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The 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning’s bi-directional charging capability is a key selling point for the electric pickup as it allows it to power homes, other electric vehicles or simply double as a backup generator at worksites.
Fitted with the available Pro Power Onboard system that enables up to 9.6 kilowatts of exportable electricity, the F-150 Lightning can charge other Ford electric vehicles like the Mustang Mach-E or E-Transit, as well as EVs from other brands as long as they use a SAE J1772 charge port.
As you’ve probably seen by now in various videos, the F-150 Lightning can charge Teslas, the Rivian R1T, Smart EQ Fortwo, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Audi e-tron, among other EVs. The problem with the charging experiments we’ve seen so far was the low charging speed similar to Level 1 AC charging.
Now, the team over at TFLEV has taken things up a notch by attempting to fully charge another electric vehicle from the F-150 Lightning at Level 2 charging speeds. For obvious reasons, they chose the Mini Cooper SE as the donor vehicle.
Since the small EV has a 32.6-kwh battery pack, the electric Ford’s fully charged 131-kWh battery should have no issue topping up the Mini and still have plenty of remaining range after that—at least that’s the theory of it. Well, the video proves that’s the case, as the team charged the Mini Cooper SE from the Ford F-150 Lightning’s 240-volt bed outlet using the truck’s standard Level 2 connector and an adapter.
With this setup, it took the Mini about five and a half hours to fully charge at 7.2 kilowatts from almost zero percent SoC, “stealing” 27 percent of the F-150 Lightning’s state of charge in the process. There were no issues whatsoever during the charge, with the Ford exhibiting no symptoms of overheating despite the fans coming on and off at times.
Head over to the above video for the full details on this charging experiment, but do note that the part with the Lightning starts around 10 minutes into the video; the first 10 minutes show an F-150 PowerBoost hybrid charging the stranded Mini just enough so it could move on its own to TFL’s garage five miles away where the all-electric F-150 would arrive the next day to fully charge it.
