Ford F-150 Lightning Breezes Up Obstacle Where Tesla Cybertruck Struggled
thedrive.com
thedrive.com
And here's a Range Rover going up it: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_00ah8lG4yk
It seems like the CT doesn't have the equivalent of a locking diff, and had essentially no articulation. It'll be fine for the target demo (on-road usage).
Both the Lightning and the CT clearly suffer from their weight, and their optimization for on-road performance. (in the lightnings case, it even seems to be on stock tires).
From what I've read, it doesn't sound like the quad motor "virtual" locked diff feature on the Rivian trucks works as well as a proper locking diff - its close but still slips occasionally. If I recall correctly their cheaper dual motor models don't have the feature either.
I imagine eventually the quad motor "virtual" locking diff solutions will probably get reasonably good, if Tesla decide to do a quad motor CT later.
I dunno what Rivian does, but I saw that Rimac does 1 motor per wheel, and each motor madly modulates itself during launch control to stop its wheel from slipping... Perfect, maximum torque, all the time.
As a bonus, a computer is smart enough to spin the tires at slightly different rates when turning, instead of dragging them along like a locked diff.
The quad motor Rivian produces 908 lbs/ft of torque which means each motor produces 908/4 = 227 lbs/ft. It has a single speed gear ratio of 12.6:1 meaning each wheel can get a maximum of 227 * 12.6 = 2860.2 lbs/ft wheel torque.
The dual motor Rivian produces 829 lbs/ft of torque which means each motor produces 829/2 = 414.5 lbs/ft. It has has a single speed gear ratio of 13.7:1 (11:1 front) in the rear meaning each rear wheel can get a maximum of 414.5 * 13.7 = 5678.65 lbs/ft wheel torque (4559.5 front) with brake locking diff.
Contrast this with a Jeep Wrangler which can put out 20,000 to 30,000 lbs/ft of torque to any single wheel through its torque converter, transmission, transfer case and axle gearing which can be over 100:1 in gear ratio and single ICE.
There are videos of Rivian's stalling rock crawling that are no issue for an old Jeep with weak engine due to lack of torque to the wheels. EV's will need lockers and probably at least two speed transmission to compete here, or they will need way oversized quad motors to make enough low speed torque without the gearing and lockers.
Perhaps the CT should have used a G Wagon as a reference: https://youtube.com/shorts/4i_rxRJXaiU?si=AIOX_16-UbzyIAID
It's fine for the buyers who will be collectors, posers and social media tools - but still worth giggling about because Musk has consistently bragged that it'll be a better truck than any other truck while also being a 'better car'...and yet it does worse than a truck designed to not really see anything more off-road than a jobsite or country dirt road because Ford can
I'm guessing a P1 Touareg/Cayenne, or even a first-gen Audi Allroad wouldn't have a problem.
Is this kind of driving an important use case though? I would think it would be more impressive to compare how these trucks handle towing trailers.
There's plenty of videos of fully built Wranglers struggling more than the Cybertruck.
Some built up wranglers are not as impressive as they look. They can wade through a lake, but the suspension won't actually flex that much over rough terrain.
Of course, some are absolutely mad rock crawlers.
Not everywhere a truck needs to do this stuff, but also not everywhere is it all just towing capabilities.
Source: Live in rural Iowa on farms.
Their vehicle has pretty good suspension for that type of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4k1ZbJS80E
For towing, no.
As a farm truck in steep terrain, the ability to get up and down rough tracks on steep slopes is absolutely part of the brief.
The Tesla has like no suspension travel. The suspension is barely compressing, and you can see the body bounce over the terrain as the wheels lift or almost lift. If you covered the top of the truck from view, I'd say it looks like a cheap crossover.
And the base F-150 is not really a long travel truck, its just... you know, sprung like a truck. A little side by side UTV could run over this hill without even letting off the gas.
As noted - my ignorance of the nuances of off road capability. Someone who knows what they're looking at could see a lot more than I would.
FWIW I reckon 99.9% of these monster trucks will never see conditions like in this video. And that's being generous. Australia has some perverse tax incentives that are making them extremely popular, and they're a scourge on the public roads of Melbourne.
The much larger F150 shown here can only be had by first importing from the US and then converting locally to right hand drive. The associated engineering certificates and approvals are non-trivia. By that point they’ve picked up the luxury car tax due to the costs involved. They also attract a higher registration/CTP fee due to weight and risk.
So, they’re actually heavily disincentivised by taxes and policy. That’s before you even look at the cost to comprehensively insure. Very steep due to the substantial repair costs driven by parts availability.
The lawmaking that allowed for instant asset write-off for dual cab vehicles up to $150k made zero consideration for the environment, neither pollution nor space wise. I see that it's now capped at $20k, but the damage has already been done.
Yet another way Texas is kinda like a mini Australia. I suspect "mega pickup truck" prevalence is probably ahead of Australia. You almost have to see it to believe it.
...And yeah, I wonder what kind of TCS the Cybertruck does. It does have front/back differentials, right, or is it one motor per wheel?
Interesting thing about the Rivian quad motor version is while it has full software control due to a motor per wheel, this can be a downside for crawling like this because it has no way to send torque from one side to the other, so if say only two wheels have traction its torque is cut in half and can actually struggle to move forward as its also a fixed gear ratio.
Contrast this with say a Jeep wrangler that can have a locking transfer case with low range and locking diffs can send a lot of torque to a single wheel through torque multiplication in both the transmission and transfer case and everything locked up. Jeeps also have a decent brake lock diff even if you don't have lockers.
I'm pretty sure that there'll eventually be some sort of LSD/locking programming for electric motors. Take the existing F-150 Tremor for example. It comes with a locking rear diff and a Torsen diff in the front axle. If you have a quad motor vehicle, someone could easily write a "locking rear diff" mode that simply has the rear motors turn at the same pace, and then have a "Torsen diff" mode for the front that will modulate the front motors just like a Torsen diff would.
You can see a quad motor Rivian performing worse than the new dual motor due this issue, the dual motor can use brake locking to send full torque from one side to the other, the quad motor cannot:
Electric motors have a lot of torque but EV drive trains are usually single speed so it must not have too much gear reduction for highway speed. A modern ICE offroad vehicle has a multispeed transmission with torque converter that greatly amplifies stall torque along with a transfer case that has a low range that multiplies even further. I would imagine when jeep does an electric production Wrangler it will probably have dual motors with lockers and may even have a 2 speed transmission for low range. Maybe they will even do like their Magento prototype and run a single large electric motor through a traditional transfer case and driveline.
The Rivian can do 908 lb-ft of torque. Like you say, that's divided up amongst the 4 wheels, so that's 227 lb-ft per wheel.
The Jeep can do 260 lb-ft total.
The Rivian weighs ~7200 lbs and the Jeep weighs ~5300 lbs.
So, with only one wheel of traction you're right. If you can transfer all of that torque on the jeep with less than ~14% loss (which, I dunno, might be reasonable) then the Jeep has more "oomph".
With two wheels, the Jeep is still figuring out how to distribute 260 lb-ft and the Rivian has 454. It's not close at that point.
Now have two wheels lose traction and you cut that down to 5720.4 lbs/ft at the wheels while a Jeep with lockers put the full 20k+ torque to any one wheel as needed.
Therefore this, to me at least, seems like an easy pathway for improvement for the CT.
And we have already seen, telsa has the best software team with companies like Ford with some of the worst. I know which vehicle I'd more likely expect to see updates for that actually improve the experience.
A software system will likely have to detect some small degree of slip before intervening to sync the wheel speed again - that slip just wouldn't occur in the first place on a fully locked setup given its impossible for one wheel to spin faster than the other. This seems to be the experience of Rivian owners who have quad motor cars with virtual locking diffs.
If you naively emulate (as Telsa surely would) a 1:1 fully locking diff in software it will suck to drive. Electronic limited slip diffs already exist, like the Jeep FD/AD systems, which will use tire rotation sensors to determine forward momentum.
Now that I think about it, the Ford is probably already doing this.
This is going to be a test for them. They’re always on, digital, networked, touchscreen-powered ethos is going to fall apart with the truck and off road. Stuff is physical in a truck because you’re often wearing gloves and operating in rough environments.
But seriously - we need to all ack here that this is not a truck. It looks like a truck, yes, but it does not walk or quack like one. Do a lot of current truck owners use them as a fashion statement? Yes. But on the flip side a lot of truck owners do truck things and the cyber truck won’t compete there. As a fashion accessory/commuter/bulletproof SF tenderloin machine yes it will and I actually think it looks pretty cool.
Granted it's Tesla's responsibility to ship the car with adequate tires to its customers.
Like FFS man, those tires are the only thing keeping your car on the road, why would you risk your life and cheap out exactly on the most important safety items?
Me and my family were Japanese brand car drivers for over 2 decades. I got a Ford Escape PHEV, and Ford cars handling is probably one of the best I’ve driven (mind you, we only drive “middle class cars”, below 40K). I recently had to drive a Highlander for a week or two and going back to my Escape was night and day. The suspension and noise was clearly superior on the Highlander but everything else like acceleration and handling was superior on my Escape.
This might be as easy as a software update for both.
Reducing tire pressures and better/correct tires is also important - but lockers are can make up for that and even the best tires will fail if one wheel is slipping and taking all the torque.
No one is gonna be doing this sort of thing with an EV though. There is no charging infrastructure out in the boonies.
You don't think people have access to electricity in these places...?
Guess ya can bring your dongle and hope to find a wall plug somewhere but I’d imagine it would take quite a long time to charge.
Off roaders carry extra fuel. Or worst case your buddy who is out with you will circle back to get fuel and come save you. Can’t really do that with an EV.
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/04/30/a-new-solution-for-off-...
I suppose that technically works but I’d imagine you’d be sleeping in the truck all night while it charges to get just enough juice to get out of dodge. 8 hours is 40 miles. If the weather is bad and you need heat that falls apart though.
- Lots of campgrounds have 30 or 50 amp plugs for RVs. Oftentimes off-road trips I go on start by everybody getting together at night so we can get an early start the next day. If you can meet near an RV campground (not always a great option), you can charge
- Most offroad trips are a relatively low number of miles. It can be pretty technical and you're trying to enjoy the time together. You can make it a lot of hours without spending a lot of miles
All that being said, I have been sweating it on the way to the nearest charger after getting off the trails.
If I was going to get an EV truck Rivian would def be the way to go. Just don’t let the OTA update brick your infotainment lol.
For me:
- Generators are expensive. If you want to charge overnight, you're looking at 6.6kw continuous and for a honda that's at least $3500. Luckily harbor freight exists and maybe you can get away with $900 (srsly harbor freight is amazing)
- I already have a generator and my mostly propane-powered house can easily get by with a 4.3kw peak generator which would not be a great solution on the trail. At 3.5kw continuous... That's getting to be around 24 hours to get from 20% to 80% charging the truck
- Generators are hard to store. Especially if you're not using them regularly and you bought a second one just to take offroading.
- Generators are heavy, especially as you add more power. Sounds like a pain to load that thing up every time.
- I don't want to take the generator when my wife and son might need it at home. Admittedly this has never actually happened (I don't make a habit of leaving when storms are inbound), but it's a risk.Jeep has built solar supplied charging stations at most of the 56 badge of honor trailheads and continues to expand in partnership with Volkswagen. The Rivian recently did an end-to-end run of the Rubicon trail using the Jeep chargers.
Whether the CT has sufficient suspension travel is another matter, and that cannot be fixed with software.
[0] https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-CC0F27E...
I'm interested to learn what other significant tradeoffs there are between ICE vs electric when off-roading.
But Elon is so busy these days managing 3 companies, that he just should quit two of them now.
If I have the choice, today I'm choosing the F-150 lightning.
Lightning does have a locker although it’s hard to find details on how it works.
Cyber truck has two motors in the rear (one for each wheel) so ostensibly it could behave like a locker.
Alternatively, if you have a 2WD vehicle, you can just compare the motor speeds to the speeds of the undriven wheels to see if the wheels are slipping.
It's surprisingly nontrivial to detect how much the wheels are slipping, but once you can you vary the torque command based on the amount of wheelslip.