First Mustang Mach E Road Trip ?

raadsel

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ABRP is good too for initial high level planning, but when it comes time to actually drive the route, I don't find it as useful. But yes, there's 4-5 apps that are really must-haves. EA, Plugshare, ABRP, ChargePoint, maybe EVgo if in a region where there's many of those, and any other charger network apps. Frankly, I'm not even using FordPass for anything to do with charging, other than checking the car battery status.

If wanting the EA Pass+ discount, that's needed anyway. I just find the EA-only map a good starting point, because it's usually easiest, fastest, most consistent and dependable with the least research. Then I drill down into the other options with Plugshare, which are a lot trickier and varied.
My personal thought is to use ABRP first, like you mention, to initially plan the trip. My though is that you then, when you are at a charging station, to use ABRP to see what the next likely charger should be, with it using current conditions to help give you a better guide for the expected range; as well as a guide as to how much charge is needed. You can also decide if you want to select a different charger (while still having a good idea of how conditions and altitude changes will affect the range). At that point, use your preferred navigation app to get you to the next charger.
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dbsb3233

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I wonder if your car has other issues, I've never read anywhere someone having that kind of loss
176 miles is 2.0 MPK. As I noted above, I got that on one leg in cold/wet weather at interstate speeds. I remember Kyle getting 2.1 on a cold/wet leg too in one of his videos.

It's on the low end, but it's not uncommon for poor conditions in the AWD.
 

dbsb3233

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My personal thought is to use ABRP first, like you mention, to initially plan the trip. My though is that you then, when you are at a charging station, to use ABRP to see what the next likely charger should be, with it using current conditions to help give you a better guide for the expected range; as well as a guide as to how much charge is needed. You can also decide if you want to select a different charger (while still having a good idea of how conditions and altitude changes will affect the range). At that point, use your preferred navigation app to get you to the next charger.
Lots of different ways to skin the cat, yes. I just like the EA map first to see if it has good coverage. If it does, easy peasy. They're usually well-spaced, consistent, known pricing, known access/hours, works on the MME, etc. But if not, then yes, time to research the less consistent options that sometimes don't meet those criteria.

Wholly agree on the last sentence. I'm a Google Maps person, so I simply tell Android Auto "Hey Google, Navigate to Mesquite Nevada Electrify America". (or whatever the charger name/location)
 

guyofthesky

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Couple of quick notes:
  • For those who keep saying “you just aren’t very good at doing road trips - you should have been using DCFCs the entire trip.” Hop into ABRP and take a look at the number of DCFCs between West Chester, PA and St. Michaels, MD ? For extra credit, check out the number of L2 chargers in St. Michaels! A 3/4 mile walk along a road with no sidewalks in the rain back from the “free” charger (where my car had to spend the night) really convinced my friends that electric cars were the future!
  • For those who say “Ford’s Navigation is awful, Google products are the only products people should EVER use.!”, I never use Google products when I have a choice not to, and disable them whenever I can, when they’re built into products I buy. I don’t like Google or their business model. I am not their commodity to sell as they see fit. You may see this differently.
Both of those are fair points.

Routes without enough L3 chargers are difficult, and that include a lot of routes off of the interstates. Sadly, but true.

Right now, EA says their chargers average 80 miles apart, and this is probably true. We need a network where L3 chargers are about 20 miles apart, so no one charger is critical. That is not undoable, or even a heavy lift, if you do the math.

But it will take a concerted effort, and I do think that car manufacturers should jump in and help out. If every Ford, Chevy, and Stellantis dealership would simply install two L3 chargers, which isn't a lot of money amortized over a decade or two of usage, it would help a lot.
 

dbsb3233

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Right now, EA says their chargers average 80 miles apart, and this is probably true. We need a network where L3 chargers are about 20 miles apart, so no one charger is critical. That is not undoable, or even a heavy lift, if you do the math.
While every 20 miles would be nice for drivers, that's probably many years away. There's not nearly enough business for chargers to support themselves at 80 mile gaps, let alone 40 or 20. Plus far more important at this point is just covering more routes (at ~80). Making routes even possible is more important than coming back and and adding redundancy.
 


guyofthesky

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No, it's a standard Electrify America location, with two 150 kW CCS and two 350 kW CCS. In the Walmart parking lot.

https://www.plugshare.com/location/169426

You might have accidentally selected the nearby Dunkin Donuts ChargePoint instead? It's only 50 kW. And ignore the CHAdeMO 50 kW charger. The Mach-E uses CCS, not CHAdeMO.

I'd recommend the Electrify America app as the #1 thing to have, followed by PlugShare. EA is the clear top choice for speed (power levels), capacity (usually at least 4 chargers), and consistency. Their app is the easiest way to spot their chargers apart from all others. Plugshare has so many others that they sometimes lay on top of each other. And you can miss chargers if you have the filters set wrong.
Completely agree that EA is the first choice for charging and planning.
 

dbsb3233

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But it will take a concerted effort, and I do think that car manufacturers should jump in and help out. If every Ford, Chevy, and Stellantis dealership would simply install two L3 chargers, which isn't a lot of money amortized over a decade or two of usage, it would help a lot.
I disagree on using most dealerships locations as a charging network. With rare exception, they're usually not in advantageous spots. They're often not right off the highway, and often don't have other facilities close by to kill time at (restaurants, stores, etc). They also tend to cluster next to each other along "dealershow rows".

For the road trip network between cities, EA has the right plan IMO. Their placements are so far pretty good. Locating in (mostly) Walmart, Sams, Target parking lots close to the interstate allows fairly short get on/off times, and means there's usually lots of food and shopping options within a block.
 

guyofthesky

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I can't agree with this. Electrify America, while owned by VW, is set up as a separate company. Yes, it was started based on "penalty" money that VW had to use because of the Diesel-gate scandal. However, as an independent company they are looking to make a profit, and part of that is expanding their network as demand requires.

The issue for the moment, up until this year roughly 98% of cars taking road trips were Tesla -- there's been little demand for CCS chargers. As more longer range non-Tesla EVs become available, you'll see EA and Chargepoint and likely other companies come in to fill the "need" of cars wanting to fast charge. EA has just as much reason as any other company to increase their profits -- and to increase profits, as demand grows, will require expanding out their fast charging network.

And if that isn't enough, with VW switching over to EVs, they'll also be pushing EA to increase capacity -- if just to ensure they can sell EVs in the US, as no one will buy their EVs if they can't road trip the car.
Agree. Plus, local power companies are starting to see that installing L3 chargers might make sense, since a full charge is the same amount of power as a house uses for 2-3 days.

Finally, I think that many restaurants and hotels will quickly install L2 chargers, just to compete for customers. L2s are cheap, and generally easy to install (depending on their service, but if they have 200 amps, it's pretty straight forward).

I have installed 12k gallon fuel tanks, and I've installed L2 chargers, and the latter are about 1,000 times easier. The charging network can get better fast. It needs to do that, yes, but it isn't being overly optimistic, I believe, to think that it will.
 

guyofthesky

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I disagree on using most dealerships locations as a charging network. With rare exception, they're usually not in advantageous spots. They're often not right off the highway, and often don't have other facilities close by to kill time at (restaurants, stores, etc). They also tend to cluster next to each other along "dealershow rows".

For the road trip network between cities, EA has the right plan IMO. Their placements are so far pretty good. Locating in (mostly) Walmart, Sams, Target parking lots close to the interstate allows fairly short get on/off times, and means there's usually lots of food and shopping options within a block.
Yes, those are great points.

But if dealerships would do this, it would quickly give us a pretty wide ranging "fall back" network for emergencies. That is why I said "two chargers".

They aren't going to be the first choice, for all the reasons that you cite, but in small towns, they would be a lot better than nothing, which is what we have now.
 

guyofthesky

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I disagree on using most dealerships locations as a charging network. With rare exception, they're usually not in advantageous spots. They're often not right off the highway, and often don't have other facilities close by to kill time at (restaurants, stores, etc). They also tend to cluster next to each other along "dealershow rows".

For the road trip network between cities, EA has the right plan IMO. Their placements are so far pretty good. Locating in (mostly) Walmart, Sams, Target parking lots close to the interstate allows fairly short get on/off times, and means there's usually lots of food and shopping options within a block.
Also, dealerships are normally located on busy streets, and they presumably already have 3 phase power installed for welding, lifts, etc. So it's easier for them to do this.

But, again, your points about location are correct. They aren't ideal.
 

guyofthesky

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While every 20 miles would be nice for drivers, that's probably many years away. There's not nearly enough business for chargers to support themselves at 80 mile gaps, let alone 40 or 20. Plus far more important at this point is just covering more routes (at ~80). Making routes even possible is more important than coming back and and adding redundancy.
I agree. I was thinking in terms of when 80% of all cars are electric. But in the short term, you are correct. I should have mentioned a time frame.
 

dbsb3233

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Yes, those are great points.

But if dealerships would do this, it would quickly give us a pretty wide ranging "fall back" network for emergencies. That is why I said "two chargers".

They aren't going to be the first choice, for all the reasons that you cite, but in small towns, they would be a lot better than nothing, which is what we have now.
Might be an OK location in small towns, more for the reason that there may not be anybody else putting in chargers there. Dealers often need them just to properly do sales and service of EVs (at least L2, anyway).

But as you said, I look at dealerships as more of a fall-back at best. Some have proposed dealerships as primary locations, simply because there's thousands of them, and they sell the cars anyway. But that doesn't make any more sense than dealers being gas stations. Primary road trip DCFC needs better placement than dealerships. Dealerships often need to lock down access to their lots after-hours, don't need to incur the expense of point-of-sale DCFC chargers (and sure don't need to give it away for free), need their chargers open for their own use, as well as the placement issues I noted above.

We just need more build-out from actual charging networks like EA, IMO.
 

pt19713

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One thing I've been noticing, at least on my area, Tesla has been working with Wawa, Sheetz, and Royal Farms (regional mini mart stores in the Mid-Atlantic region) and installing V3 chargers at new locations. I've yet to see EA or any third party company install chargers at the new stores.

It's a missed opportunity since a lot of travelers using these locations will use the restrooms and grab a bite to eat.
 

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My problem is in Columbus Ohio I only see 1 major electrify America station and it does have L3 charging but that's not enough for a major metropolitan area plus one halfway to Cleveland and only l2 in the Cleveland area that's not enough coverage for me to take this car back and forth in a reasonable amount of time without major downtime at l2 stations and the next major l3 is 25 miles from downtown Cleveland. Just frustrating
 

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My problem is in Columbus Ohio I only see 1 major electrify America station and it does have L3 charging but that's not enough for a major metropolitan area plus one halfway to Cleveland and only l2 in the Cleveland area that's not enough coverage for me to take this car back and forth in a reasonable amount of time without major downtime at l2 stations and the next major l3 is 25 miles from downtown Cleveland. Just frustrating
Are you using Plug Share to see other providers?
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