EPA figures are out for the Lordstown Endurance electric pickup truck and they aren’t good. This crew cab behemoth is rated for a range of just 174 miles. For those keeping track at home, that’s just 25 miles more range than a base-model Nissan Leaf and 56 miles less range than a base Ford F-150 Lightning. To make matters worse, the truck achieves the worst MPGe of any 2023 model year EV rated by the EPA at just 48 MPGe combined. However, delve a little deeper into the numbers and nothing on the Endurance pickup’s EPA label makes sense at all. What’s going on? Let’s talk about it.
Let’s start with the most confusing metric — MPGe. This odd initialism stands for Miles Per Gallon equivalent, but what does that even mean? Basically, it’s how many miles an EV can travel on 37.7 kWh of electricity, or the same energy found in a gallon of gasoline. While this is a useful way to compare EVs to gasoline-powered vehicles, it doesn’t feel particularly useful in the parlance of EV use. Very rarely will EV owners use precisely 37.7 kWh of electricity, and charging stations certainly don’t use 37.7 kWh as a base unit. In pretty much every EV’s trip computer, energy consumption is displayed as either mi/kWh or kWh/100 mi, and that latter unit makes its way onto EPA labelling, too.
Below is the EPA fuel economy label for the Lordstown Endurance, alongside labels for the Ford F-150 Lightning with the standard range battery pack and the Rivian R1T on 22-inch wheels. Look closely and you’ll notice kWh/100 mi printed in tiny font below the MPGe figures. However, something feels off — if the Lordstown Endurance gets substantially worse MPGe than the F-150 Lightning and the Rivian R1T, why is its kWh/100 mi figure nearly identical to those of established competitors?
More Efficient Than The Competition, But Also Less Efficient???
If you look at the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T’s 49 kWh/100mi rating, that’s actually worse than the Lordstown Endurance’s figure. So if the Endurance needs less energy (in kWh) to travel 100 miles, then how can it also require more energy (in units of 33.7 kWh) to travel 100 miles? It makes no sense.
Plus, if the 48 kWh/100mi figure is right, then — knowing that the Lordstown Endurance’s 109 kWh battery pack is bigger than that of the F-150 Lightning’s 98 kWh unit — then shouldn’t it offer more range than the 49 kWh/100mi F-150 Lightning? You’d think so. Lordstown hasn’t disclosed whether that 109 kWh is gross capacity or net usable capacity, but that wouldn’t account for a range that much worse than the F-150 Lightning’s.
This whole thing is confusing. Why does the Lordstown Endurance have such a bad MPGe rating when its kWh/100 mi rating is better than that of its competitors? If we back-calculate, 48 MPGe combined works out to 70.22 kWh/100 mi, which is much higher (worse) than the 48 kWh/100 mi rating on that same EPA label. What’s wild is that, in accordance with EPA procedure, after a correction factor is applied to laboratory testing to calculate MPGe, that MPGe figure is then converted back to kWh/100 mi for the official kWh/100 mi rating. Clearly, something is very wrong here, because if the figures for MPGe and kWh/100 mi were both accurate, they’d be incredibly close to each other.
Want proof? Let’s take a look at the 68 MPGe and 49 kWh/100 mi figures achieved by a familiar face, the Ford F-150 Lightning with the standard range battery pack.
If we do the math, 68 MPGe combined works out to 495.7 Wh/mi, or 49.57 kWh/100 mi, pretty dang close to the Lightning’s official rating of 49 kWh/100 mi. The exact same figures and calculations apply to the Rivian R1T we compared the Lordstown Endurance to earlier, which gets 68 MPGe combined, or 49.57 kWh/100 mi, which is very close to its official rating of 49 kWh/100 mi.
What if we run the same calculations on a completely different sort of EV? Behold, the current MPGe king, the Hyundai Ioniq 6 Long Range RWD on 18-inch wheels. It’s officially rated for 140 MPGe combined and 24 kWh/100 mi, so let’s convert out the MPGe and see if it comes anywhere close. Running the calculations, 140 MPGe works out to 240.8 Wh/mi, or 24.08 kWh/100 mi. That’s a nigh-on perfect match for the official 24 kWh/100 mi figure — within a tenth of a kilowatt. So why don’t the numbers add up for the Lordstown Endurance? Put simply, we don’t know, and taking a look at total range and advertised battery capacity doesn’t clear anything up.
Well The Poor Range Figure Probably Lines Up With The Poor MPGe Figure, Right?
Lordstown claims that the Endurance features a 109 kWh battery pack, although a request for clarification on whether that’s a gross figure or a net usable capacity figure has gone unanswered. Out of curiosity, I wondered if taking that battery size and dividing it by the 174 mile range figure, I’d end up with such a terrible efficiency as the one indicated by the 48 MPGe (which is equivalent to 70.2 mi/100kWh).
If we go by the advertised figure, 109 kWh divided by 174 miles of range, that comes out to 62.64 kWh/100 mi. That’s not 70.2, however, that’s not apples-to-apples because the EPA calculations for advertised electric vehicle range are different than the calculations used for MPGe and kWh/100 mi. Here’s what the agency has to say:
In contrast to the MPGe and kW-hr/100 miles calculations, the EPA estimated range calculation is based on the Direct Current (DC) useable battery energy available from full charge. Going back to the hypothetical 100 kW-hr battery pack, the 100 kW-hrs would be the metric used. This makes sense due to that a given vehicle charged to 100% is able to travel only as far as the available battery energy allows for.
The EPA claims average AC charging losses of 10 percent, so if we multiply our previous kWh figure by 1.1, we end up with 68.9 kWh/100 mi. That’s still not quite equivalent to the 70.2 kWh/100 mi calculated using the MPGe and certainly not the 48 kWh/100 mi claimed by the EPA, and although it may be much closer to the former than the latter, it’s not close enough to draw any conclusions from since only Lordstown knows if the 109 kWh battery capacity is a gross figure or a net usable figure.
We Reached Out To The EPA
I really don’t know what is going on here. I figured maybe the discrepancies somehow have to do with charging losses. Electric vehicles suffer from charging losses a bit like how a car with a leaky fuel tank can spit out a gallon or two while filling up. Not all the electricity coming out of the mains goes into the battery pack, especially when charging on alternating current. When charging from a 120-volt or 240-volt AC charger, an EV has to transform AC current into DC current. Then there may be losses caused by keeping the battery pack at an ideal temperature for efficient charging, losses through heat, and losses through transmission.
However, the reality is that the losses certainly play no role in the discrepancy between MPGe and kWh/100 mi you see here because those figures are calculated using identical procedures. I reached out to the EPA for an official statement on these testing procedures, and received a response:
For MPGe and consumption in kW-hr/100 miles, the energy used to recharge the vehicle from full depletion (~0% State-of-charge [SOC]) to full charge (~100% SOC), in Alternating Current (AC) kW-hours, is used as the basis for calculations due to that this is the energy that is being consumed out of the outlet to charge the vehicle. Vehicles have different charging efficiencies often due to on-board chargers, inverters and software differences. For example, a hypothetical vehicle could have a battery with 100 kW-hrs of useable battery energy, but require 111 kW-hr of AC recharge energy to charge the battery completely (90% charging efficiency).
So what figures are Lordstown using? As it sits, the official tech sheet for the Lordstown Endurance repeats the EPA figures of 48 MPGe and 174 miles of range, but that 48 kWh/100 mi figure seen on the EPA’s website is nowhere to be found.
So where does that leave us? Well, we can say that something on the EPA sticker for the Lordstown Endurance may be incorrect, be it the MPGe rating (which seems about right) or the kWh/100 mi rating (which seems absurdly low) [Editor’s Note: You might conclude that the MPGe figures are wrong since they’re so far off of the competitive set, but how could Lordstown get both the city and highway MPGe measurements wrong? It seems so unlikely. -DT]. We can see that the delta between these two figures (when normalized to kWh/100mi) is far greater than that on established EVs, and that due to identical calculation methods, this shouldn’t be the case. As a result, we’re left with two important questions: Is the efficiency data for the Lordstown Endurance inaccurate, and if it might be, how could potentially inaccurate data have made it past the EPA?
(Photo credits: Lordstown Motors, Ford, EPA)
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My guess is that they saw some metric units and got confused.
I’m just sad for the people of Lordstown and Youngstown and Northeast Ohio in general who get screwed yet again as they have been since about 1977. This is why Ohio has turned sharply Trump–why it is a one party state politically. It has only one major office holder who is a Democrat, yet is riddled with corruption from top to bottom across all branches. Huge portions of the state are completely decimated–that plant was the Cavalier/Cobalt plant, shut down, became this electric pickup plant and just screwed everybody living there. Ugly pickup? Sure, Bad investment? Sure. But a lot of workers might’ve had jobs if someone had managed to build a viable product.
People ridicule the Rivian’s front end, this thing makes it look attractive. Don’t care about the range. Kill it with fire.
Well done Thomas,that’s a whole bunch more enthusiasm and words than i would have put into this.
It’s hard to be interested in another
failedyet to fail startupHere’s another important question: why do I care? The Lordstown is a joke.
my god that is an ugly truck
My thoughts on why the MPGe was lower, basically skewed on City mileage due to what is likely regenerative braking not being enabled or dyno brakes. I personally believe the operator of the dyno used the brakes on the dyno instead of letting LMCs battery regen and spool it down which is what they let happen with the Lightning. Hence, HW and City mileage were identical while the Lightning shows more mileage in the city. I believe this is the fault of the operator doing the testing, which was not LMC.
https://www.reddit.com/r/lordstownmotors/comments/12c4dvg/epa_results_lmc_endurance_vs_ford_lightning/
The answer is simple. The battery has lost a portion of it’s charge in the time it has taken for the EPA to get their hands on one to test.
You realize EPA documents show how much energy the batteries take, right? So, you’re incorrect.
*woosh*
What on earth is going on with all those arbitrary, crazy units?! What you want to know is distance travelled per unit, so miles/kWh. All the others are just nonsense.
kWh is nonsense already. Serious people talk in Joules.
True, but we buy our electricity in kWhs so it’s easiest for cost calculations.
The only bit of Endurance here would be enduring range anxiety.
I’m going to assume the simplest answer. Someone fucked up and put the MPGe number in the KWh/100mi field when entering data.
Or vice versa.
Based on the City and Highway numbers, I’m guessing the MPGe is correct (or at least intentional).
I think they are saying 109kWh “nameplate” or “nominal”, not usable kWh like some OEMs say.
109kWh x 80% = 87.2kWh usable (assuming the (old) 80% DOD rule of thumb)
87.2kwh usable enerby divided by 48 kWh/100 miles = 1.82 x 100 = 181.6 miles
181.6 miles of range is pretty close to what the EPA is stating above.
Battery manufactureres used to use 80% depth of discharge across the board, meaning 80% of the larger number was actually usable.
Now that batteries have advanced more, it’s not becoming more common to see 90% usable, slightly higher thta 90% with LFP cells vs. NMC.
Hey so all the data is public, someone listed the test car list already but there’s also the actual label data here: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/download.shtml
In the 23MY dataset, EV tab, Lordstown is lines 178/179. Columns J-R show the Unadjusted, adjusted, and rounded values for MPGe and kwhr/100mi.
It looks like they just typed in the wrong number. The 48kwh/100mi is the unadjusted Kwh/100miles. It needs the 70% haircut, which takes it to 69kwhr/100miles.
I’m thinking someone just got mixed up since the unadjusted MPGe is 69, which adjusts to 48, and coincidentally the unadjusted 48 kwh/100 miles adjusts to 69.
oops editing my comment because I have poor reading comprehension.
Rivians actually come with 22″ wheels? On a pickup that has serious off road pretensions?
The US Army’s biggest trucks use 20″ wheels. I will always maintain that there is absolutely no reason, ever, for your car to have bigger rims than an army truck. And really your cars wheels shouldn’t be even close to 20″ if your car isn’t even close to the size of an army truck.
No; the R1T’s only come with 21’s (R1T 21.) Each wheel and tire combination must be tested separately under EPA rules. The R1S 22″ tested at 30.1 and 35.3MPG, versus the R1S 20″ at 31.2 and 36.3MPG.
And yes. Huge wheels are incredibly stupid on anything. Porsche ships 21″ on the current 911 GT3 as I recall. It does not need to be 21″ to clear the brakes. And the actual GT3 (911 RSR) uses 18″ wheels.
Somewhere along the line, everyone decided all cars and trucks needed to look like Conestoga wagons, not really sure why
Resto
Is this your first time dealing with the grift that is Lordstown, David? Them getting multiple things completely wrong is the most likely answer. Especially if it involves things like basic math.
The short and long answer is: probably not. The EPA tests MPGe at NVFEL in Ann Arbor for manufacturer submitted models. Or they use manufacturer submitted test data. The actual MPG and MPGe method is actually very complicated, and involves adjusting the variable dyno along with a human operator. It’s easy to screw up.
Conveniently, this data is public.
Lordstown’s two submissions are row 2484 and 2485. And the source? Lordstown themselves. No averaging was applied and the result was 77.8MPG for test 1 (UDDS) and 75.1MPG for 2 (Highway.)
Conveniently, Lucid is at row 2486. 146.9MPG. FOMOCO has the Lightning at row 981 for a more direct comparison. 108.9MPG. The Lightning Platinum gets 104.3 and 85.5. Rivian is at 3238 with the R1T, 25MPG – we’ll get to that in a minute.
Translation? Lordstown probably fucked up the tests a little bit (the lbf looked a little high maybe,) but their vaporware is also objectively complete crap. Changing the lbf would not improve it to a 109MPG result, forget 147MPG.
Now, going back to Rivian, “25-27MPG?! WTF?!” Well, it’s not a completely direct comparison here. Because the Rivian’s target weight is 7000lbs, not 6500lbs. “So how does Rivian’s R1T claim that range?” Well firstly, it’s the MY21 design with 21″ wheels (R1T 21.) And it’s the “standard pack.” Cue lack of surprise, EV manufacturers lying about range in their advertising.
The standard pack only offers “up to 270mi” of range. 100kWh usable divide by 27MPG = 270 miles! You can validate this presentation with the R1S 20in All-Terrain; 32-38MPG, 135kWh pack (~125kWh usable,) ~330 miles of range!
SO! How do we interpret this data, because now we’re even MORE confused, right? A big part of it is just outright lying and manipulation on the part of the manufacturers – hooray regulatory capture. They lie about range. They all do.
The F150 Lightning Platinum claims up to 230mi of range from 98kWh usable with a claimed MPG of 104.3 on UDDS. “HOW CAN THIS MATH WORK!?” 104.3/230 = 0.4534R. 230/104.3 = 2.205R. “See! This doesn’t work!” Because Ford uses an N/V of 101.6 and a real axle ratio of 9.60; Rivian uses 999.9 and 99.9 (N/A in other words.)
What this means is that you apply the MPGE algorithm which is not MPGe!!
MPGE is kWh/100mi.
Now the F150 math starts to make sense here. 104.3 / 230 = (0.4534R * 100) = 45.3kWh/100mi. 45.3kWh * 2.3 = 104.19MPG!
Makes more sense now, doesn’t it?
So. 174 miles of range, 75-78MPG. Let’s math it.
78MPG / 174 = (0.448 * 100) = 44.8kWh/100mi * 1.74 = 78MPG
100kWh / 44.8 = 2.232 * 78 = 174mi range
So what does this mean? Well one, we have too goddamn many different methods for the same (utterly worthless) “data.” GIGO. Two, it means these numbers do line up 100% and make perfect sense. Lordstown’s product just plain sucks. They take less charge to go 100mi, but the actual efficiency is AWFUL.
Which tells me that either their motors are garbage on efficiency, their aerodynamics suck (which they probably do given their “styling,”) they made very poor tire selection, take your pick. I can only guess which it is.
Yeah, I figured the MPGe figures were right, and the kWh/100mi was off.
Yeah, but look at how many freaking conversions we had to do to figure out each. And what does it tell us? Well, one, we had to do way too much math just to try and get comparable numbers. Two, manufacturers can report whatever the hell they damn well please in whatever format they feel like (if I found a car company, I’m submitting everything in EBCDIC and Ampere hours per oxgang.) Three, whoever promised us there would be no math should be fired. And four, all these numbers only exist to paper over absolutely terrible designs and pretend they’re efficient..
Isnt it 3 turnips to the oxgang?
I think you are absolutely right. A. Their motors are garbage on efficiency. B. Their aerodynamics suck. C. They made very poor tire selection. D. They can’t get basic math right for their own testing and specs. OR E. All of the above. No one should buy any thing they make, because they have displayed their incompetence for the entire world to see. 🙂
Dude, quit it. My head hurts.
(in all seriousness, I have no idea what you just did up there, but it was impressive to watch)
How do you think I feel? I just did the EPA’s supposed job for them!
Or the government picking winners and losers giving points on particular EVs like they do with preferred ICE models.
Yeah, yet another reason not to get an EV=too much math!
I’m not sure I agree with the conclusions…Didn’t the calculation show that the range figure and the 48 MPGe are approximately in agreement, at about 70 kWh/100 mi? What would be the MPGe for 48 kWh/100 mi? To me, it looks like someone forgot to do the conversion, which is why 48 shows up twice on the label…
I completely agree with your theory. In order to match range and MPGe we just have to consider AC losses of 12% instead of 10%, which is very likely with a vehicle that hasn’t demonstrated stellar specs until now.
MPGe and range may be right, but then that kWh/100mi thing is definitely wrong.
I am going to go out on a limb here and also suggest Ford has cooked the books a bit. https://www.reuters.com/legal/ford-defeats-class-action-appeal-over-f-150-ranger-trucks-fuel-economy-2023-04-21/#:~:text=Ford%20was%20accused%20of%20misleading,resulting%20in%20extra%20fuel%20costs.
EVERY manufacturer cheats and lies. Period. Welcome to the results of regulatory capture. Oh, you thought Dieselgate was actual enforcement of things? Ha. No.
See, Dieselgate happened because VW used a novel cheat that was very, very blatantly illegal. They introduced a software hack to enable an emissions control device only when it detected it was on an EPA test cycle.
If they’d done like everyone else and just reprogrammed the car to run dangerously lean and locked into the highest gear when it detects an EPA test cycle, they would’ve been fine. Because that’s exactly what every manufacturer does. Even in manuals; EPA rules say “you see a shift light, you shift.” So a Miata will detect the test cycle, and insist the operator shift into 6th gear for the 25MPH test. A Ford F150 will detect almost instantly and lock the car into an unrealistically lean mix and the highest gear.
And it’s all “legal.” In the sense that the EPA 100% knows all about it, it’s been done this way since the 90’s, and just lets them do it.
I suppose just charging it up and drive it til 90% empty, then use math to add 10% is too difficult for everybody? I can do that math but i am lost at the Aristotle level of algebra by those who poster before me.
Truck who must not be named?
The rear and sides of that truck are okayish, but man, they really had no clue with what to do with the front end design.
It looks like a Stars Wars Storm Trooper helmet!!
Does it not: https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Black-Rogue-One/dp/B01D1GR1B0/ref=asc_df_B01D1GR1B0?tag=bngsmtphsnus-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80127027724373&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583726554065154&psc=1
This seems like a ton of investigative work for a vehicle that, let’s face it, is unlikely to ever make an appearance on public roads.
I don’t know, it’s got a name like Endurance, so it might go the distance…well at least 100 miles of it at least.
He’s going the distance
He’s going for speed
He’s all alone….for a charge he needs
Maybe instead I would walk 500 miles….
It will likely hit a few fleets and then the rest of the issues with a poorly manufactured older Silverado will surface. At this point, I think if they pulled off a Powell Sport Wagon plan and simply added the endurance panels onto the numerous 2010-2015 Silverado’s with failed motors as a result of the AFM/DFM. the overall quality might increase. they could essentially just swap the engine and trans with the Electric GT conversion kit and off they go.
But that would be used rebuilt title territory