Rural Montana Mag Details the Struggles of Driving EV’s Up Here

I recently travelled back to the Washington, D.C. area for an incredibly humbling military monument dedication at the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

For the flight back there, I figured I better download some podcasts and bring some great reading material. So, naturally, I brought my latest copy of Range Magazine and the Rural Montana magazine.

The Rural Montana magazine is one of the most, if not the most, widely read print publication in Montana. It goes out to over 120,000 household members of Montana's Electric Cooperatives.

In the May 2024 edition they featured a very interesting couple of writeups by Heidi Haugen-Grohs. Her electric cooperative, Burke Divide Electric Cooperative, owns a Ford F-150 Lightning electric vehicle. She decided to put it to the test in all 4 seasons, just like we have here in Montana. Wow. You have to got to read both of her articles.

In the first article, "Fast Chargers Key to Summer EV Trip," even I was amazed at just how long she had to sit and wait to re-charge the EV battery. Who wants to sit around and wait for an extra hour for the thing to charge just another 50%? Especially when we typically have VERY large distances to cover here in Montana.

Her second article was titled, "Winter Driving in the Ford Lightning." Again- wow. Even I was amazed at how much the cold weather decimates the reliability of these EVs. When the pickup was parked outside and not plugged in during the winter, she noted how nearly 50% of the battery consumption simply went to climate control and to "warm the batteries"- barely half of the battery was then available for driving.

Check out the full article, and the latest entire edition of Rural Montana, by clicking here.