In a New York minute IF the price was in writing and I wasn't paying over MSRP

 

Am I the only one that is not liking the headlight white part?

 

Doesn't bother me. But the dealer experience...

 

I'm not a super fan of it, looks very milky white. It looks great when it is on. It shouldn't take much power, maybe we'll have a switch to just leave it on while the truck is parked out and about.

 

I know they want to set the lightning apart, but the width of those is fugly, like a fat font that no one uses. I'm not a fan of the diluted milk look, would have preferred something that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb, but had they just gone with, say, a 1/2" wide strip instead of that huge monstrosity, I think most would be happy with the change.

 

So Ford first said that you would need a 320A service at your house to use the Lightning for power backup. Then they said it was a mistake but you'll need a 100A circuit to the For Charge Station Pro (it's not a charger). Well you can charge the Lightning at less than 80A by simply turning down the charge rate in the case that you do not have enough power available in your panel. So you don't need a 100A circuit.
The Lightning can output 9.6kW (40A) at 240V so that 100A circuit so that would say a 50A circuit so that you could use all the output from the Lightning. Bur the Lightning is going to output DC, right? So where is the inverter?
I guess we'll find out more later.

 

Edit: I see what you mean.

More complicated than I thought. Apparently it will charge from A/C power inbound, but there does need to be an inverter on the house side to take the power back out in an outage?

Freaking difficult to actually power (even parts of) your house by plugging an F150 into it, same as the Powerboost. Geez

 

The Powerboost is a different subject. It has the ground and neutral bonded in the truck just like at your panel. Some stand alone generators are like that. The Powerboost also has GFCI so when you plug it into a bonded panel it detects a ground fault and will not operate. The bonding in the truck is great for power tools but won't work connected to a bonded panel. AFAIK there is no way to unbond it. Many generators like the 7,000W Honda I looked at today are not bonded and there seems to be no problem AFAIK.

For the lightning with it's 80A onboard charger (with the larger battery) could be designed to run from the pack and provide 40A @ 240V but I'm speculating that the Sunrun system you have to buy will have the inverter in it. Probably off the shelf from their Solar stuff. A lot of solar panels bring DC next to the panel then thru an inverter to get AC. That leaves the question of how the ~400VDC from the battery will get to said inverter. I'm guessing the inverter will be at the panel. That's a problem for me because my panel is opposite the garage. I may just figure out how to deal with the bonded neutral and skip the whole Sunrun/Ford power your house in an outage thing and use the manual interlock I already installed. 30A from the bed of the truck will do all I need done.

 

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I know this forum doesn't have a large Lightning following, but be aware. If you have submitted your order in one of the first couple of waves, orders are now being scheduled for VIN'S and build weeks.