the mistakes that others were allowed to make when there were less optics on the problem. This technology change is going to be a capital-intensive, painful experience for the incumbents.

Incumbents thought they were going to be bin assemblers as they’ve always been, not an engineering first org with cutting edge battery technology experience. Oops. Can’t MBA way your way to the lead, physics cannot be fooled. I hope they catch up, the space needs robust competition.

This is also why Tesla is building and selling 40GWh/year of stationary storage from their Lathrop Megapack manufacturing facility; their battery management systems are proven under the harshest conditions vehicles see. Utility storage demands are comparatively benign compared to high end powertrain duty cycles in top trims.

Like Toyota (Prius), Nissan (Leaf), or Chevy (Bolt)? Among others.

Like GM, who had their EV packs fail and catch fire? Like Toyota, who had their HEV software fail in extreme cold and need an update?

No automaker is perfect.

You mean Toyota? Or is Telsa implied? Model 3 had 15 recalls in 2020, 14 in 2021, 9 in 2022 with basics like "One or both taillights may intermittently fail to illuminate."

What fraction of the recalls were fixed via OTA software updates?

For my 2020 Model 3, all but one of them. There was a recall to replace a cable in the trunk that could break, disabling the backup camera.[1] I still haven’t taken mine in to get the free replacement, but my backup camera has been fine.

1. https://www.consumerreports.org/car-recalls-defects/every-si...

Most (all?) of these 'recalls' were fixed over the air

All. At least for the Y since summer of 2021. There's a spectrum of car recalls from "we'll push it in the next update" to "bring it in or die".

FWIW, battery replacements really aren't that far to the right. The worst possible case is a battery fire, and those really aren't very dangerous in context (e.g. would you rather your car burn, or your powertrain or brakes fail suddenly?).

But they are extremely expensive for the manufacturer if they involve replacements. Not good business news for Ford if so, but we don't know yet.

Yes, Hyundai/Kia are out there!

Hyundai/Kia seems to be having a fair amount of recalls about potential fires in things that don't normally catch fire.

The idea of packing them full of lithium is not drawing me in right this moment.

Hopefully in a secure location.

The new generation, Hyundai ioniq 5 and Kia EV6, have immobilisers.

And they have the added benefit of not looking ugly.

competition is the fuel of our entire economy

If only any of them made good EVs...

Or even better weren't trading one ecological disaster for another.

Which is less of a disaster? That's all that matters and you making it a binary situation is overly simplistic and likely done on purpose due to your political beliefs

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