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Ford F-150 Lightning Breezes Up Obstacle Where Tesla Cybertruck Struggled
- metadat 3y agoIt's not easy towing all those batteries up a slippery surface. I'm interested to learn what other significant tradeoffs there are between ICE vs electric when off-roading.
- richardwhiuk 3y agoF150 lightning is all electric as well
- metadat 3y agoI understand, what I'm trying to communicate is how now it's a triumph for them to get up a modest hill. Totally different power to weight ratio.
- HankB99 3y agoTo my untrained (WRT off-roading) eye, I didn't see that much difference between the two. I also wonder how much difference there would be due to driver skill. And as mentioned in TFA, Ford has been making trucks a lot longer than Tesla.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoHm? Its pretty massive to me. 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.
- jph00 3y agoAlso, according to the article, the Ford is on road tires whilst the CT is on all-terrains.
- davidbanham 3y agoNot a massive factor on that dusty surface. Tyre pressure would make more of a difference I’d wager.
- alphabettsy 3y agoLack of suspension travel under compression is a common issue off-road for air suspension vehicles like the Grand Cherokee and to a lesser extent Range Rovers. Maybe same for the Cybertruck.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoInteresting. Hence the accusations that they are being citified.
- HankB99 3y ago> Hm? Its pretty massive to me. 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.
- sundvor 3y agoTo me it looked like the CT primarily used its rear motors here, and perhaps also didn't have a "crawl" mode (it'd be XDrive in Subaru speak, I guess) as it was kind of all or nothing. Traction control systems can be upgraded; it'll be interesting to see Tesla return serve on this one. 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.
- davidbanham 3y agoThe FBT exemption incentivises the common crop of dual cab utes. Those are Hilux, Ranger, etc. 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.
- sundvor 3y agoThe Rangers/Raptors etc I'm seeing that threaten to outnumber your regular sedans on the roads are the ones I'm referring to. They massively outsize your regular cars, even SUVs such as the Mazda CX-5, Tesla Model Y, or the Subaru Outback. 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.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago> Australia has some perverse tax incentives that are making them extremely popular 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?
- foobarian 3y agoI'm with you, both trucks struggled a bit but made it to the top. 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.
- grecy 3y agoAll trucks struggle to make it up that obstacle - the concrete is slick with sand and the lumps make it hard to get traction. There's plenty of videos of fully built Wranglers struggling more than the Cybertruck.
- mvdtnz 3y agoI don't see concrete in that video.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago> fully built Wranglers 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.
- joshmanders 3y agoDepends on where you're at. In my area while you're not going up this type of hill, terrain very similar to this is common when you're out in the sticks looking for a newborn calf to get it inside and out of the cold. 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.
- defrost 3y agoDepends on where you live and your expectations ... here's a bunch of grey haired pensioners on holidays in Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT5SlLRuBQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT5SlLRuBQ0 Their vehicle has pretty good suspension for that type of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4k1ZbJS80E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4k1ZbJS80E
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- FirmwareBurner 3y agoAs much as I wanna hate on the Cybertruck, tests like these are kind of irelevant as the tires could end up making more of a difference than the car. Granted it's Tesla's responsibility to ship the car with adequate tires to its customers.
- carabiner 3y agoYes, this is a tire test. My Tacoma would skid (scary) on Seattle's steep, wet streets, until I got Michelins. Huge difference and not because of the truck.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoCan I ask which tire brand you had before, the ones that were skidding?
- carabiner 3y agoIt was some weird Chinese brand that the previous owner installed. Had mediocre reviews.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoI still don't get some drivers that have nice cars but cheap out on the tires. 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?
- nixass 3y agoCT was on all terrain tires while Ford was with road tires in this test
- 1-6 3y agoIt looks like an OTA (aka Recall) update will fix the traction on the Cybertruck.
- csours 3y agoHah, probably not the traction, but they can change the wheel slip algo
- whalesalad 3y agoWithout a mechanical locking mechanism at each axle you’re gonna suffer here. Pseudo “locking” can sometimes work with brakes being applied to the slipping wheel but off road that kinda goes out the window.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago...Would they really ship a premium truck without a locking diff?
- whalesalad 3y agoLooks like there is a heated debate on the Rivian forum about this. https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/quad-motor-vs-locking-diff.12010/ https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/quad-motor-vs-loc... 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.
- SigmundA 3y agoLooks like the Tesla has an open diff with poor brake lock diff control, I think the lighting has an option for a locking rear diff wonder if they were using it, looks like it. 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.
- GenerWork 3y ago>this can be a downside for crawling like this because it has no way to send torque from one side to the other 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.
- SigmundA 3y agoIt's not about turning at the same pace, the side that has no traction cannot send its torque to the side that does without a mechanical connection. Each wheel is limited to the maximum torque of a single motor vs torque being sent to all wheels in a traditional single ICE engine with transfer case and lockers. 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: https://youtu.be/I9J52zE5boc?si=Fn1KA6Mtb_FFTGDc&t=2652 https://youtu.be/I9J52zE5boc?si=Fn1KA6Mtb_FFTGDc&t=2652
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- nodesocket 3y agoThe Cybertruck just needs some BF All-Terrains and I think off-road performance would be dramatically improved.
- sundaeofshock 3y agoHmmm… according to the article, the cybertruck DID have all-terrains.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoYeah, those look like gnobby tires to me. The F150 is running street tires.
- lolbase 3y agoFor context, this is a video of a traditional truck driving up the same hill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptTwpkWQY_s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptTwpkWQY_s And here's a Range Rover going up it: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_00ah8lG4yk 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).
- giobox 3y agoI wonder if the tri-motor CT models will be able to simulate a locked rear diff, much like the quad motor rivian models can simulate a locked diff front and rear thanks to being able to adjust torque to all four wheels individually. Only the rear axle of the CT would presumably be able to do this due to the tri-motor layout, unless they resort to the individual wheel braking like they've done on their road cars to simulate diff features. A rear only lock is still a useful offroading feature. 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.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoQuad motor is even better than a locking diff if all the motors are modulated right. 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.
- lolbase 3y agoI believe that Rivian offers a quad-motor option, and a standard dual-motor with an open-diff that uses the brakes to try to compensate (similar to a typical AWD system).
- bilsbie 3y agoIsn’t it most likely just a software fix for the CT?
- bilsbie 3y agoIs the CT four wheel drive? How do locking differentials work with electric?
- brucethemoose2 3y agoAFAIK just like a ICE car? Except they have no center diff, just motors for the front and rear.
- satiric 3y agoThrough software. The Vehicle Control Unit can control the torque going to each motor independently, and can view the current speed of each motor. By looking at longitudinal acceleration vs motor speed, you can see if the wheels are slipping or not. 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.
- crmd 3y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if Elon challenges Jim Farley to a BJJ cage fight to settle this.
- whalesalad 3y agoHonestly both are abysmal. Even the F-150 is slipping like crazy in areas where it shouldn't matter. Locking differentials are really required for this sort of thing - or a four wheel motor setup where a motor is dedicated to each wheel and can apply power equally. Afaik none of the EV trucks have a mechanical locker or even a limited slip? 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.
- tantalor 3y ago> 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...?
- alphabettsy 3y agoYea, that’s often the only utility they have. No water, sewer, internet.
- whalesalad 3y agoThere are vast parts of the country where your cell phone won’t even work. Good luck finding a charging station. 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.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoIf no power, how would you have a gas station? You can always drop solar and batteries for a charging station. StarLink for remote telemetry and billing. https://cleantechnica.com/2023/04/30/a-new-solution-for-off-grid-ev-charging-solution/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/04/30/a-new-solution-for-off-...
- syntaxing 3y agoDisclaimer: I work for Ford but my opinion is of my own. I also got my Ford Escape before I was employed by them. 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.
- lispisok 3y agoEmbarrassing for Tesla but the worst 99% of trucks will ever see is some wash boarding on a gravel road.
- gavin_gee 3y agoAll these comments about a lack of locking diff on the CT could be the reason but it seems that this capability can be achieved in software with motors on all 4 wheels. - you don't allow the motor/wheel to move at a different speed to another on the same axle. 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.
- giobox 3y agoIt's not yet clear virtual locking diffs on quad motor cars will be as effective as a fully locked diff. 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.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoThat's a solvable software problem. The electric motors know how much they are spinning, they just need to be modulated quickly enough and intelligently enough.
- mike_d 3y agoMotors know nothing. The encoders know how much current is being input to the motor, but do not know the rotational output of the motor or the friction coefficient between the tires and the ground. All three are things you'd need to emulate a locking differential in software. You could fake the last two by having a reliable way to measure the travel of the vehicle from a source other than the wheels (GPS, downward camera, etc).
- 10u152 3y agoErr, sorry but the encoders don't measure current. An absolute position encoder knows the exact speed/position of the motor. By that you can extrapolate the wheel speed position which you can just match 1:1 with the one on the other side. It won't be perfect as the reaction time of the system if wheel A breaks away and starts spinning but you don't need GPS or a downward camera to mimic a locking diff.
- bb88 3y agoSome poor engineer in Tesla probably tried to raise this issue and got shut out of meetings. And it was probably the kind of engineer that actually cared about traction control performance. And he also probably wanted to further the Tesla brand. 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.
- dreamcompiler 3y agoThe Tesla Model Y has an "Off-Road Assist" software mode [0], so Tesla certainly knows how to do this. I'd be shocked if the CT doesn't have this mode. 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-CC0F27E7-FD78-448D-B739-209EBBEDF2C3.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-CC0F27E...
- cameldrv 3y agoThe traction control on the Cybertruck looks pretty bad but to be fair the tires on the Cybertruck look really bad for off-roading. A lot of the comments here are about weight, motor torque, etc. Obviously if the wheels are slipping the torque is adequate. In terms of having adequate traction, tires and inflation pressure are very often a much bigger factor than anything else. Very often, even a 2WD truck can beat a 4WD truck if the 2WD truck has good off-road tires and they're aired down to a reasonably low pressure.
- ewgoforth 3y agoI'd be interested to see a motorcycle or bicycle go up this hill. It seems like a lot of problems are because these trucks are all so wide, they can't follow the easy line.