Man forced to ditch $115K Ford EV truck during family road trip to Chicago

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Stringfellow Hawk

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‘biggest scam of modern times’

A Canadian man is calling electric vehicles the "biggest scam of modern times" after his frustrating experience with an electric truck.

Dalbir Bala, who lives in the Winnipeg area, bought a Ford F150 Lightning EV in January for $115,000, plus tax. He told FOX Business he needed the vehicle for his work, but also wanted something suitable for recreational activities such as driving to his cabin or going fishing. He also wanted an environmentally friendly vehicle as owning one is "responsible citizenship these days."

But Bala was quickly hit with the reality of owning and operating an EV soon after the purchase. The vehicle compelled him to install two charges – one at work and one at home – for $10,000. To accommodate the charger, he had to upgrade his home’s electric panel for $6,000.

In all, Bala spent more than $130,000 – plus tax.

Not long after the purchase, Bala got into a minor accident which, he said, required "light assembly" on the front bumper. Bala took the vehicle to the body shop and did not get it back for six months. He said no one from Ford answered his email or phone calls for help.

The limitations of the EV truck became even more apparent when Bala embarked on a chaotic 1,400-mile road trip to Chicago.

Fast charging stations – which only charge EV’s up to 90% – cost more than gas for the same mileage. On the family’s first stop in Fargo, North Dakota, it took two hours and $56 to charge his vehicle from 10% to 90%. The charge was good for another 215 miles.

On the second stop, in Albertville, Minnesota, the free charger was faulty and the phone number on the charging station was of no help, he said. The family drove to another charging station in Elk River, Minnesota, but the charger was faulty there as well.

"This sheer helplessness was mind-boggling," Bala wrote in an online post. "My kids and wife were really worried and stressed at this point."

There were no other fast charging stations within range of Elk River and his vehicle only had 12 miles left.

"By now it was late afternoon. We were really stuck, hungry, and heartbroken," Bala said.

Bala ultimately had the vehicle towed to a Ford dealership in Elk River and rented a regular gas vehicle to complete the family’s trip to Chicago. The family picked up the F150 on their way back to Winnipeg.

"It was in [the] shop for 6 months. I can’t take it to my lake cabin. I cannot take it for off-grid camping. I cannot take for even a road trip," Bala wrote. "I can only drive in city – biggest scam of modern times."

https://www.foxbusiness.com/technol...y-road-trip-chicago-biggest-scam-modern-times
 
Stringfellow Hawk said:
‘biggest scam of modern times’

A Canadian man is calling electric vehicles the "biggest scam of modern times" after his frustrating experience with an electric truck.

Dalbir Bala, who lives in the Winnipeg area, bought a Ford F150 Lightning EV in January for $115,000, plus tax. He told FOX Business he needed the vehicle for his work, but also wanted something suitable for recreational activities such as driving to his cabin or going fishing. He also wanted an environmentally friendly vehicle as owning one is "responsible citizenship these days."

But Bala was quickly hit with the reality of owning and operating an EV soon after the purchase. The vehicle compelled him to install two charges – one at work and one at home – for $10,000. To accommodate the charger, he had to upgrade his home’s electric panel for $6,000.

In all, Bala spent more than $130,000 – plus tax.

Not long after the purchase, Bala got into a minor accident which, he said, required "light assembly" on the front bumper. Bala took the vehicle to the body shop and did not get it back for six months. He said no one from Ford answered his email or phone calls for help.

The limitations of the EV truck became even more apparent when Bala embarked on a chaotic 1,400-mile road trip to Chicago.

Fast charging stations – which only charge EV’s up to 90% – cost more than gas for the same mileage. On the family’s first stop in Fargo, North Dakota, it took two hours and $56 to charge his vehicle from 10% to 90%. The charge was good for another 215 miles.

On the second stop, in Albertville, Minnesota, the free charger was faulty and the phone number on the charging station was of no help, he said. The family drove to another charging station in Elk River, Minnesota, but the charger was faulty there as well.

"This sheer helplessness was mind-boggling," Bala wrote in an online post. "My kids and wife were really worried and stressed at this point."

There were no other fast charging stations within range of Elk River and his vehicle only had 12 miles left.

"By now it was late afternoon. We were really stuck, hungry, and heartbroken," Bala said.

Bala ultimately had the vehicle towed to a Ford dealership in Elk River and rented a regular gas vehicle to complete the family’s trip to Chicago. The family picked up the F150 on their way back to Winnipeg.

"It was in [the] shop for 6 months. I can’t take it to my lake cabin. I cannot take it for off-grid camping. I cannot take for even a road trip," Bala wrote. "I can only drive in city – biggest scam of modern times."

https://www.foxbusiness.com/technol...y-road-trip-chicago-biggest-scam-modern-times
Click to expand...

This thread will be ignored by most lefties but tests show that particular vehicle towing a trailer will produce a whopping 90 miles before needing a recharge.
Best of all,

Joey wets panties
 
I suppose rightys cannot understand that an incident, however apocryphal, does not prove the whole. There is thread after thread, with an example of something bad about EVs, which may or may not be true. But rightys are so childish, in what they use for logic. That EV got broke down, therefore all EVs are going to That is your level of logic.
 
Lionfish said:
This thread will be ignored by most lefties but tests show that particular vehicle towing a trailer will produce a whopping 90 miles before needing a recharge.
Best of all,

Joey wets panties
Click to expand...

I know, most lefties have no mechanical understanding and can't make change without a calculator. Look at all those dumbass college kids needing to be bailed out because they can't manage their finances
 
Nordberg said:
I suppose rightys cannot understand that an incident, however apocryphal, does not prove the whole. There is thread after thread, with an example of something bad about EVs, which may or may not be true. But rightys are so childish, in what they use for logic. That EV got broke down, therefore all EVs are going to That is your level of logic.
Click to expand...

no that EV had no range and the charging stations cost more that gasoline for the same amount of miles. Get your fucking calculator out nerdberg
 
And yet my friend and neighbour is on his third Tesla, has done only basic, routine maintenance, has never needed to charge outside work or condo, both of which provide chargers, other than a handful of times and he says he has not paid for gas in all those years other than when he is traveling and has to rent an ICE vehicle. He says hands down the EV has saved him a ton of money and conveniance.
 
Even though I sympathize with this Consumer, I can also see where he may have had to high an expectation for using this vehicle for a 1400 mile trip.

First of all, in my opinion, EV's are luxury items. They are very expensive, most especially fully loaded crew cab Pickup Trucks.

Most of the people that select them, do not select them as recreational vehicles for taking trips out of town. One would have to do some very good trip planning to avoid all the potential hassles that one may encounter out there 700 miles from home.

To most people that can afford these luxury EV pickups, fast charging costs are no big deal. Fast Charging stations can cost anywhere from 48 cents a kilowatt hour, all the way to over $1 a Kilowatt hour. Fast Charging is a business all in itself. They are strictly there for convenience for those that can justify the cost.

And as for the upgrading of existing Breaker panels to meet the needs of an auto-charging station, many things need to be considered before jumping into that. Because not every home or business has the luxury of having a Q-Box panel where you just plug and play. If you have the capacity already in your current panel, any homeowner can normally and safely install a sub panel with just a minimal electrical knowledge that would accommodate a new auto-charging station. If not, then you are looking at having to have some Licensed Electrician install it, and that would be very expensive. I really don't see how it cost this man 10 Grand to have two of them installed though! Sounds like he got ripped off there!

And I have never heard of an auto repair shop that took 6 months to repair a bumper. THAT SOUNDS A BIT UNBELIEVABLE!

Personally, if I were this man, I would probably have purchased a Hybrid first time out. A total EV would be a culture shock for me as a first time buyer into electric vehicles.

It is a way to test the water before diving right in!

Next!
 
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Pretty shocking from the very WOKE Atlantic:

Car-Rental Companies Are Ruining EVs
Good luck charging your surprise electric rental car.
I didn’t ask for any of this. Three days earlier, I had booked Hertz’s cheapest option—in this case, the “Manager’s Special”—assuming I’d end up with a forgettable sedan. What I did not consider was an electric car. “Sorry, it’s all we have,” the man at the Hertz counter in downtown Brooklyn said as he handed over the keys. With no forewarning, no experience driving an EV, and virtually no guidance, what was supposed to be a restful trip upstate was anything but. Just a few hours of highway driving would sap the battery, leaving me and my friends scrounging for public chargers in desolate parking lots, the top floors of garages, and hotels with plugs marked for guests only. It was a crash course in EVs for four people who had never heard of CCS versus CHAdemo, the 80/20 rule, and Level 3 chargers.

Maybe the same thing will happen to you, if it hasn’t already. After my disastrous weekend, I talked to three rental-car experts: All of them were familiar with the phenomenon of the surprise EV, a result of how much the industry is leaning into electric cars. Only 4 percent of Americans own an EV, but Hertz plans for a quarter of its fleet to be electric by the end of next year.

These are great, potentially planet-saving machines, but the ordeal made me want to wage a slash-and-burn campaign against all of them. A surprise EV rental, it turns out, is tailor-made to amplify the downsides of electric cars, especially among impressionable newbies. “You know, it's really not smart,” Loren McDonald, an EV consultant, told me. “If they’re out of gas cars, they’re out of gas cars, but they’ve got to eliminate the surprise thing.” The promised transition away from dirty gas cars only works if people actually want to buy EVs, as all of the government tax breaks and Will Ferrell ads make abundantly clear. Yet the very first time that many people experience an electric car will be not at a dealership, but rather on a rental-car trip.
Click to expand...

https://www.theatlantic.com/technol...ic-vehicle-rental-cars-hertz-chargers/674429/
 
Already EV's are sitting on dealer lots and the planned ramp-up of EV manufacturing has only just begun. This is going to be a problem for the Revolution, which has no intention of backtracking on its demand that gas cars go away.
 
Stringfellow Hawk said:
no that EV had no range and the charging stations cost more that gasoline for the same amount of miles. Get your fucking calculator out nerdberg
Click to expand...

I have bene\ring n EV for years and have never run out of charge. Therefore, no EV owner has ever done that.
Evs are far, far cheaper to operate than ICEs.
You know nothing about it.
 
Stringfellow Hawk said:
‘biggest scam of modern times’

A Canadian man is calling electric vehicles the "biggest scam of modern times" after his frustrating experience with an electric truck.

Dalbir Bala, who lives in the Winnipeg area, bought a Ford F150 Lightning EV in January for $115,000, plus tax. He told FOX Business he needed the vehicle for his work, but also wanted something suitable for recreational activities such as driving to his cabin or going fishing. He also wanted an environmentally friendly vehicle as owning one is "responsible citizenship these days."

But Bala was quickly hit with the reality of owning and operating an EV soon after the purchase. The vehicle compelled him to install two charges – one at work and one at home – for $10,000. To accommodate the charger, he had to upgrade his home’s electric panel for $6,000.

In all, Bala spent more than $130,000 – plus tax.

Not long after the purchase, Bala got into a minor accident which, he said, required "light assembly" on the front bumper. Bala took the vehicle to the body shop and did not get it back for six months. He said no one from Ford answered his email or phone calls for help.

The limitations of the EV truck became even more apparent when Bala embarked on a chaotic 1,400-mile road trip to Chicago.

Fast charging stations – which only charge EV’s up to 90% – cost more than gas for the same mileage. On the family’s first stop in Fargo, North Dakota, it took two hours and $56 to charge his vehicle from 10% to 90%. The charge was good for another 215 miles.

On the second stop, in Albertville, Minnesota, the free charger was faulty and the phone number on the charging station was of no help, he said. The family drove to another charging station in Elk River, Minnesota, but the charger was faulty there as well.

"This sheer helplessness was mind-boggling," Bala wrote in an online post. "My kids and wife were really worried and stressed at this point."

There were no other fast charging stations within range of Elk River and his vehicle only had 12 miles left.

"By now it was late afternoon. We were really stuck, hungry, and heartbroken," Bala said.

Bala ultimately had the vehicle towed to a Ford dealership in Elk River and rented a regular gas vehicle to complete the family’s trip to Chicago. The family picked up the F150 on their way back to Winnipeg.

"It was in [the] shop for 6 months. I can’t take it to my lake cabin. I cannot take it for off-grid camping. I cannot take for even a road trip," Bala wrote. "I can only drive in city – biggest scam of modern times."

https://www.foxbusiness.com/technol...y-road-trip-chicago-biggest-scam-modern-times
Click to expand...

Fake news.

Hard to believe the lengths Faux News will go to and the depths they will stoop to, just to put out bullshit propaganda like this.

I wonder who got paid and how much, to put this bullshit in the fake news.
 
Nomad said:
Fake news.

Hard to believe the lengths Faux News will go to and the depths they will stoop to, just to put out bullshit propaganda like this.

I wonder who got paid and how much, to put this bullshit in the fake news.
Click to expand...

Claims that chargers routinely dont work are rampant.
 
May 18, 2023
Why Do So Many EV Chargers Across the Nation Not Work?
Two years ago, 14.5 percent of EV drivers said they were unable to charge at a public station. Now it’s 21.4 percent. For the nation to meet its climate goals, a reliable EV charging station network is vital.

There isn’t a single reason for EV charger failures. Some of the problems, particularly with older machines, can be chalked up to a new technology going through the usual learning curve of improvements, all while sitting outside, exposed to the weather. There have been cycles of needed upgrades, such as replacing modems to deal with 5G wireless internet service. The myriad networks, retail outlets and garage owners who own the machines don’t always stay on top of maintenance. And chargers must communicate with a rapidly expanding variety of cars.

To that end, the precise scope of the problem isn’t known. EV drivers face a complex landscape of competing charging companies, each with its own stations and app, and there is no central repository of data on station performance. One widely cited 2022 study of fast-charging stations in the San Francisco Bay Area (excluding Tesla Inc.’s Superchargers), found that about 25 percent of the 657 plugs weren’t working. While J.D. Power doesn’t disclose reliability rankings, Gruber said the worst-performing charging company leaves drivers unable to plug in about 39 percent of the time.
Click to expand...
https://www.governing.com/climate/w...sn't a single,outside, exposed to the weather.

Governing is considered to be highly reliable and fair.
 
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QP! said:
And yet my friend and neighbour is on his third Tesla, has done only basic, routine maintenance, has never needed to charge outside work or condo, both of which provide chargers, other than a handful of times and he says he has not paid for gas in all those years other than when he is traveling and has to rent an ICE vehicle. He says hands down the EV has saved him a ton of money and conveniance.
Click to expand...

Wife and I had this discussion yesterday . We agreed ev’s are ok as a commuter car but otherwise impractical.
 
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