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to the profession the destinations and cultural experiences the money the food chain on which we all sit the schedule the home and gone personal life the living half my life in hotels to this day i m a little giddy to do my walk around before each flight marveling at what a pinnacle of human ingenuity a transport jet is the crazy amount of power needed for takeoff the hushed inner sanctum of the dark cockpit at night the systems that let us navigate thunder storms or fly through snow and rain all of it because the actual job duties take place in the tiny room of the cockpit where the 180 foot long 200 ton machine kind of disappears the walk around lets us connect the miraculous machine to the minute switch throwing that makes it go i ply my trade sitting in this seat but when i do the walk around or when i stand behind the jet and watch other jets taking off and landing next to me i m able to connect these arcane cockpit tasks to the astounding reality of airline flight but time passes and things come to an end all of the stuff that was remarkable or other worldly 30 years ago is solidly routine now even as i still tip my hat to its magic hong kong is magnificent but less so on my 40th visit than on the early times indeed i kind of need to look back to the photos of my earlier visits to tap into that early wonder if i am to fully appreciate it today and that looking back is what i expect my retirement to be the airline and these jets and these many workers and all these places will continue apace without me but i ve been fortunate to have dipped my toe in the water during my time i m forever grateful for this but i m also ready for the next adventure posted by wstachour at 3 49 pm 3 comments labels flying friday august 8 2025 my electrifying life here s another for my collection of automotive machinery geek posts i have a post from a decade or more ago listing all the cars i ve owned in my lifetime which list is getting rather lengthy i have another couple vehicles to append to that list and it s my current daily driver that is the focus of this post many of my 40 vehicles over the years have been pickup trucks off the top of my head at least 5 toyotas a couple fords and a ram while i like what everyone else likes about full size pickups i additionally use the truck to carry stuff to and from our lake house such that i don t know if we could actually get by with a more traditional suv station wagon the ram was the last gas vehicle i owned traded off now in 2023 for the subject of this post a 2023 ford f150 lightning the lightning is an all electric truck i believe the first such truck from a mainstream manufacturer on the market the rivian r1t came on the scene around the same time i ve always been interested in ev tech but my long drive to work from wi to ky seemed a heavy lift for existing models but after a couple years encouragement from my ev driving brother i took a test drive and was hooked and i have to say of all the vehicles i ve owned i have a keener interest in and love for this one bordering on mania than for any other my concerns about regular long cross country drives were not misplaced more on that later but i find my enthusiasm for this tech easily trumps my concerns for its penalties and there are some penalties when perusing old posts on this blog i ran across a post about the steam locomotive and the railroad industry s transition from the crude miracle of steam power to diesel electric power whatever else one may say about the technology and the industry s upheaval at its hands the superiority of the diesel tech was so overwhelming fuel cost ease of maintenance dispatch reliability the prospect of easy redundancy that its adoption was rapid and overwhelming inevitable i recall reading that the maintenance staff needed to run a fleet of steam locomotives could be reduced by some 90 by transitioning to diesel electric motive power bad for careers on an individual scale but a figure too overwhelming to ignore industry wide this reality must have held sway for nautical propulsion as well and there s surely an analog in the aviation industry s shift from piston power to turbine turbojets the world s present move to electric automotive power is another of those moments i d wager the forces resisting the change seem mostly coming from or funded by industries trying to hang onto their huge share of public spending but i feel pretty confident these forces will not stop the transformation tho they could sure slow it up and screw up the details of its adoption this tech is just so superior to internal combustion that the shift is inevitable i suspect our use of millions of little thermo dynamic plants powered by tanks of liquid explosive to move our cars around will shortly seem quaint and antique what won me over initially apart from the fascination of a truck that looks like every other f150 on the road and ford sells 700 000 of them a year virtually all of them gas powered but under the skin is completely different is the driving experience the truck is so quiet and so stupidly fast the acceleration so free of fuss and so enthusiastic and so instantaneous that any normal ice car can only dream of such performance even a fast car requires a wind up and a series of downshifts to get its engine up into the proper range to accelerate sportily not so the ev just put your foot down and with a silent whoosh you re doing 90 mph my wife who doesn t love driving anything this big is always complaining that she s regularly driving about 30 mph above where she thinks she is there s just no audible cue electric propulsion features instant torque and electric motors produce their maximum torque from a dead stop so getting started from a stoplight can be instantaneous and a little shocking but even at highway speeds the truck can accelerate to pass with seemingly no effort whatsoever some of this is the inherent way electric motors make their power and some of it is the lack of mechanical complexity between that motor and the driven wheels the ev has no transmission no transfer case no locking hubs no turbochargers no cylinder deactivation no variable valve timing no fuel injection none of the literally thousands of parts needed to make a modern gas engine work the electric motors themselves are basically a big rotor with a couple bearings tho of course they need to run thru a differential and half shafts and cv joints etc but the ice vehicles have all that stuff as well anyway the proof is in the pudding my lightning just drives like a dream super quiet and quick and utterly without fuss or drama everything else in the truck is the same as similar to the analogous equipment in the regular gas f150 the radio the heated seats the sunroof all that stuff so it feels in a general sense like any other truck at least until you push the start button and nothing happens the truck has to beep at you and swipe the wipers to let you know it s turned on but for the climate system blowing some air and the screens coming to life you have no cues that the truck is running tesla goes a step further and there s not even an on off switch the car is on when you approach and open the door and it s off when you walk away but as an old ish guy i must say that this familiarity is part of the lightning s charm while i might relish something utterly space age after 43 cars or so think cybertruck i can see that a familiar f150 with an otherwise invisible powertrain upgrade is a smart move from ford and a gutsy one the f150 is the best selling single vehicle in the us and has been for a couple decades how to you make big changes when that legacy is at stake answer you do both you keep the regular f150 line moving forward and you do the lightning as a small separate project small maybe in terms of sales but the engineering commitment from ford must have been eye watering and it must still be my understanding is that the lightning despite its high cost more on that in a bit does not make money for ford and the prospect of them recouping their billions in development costs must be doubtful at least in the short term but they can clearly see what is the thesis of my little review here the shift to evs is coming and is inevitable and the engineering work is going to have to be done kudos to them for getting a head start on it while gm and especially fiat chrysler are behind to various degrees vw kia volvo audi and a host of chinese manufacturers are all moving smartly towards evs and joining the bold newcomers tesla rivian lucid these latter are ev only and i believe we re seeing the lead up to a sink or swim moment for the industry that is going to see some big players fall once i took my test drive i was hooked well more or less it was obvious to me that this was the future of the automobile and i was eager to jump into the stream but there was the matter of cost vs value the 2019 ram 1500 i was driving at the time was a 60 000 truck and it had been to that point the nicest and best vehicle i had ever owned zippy enough and well sorted beautifully made and with the nicest interior materials i had ever seen in a mainstream product glorious v 8 hemi noises at the time of my lightning test drive i had put 100 000 miles on the ram virtually trouble free the lightning i test drove was a similar mid upper trim level but the initial sticker on the lightning was just shy of 90 000 in the four years since i d bought my ram prices had risen so my 60 000 truck was probably close to 70 000 at this point and maybe even a bit more but that still meant a good 20 000 premium to buy the electric there was a strong likelihood that the operating costs for the lightning would be substantially less than the gas truck but for me that 20k was just more than i was willing to spring for another few years i thought and the market would equalize a bit but of course three days after my test drive the sales guy called and said ford just dropped all their lightnings by 10 000 bastard my collapse was rapid and complete as far as operating costs go my suppositions were mostly correct we have very reasonable electricity costs in wisconsin about 10 per kwh and i d guess i drive my lightning locally for about 1 4 of what i was paying for gasoline in the previous truck i installed a high power charger at my house the charger came with the truck with its extended range battery though i had to pay a pretty penny to have an electrician install it my local utility happy pitched in to help with the install costs so that helped a little and i put in a charger at the cottage so i m able to drive around wi without using any public charging infrastructure at all or very nearly so i still occasionally use a public charger if i ve strayed from my usual routine but day to day i love leaving my house with a full tank every time and i haven t had to go anywhere to get a fill up in forever having to take susan s jeep out to get gas seems like a mild inconvenience and will doubtless seem more and more so however when driving cross country the electricity costs very closely parallel what i would have paid for gas for the same distance most high speed dc chargers seem to run 35 50 per kwh so about four times my costs at home so that s one downside vs gasoline the truck is less convenient to drive long distances and there s little cost savings to offset the inconvenience the fuel tank in the ev is about 1 3 to 1 2 the size of a gas vehicle and it takes about three or four times as long to fill up so it s a double whammy this isn t a factor of course when you re filling up at home while you sleep but driving cross country you need to be thinking always about your energy state and plan accordingly there are far fewer ev chargers than there are gas stations and each stop takes you 20 40 minutes versus 7 minutes for a gas fill up now as an old man i make more stops than i used to and by the time i pee and get a snack i m really only inconvenienced by a few minutes call it a penalty of 60 90 minutes on my 8 hour drive to ky but that s a hassle realistically i m driving about two hours between charges maybe closer to three hours in summer and that increase in total trip time which i anticipated and which gave me pause before moving to an ev is a real factor and one which has made me drive this commute less than i have done for the last 24 years i either bid trips now that begin with a commercial flight to where the trip begins or sometimes i just buy myself an airline ticket to ky it s more expensive than the electricity would be but not stupidly so and i just don t have to do it very often so there s a compromise additionally the experience of public charging is quite variable chargers come in a wide range of strengths and not all chargers are suitable for all vehicles there are different plugs involved with a battery as big as my lightning s you need a high power charger when on the road to avoid making a 4 hour stop for your recharge but even among high powered chargers there s quite a variance each ev has a maximum charging current it can accept and you pick your charging stops according to this limitation but it s not uncommon for a charger to be out of service or to fail to deliver its rated power this all means that planning your cross country drives involves more thought you need specific chargers which are fewer in number and you must plan for chargers that don t behave properly there are a bunch of ev specific apps to help with this which are a godsend the overall public charging situation is improving over time but it s definitely a factor that must be considered tho again only for public charging 90 of my driving is within wi and these things just don t come into play charging at home is quick and painless and easy and cheap and though i never tow anything the ev is really not suitable for towing except in very narrow circumstances it s not a power thing the lightning can pull just about anything it s a total energy thing the truck will easily pull your 10 000 lb boat but you ll need to recharge about every 100 miles so towing a big load cross country is pretty inconvenient tho i ve watched several videos on youtube where the lightning owner did exactly that and they got by fine you just have to plan accordingly this isn t a factor for me but it is a limitation of ev ownership that must be acknowledged as an aside i m always amazed at how well versed people are by our msm about all the reasons they re supposed to hate the technology despite knowing virtually nothing about evs and not ever having driven them or talked to someone who actually owns one you can t tow says the guy who never tows or they decry the rapaciousness of lithium mining as they celebrate rolling coal and drill baby drill in the arctic national wilderness i guess this is what corporate ownership of the media gets us sell the controversy another downside and one where i think improvement can be made is information about y...