MJMachForum

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Start date\mileage: 04-24\789
End date\mileage: 05-27\5803

Please excuse the verboseness of this post and feel free to skip down to the end to see my conclusions and perceptions of the vehicle. Figured since I have the ability to work from anywhere I’d do a road trip and test out my range anxiety. Since I had my Mach E I decided to go visit friends and family back in Cali where I moved from a little over a year ago.

I decided to use PaaK exclusively and had my key fob with me for emergencies but had it in a Faraday bag the entire trip. Along with the in car navigation I also used ABRP and PlugShare to plan out my trip. I also looked for hotels with a charger on-site or near by.

Disclaimer: For those concerned I am vaccinated and only stayed with\visited other vaccinated people or social distanced when appropriate and I made sure I would be fully vaccinated 14 days prior to my departure.

Trip Down Along the 5\99

First Leg: Seattle to Eugene

After getting my house buttoned up and ready for my absence I headed out in the on a Saturday afternoon around 4:30. I plugged in the address of the hotel and off I went. Navigation had me stop off north of the border between WA and OR for a quick DC fast charge. Used the 150 kW Electrify America charger and had no problems. Charge from about 30% to 80% in about 25 mins.

Next stop was the hotel which I made it with about 40% battery. Stopped at a near by EA DCFC to get to 80% then back to the hotel where they had a destination charger. Was able to leave the car plugged in for free overnight and started the next day with 100%.

Second Leg: Eugene to Sacramento
This leg required two charge stops. Again, like the first leg I put in the hotel in Sacramento and the system told me when, where and how long to stop. All charging was at EA DCFC’s. Prior to getting to the hotel I stopped at the EA chargers at the regional airport. I did not

The first charger I plugged in had a fault after 2 kW charge was delivered. I moved to another charger and all was good. Once arriving at the hotel I was able to plug in overnight to get 100% the next morning. No issues were experienced with the destination charger.

Third Leg: Sacramento to Los Angeles
Overnight charging was available at the hotel I was staying at. Staring out at 100% again was nice. I loved being able to just get on the road. This last leg required three charge stops. Navigation worked like a charm again telling me when and where to stop. I did have an issue with a stop in Barstow. The property management was paving and the charger was not taken out of service so I was routed to a dead charging station. This was more of a problem with EA not being notified that their location was not going to be available while the paving was going on. My destination was at a friends house so I also did a DCFC at an EA station near their house. This station was my station of choice while I was in the LA area.

Travels within SoCal
Few weeks were spent in LA and Ventura counties. Then a few weeks in San Bernardino and Riverside counties before making the trek back to Seattle. Chargers were pretty readily available where I was staying that I had no issues getting the car charged up. DCFC worked like a charm in almost all situations. Pay per min was pretty pricy so I avoided when possible.

Nothing of note happened during this part of my trip. I got a few questions from people about that car and a ton of looky-loos. People were really interested in the Mach E.

Trip Up Along the 15\84\82\90
Different experience entirely. No hotel chargers and the charging infrastructure was not as robust as the one down the 5.

First Leg: Palm Springs to Las Vegas
Drive was nice but recommended charging was a problem. The embedded navigation said to stop at two rest stops along the 15. Both rest stop chargers said they were not in the Ford network. The selected charging stops also had single chargers. This has potential to become a problem really quick if a charger was dead or caused a delay if the charger was in use. Favoring stops with multiple chargers would be my preference.

The first rest stop was closed so I had to pass it. The navigation had no option to state that the stop was closed or out of order so the navigation kept rerouting me back to the rest stop. I had to cancel the navigation and restart so it would stop telling me to back track. Ford needs to add an option to state that a stop is out of order so the navigation can properly reroute. I ended up picking stops with the PlugShare app.

Another problem with the embedded navigation is that it skipped other faster chargers just to “split the difference”(so to speak) between the start and destination. I would much prefer to be able to choose from a selection of charging stops instead of the navigation making the choice for me. Maybe add an option to set a preferred network, min\preferred charging speed, and minimum available chargers. Don’t have peace of mind with the embedded navigation. Heavily relied on other apps for my trip.

Second Leg: Las Vegas to St. George\Bryce Canyon\Zion
Drive from Vegas was in the afternoon of day one of this leg. I got into St. George early evening. The next day I did a trip up the 15 to Cedar City for a top off before heading over to Bryce Canyon, then down to Kanab for a quick charge, then over to Zion, and back to St. George. I tried to use the embedded navigation “trip” feature but it would not let me set way points. After messing with it a bit the “trip” feature became grayed out where I could not select it. I tried turning off the car and back on but it never become available.

I gave up and used A Better Route Planner (ABRP) to map my trip from St. George > Cedar City > Bryce > Kanab > Zion > back to St. George. ABRP worked much better than the in car nav. Pretty impressed with it. It’s calculations need some tweaking (you can set these in the app settings) to be more accurate for the Mach E but it was pretty spot on. I didn’t even need the charge in Kanab but it gave me peace of mind. I also loved that, with ABRP, you have the option to stipulate the charge you want to have at the destination. Ford needs to also add this into their navigation. I would have loved to use the in car navigation exclusively but it’s no where near prime time yet. It would work for an ICE vehicle really well but still too feature limited for a BEV in my opinion.

Third Leg: St. George to Salt Lake City
This run I did pre mapping of chargers with PlugShare. The drive was easy and quick. I was able to charge in locations that provided easy dining. Most of the route was 80 mph speed limit which I did 85. This really drains the battery fast and hurts the efficiency. I think the m/kWh was between 1.8 and 2 this stretch. I did notice my guess-o-meter range drop between charges.

Fourth Leg: Salt Lake City to Boise
Another fast drive. This was similar to the previous leg. Nothing really new to report on this leg.

Fifth Leg: Boise to Seattle
This was the longest leg of the trip back to WA. Charging was easily available in the populated areas but very sparse in the rural areas. I planned this trip based on charge stops. I found EA chargers using the PlugShare app and navigated using Apple Maps in CarPlay. There was one section in Boise where is the charger was dead I would have to go to one of the slow chargers in the nearby area. Infrastructure still needs to be built out in Boise.

Conclusions
Charging: Oasis in the Desert

Make sure you check your destinations for charging before heading out on any road trip. With the sparseness of charging and the fact that some chargers can become unavailable without notice, you will want to always make sure you have a plan B. This will put your mind at ease and reduce some anxiety.

I highly recommend using the ABRP and the PlugShare apps. They were a life saver. I was able to plan out contingency chargers in the places I was staying overnight and along the route in general.

PaaK: Retire the key fob?
I do like PaaK and it worked most of the time but I don’t like the constant drain on my battery with “always allow” tracking enabled. If the key fob had remote start features I may not use PaaK. PaaK seems too gimmicky right now. Hope Ford does some improvements here.

Seating: Something chic for your cheeks
Love the styling and comfort of the seating. Although I prefer the seats in my Flex more, the seats in the Mach E were comfortable for the distance I had driven. Don’t think most people will have issues with long drives in the Mach E.

Efficiency: Burning electrons!
Most of the trip I was able to get around 3 miles/kWh so long as you stayed below 65 mph and did not have a ton of heavy grades to climb. Most of the driving I did around LA area was all surface streets. I was able to get the guess-o-meter to show 290 range fully charged. Due to the ability to do 70+ in Nevada/Utah/Idaho my efficiency dropped significantly.

Styling: Turning heads
This car certainly attracts attention. I had people gesturing me thumbs up and smiles while out and about. Way too many people snapping photos of the vehicle. I even had several situations where people would ask me about the car when I was parked.

Power: Need for speed
Love the torque in this thing. There were several times I could just open up and take off. You don’t know how fast you are going. I even had an opportunity to show up an ICE Mustang. I was on the 99 and in the left lane of 2 lanes when some dude came rolling up on my rear. I was going 70 and passing trucks in the right lane. The guy kept riding my rear that I just floored it to get away from him. I could see in my rear view that he was trying to keep up. I blew past the line of trucks and then got over so he could ride some else’s rear. He pulled up next to me, presumably to either ask about the car or provide some other gestures, but I ignored him and he went on his way. All in all, this car is not lacking in power. GT’s are gonna be amazing.

DC Fast Charging: Spare me the kilowatts
Most of the charging throughout the trip was done at EA chargers. The 500 free kWs got me into LA with about 120 to spare. Practically all charging sessions started around 150-160 kWs and would drop to around 90-100 witching 5 mins. I didn’t pay too close attention to the charging rate while the car charged but longest I was at an EA DCFC to get to 80% was 40 mins with the battery at 9%.

While in the areas I was staying for extended periods I used various different public chargers. I chose to go to EA locations when possible as I knew what to expect. Volta free level 2 chargers were nice when I was at shopping centers and the ChargePoint and EVGo chargers worked without issues. I even got some free charging from EA one time when their network had issues processing payments. Cali electric rates are hella expensive especially since most of my friends places were on time of use charging. I decided that I would not be using their electricity to charge my car. (Also, all of them wouldn’t let me pay for my stay so I didn’t want to impose any further than I had.)

My Impressions of the Mach E
These are my personal opinions\suggestions\critiques after owning the car for a few months. Most of my gripes are easy OTA fixes or are nit picky items.

The Good (What I liked)
  1. Overall I love this car. High praises to Ford and all those involved with building this vehicle. Love, love, love it!
  2. Love the get up and go. Really fast car. My car enthusiast friends loved the car.
  3. Backup break assist saved me from hitting some idiot that decided it was a good idea to skateboard behind a moving vehicle. Love this feature! However, there were a few times when I was backing out of a driveway the emergency breaking kicked in with nothing behind me. Don’t know if the car sensed the street as an obstacle due to the angle of the driveway but it didn’t concern me.
  4. Love how quiet the car is.
  5. Opening he drivers door while stopped and in drive puts the car in park. Love this safety feature. I discovered this when I had to slightly open my door to punch in a gate code.
  6. Seating was comfortable for the long ride. I do like the seats in my Flex better but was impressed with the seats in the Mach E.
The Bad (What I didn’t like)
  1. Door armrest where it meets the door panel. Dirt accumulates there and needs to cleaned out with a small brush.
  2. [Personal issue not relating to the car or it’s functions] I don’t like being the center of attention so having people stare at the car, take pictures, and ask questions was kinda strange. 1st world problem but I asked for it when I bought it.
  3. Don’t like the blind spots on this car.
  4. You need internet connectivity to use PaaK. Although I can see why it may be required for authorization from a back end server, it should not be required to get into your vehicle and start the car. This defeated the purpose of having PaaK. Microsoft’s Active Directory product allows for the caching of a users credentials on a local workstation so that the machine does not need to hit a Domain Controller to validate the credentials. This tech has been around since 2000. Little disappointed with this setup. Ideally would have loved to use Apple’s UWB tech. Excluding addition of UWB hardware possible fix with OTA.
  5. I don’t like that I have to always allow location to the FordPass app. I’m not a fan of letting any app track my location all the time and it also drains my battery fast. There is no reason why this should be a requirement in my opinion. Just another way for Ford to get more data on users.
  6. Wireless CarPlay with wireless charging was not possible on a long trip as the phone would overheat. This is an Apple issue 100%.
  7. CarPlay was buggy. For a day CarPlay would not work at all. Removing the phone not re-adding it, rebooting phone and car, and resetting connection did not work. I don’t know why it stopped and started working again. This is an issue that has plagued Sync 3. The two year updates would make system stable for a bit but once Apple released new OS updates issues would start to creep in again. I hope Ford does not go to a two year update cycle on Sync 4. Please keep up with the technology.
  8. Would also be nice to have a restart option for the infotainment system instead of just reset. My flex has issues where CarPlay won’t run. I have to reset the head unit for CarPlay to work again.
  9. Sync 4 is laggy at times, especially when you first start the car. Hardware seems to be on the cheap side. If Apple and Google can make inexpensive phones that are stable for years after release then Ford should do some forward thinking with their hardware. It’s not a good sign when the system is laggy from the get go. The previous sync version hardware was underpowered as well. Little disappointed that Ford still has yet to learn this lesson.
  10. Break blending needs improvement. I’m one that does a slow roll to the stop and you can tell when the hydraulic breaks kick in. Kinda jolts at the end. I was able to anticipate it and kinda accommodate for it.
  11. OTA update turned on some options I turned off. I don’t like to use the auto hold as I don’t want to become accustomed to it. My Flex doesn’t have it and I’m afraid I’d get too use to it that when I drive the Flex I’d forget and roll into someone.
  12. None of the valets I took the car too wanted to deal with using a code. One valet let me park my car in a valet spot upfront and the other I just skipped. Don’t know how this can be made better. I suppose that valets will have to adapt or be replaced with auto parking garages.
  13. I did some research before hand so I knew where I would need to charge to get me to at least 80% before stopping for the night. This enabled me to be ready to hit the road the next day instead of having to find a charger in the morning. Easy OTA addition. The embedded navigation is not ready for BEV use. For this to be BEV worthy Ford needs to add:
    1. Ability to select charge stops from a list of provided stops. PlugShare and ABRP both have better options for selecting chargers than the embedded nav. Ford, please take notes.
    2. Ability to stipulate how much charge you want to have at the destination. The embedded nav does not take into account how much charge to leave you. You are not always going to end up somewhere where you can fast charge. You are left having to figure out charging at your destination. If you pick a destination that has limited or no charging the nav can strand you.
The Ugly (Opportunities I see for improvement)
  1. Although I prefer to never go through a car wash the car does need a car wash button to put the car in true neutral. You can never take it to a car wash that won’t let you ride in the car as explaining how to truly get into neutral is insane. It also would make getting into neutral quicker. Easy OTA addition.
  2. Fix plug and charge to use member pricing. PnC was extremely useful but it’s useless when the free kWs were gone.
  3. Wish Ford would have installed the dual pane windows in the rear to add more sound insulating.
  4. Fan in the dash screen is kinda loud for a car that is touted as a quiet ride. You may not hear the road (under 70 mph) but you hear that fan. Defeats the purpose of a quiet cabin.
  5. Weather strip under the front lip of the hood accumulates debris that scuffs the mating surface. Overtime it will wear down the pained surfaces.
  6. Wish the rear seats had ambient lighting like the mock ups showed. Little disappointed.
  7. Fix the nav. I’ve added some details in the bad section but wanted to repeat here. Fixing this has huge potential for BEV adoption.
  8. Another repeat but also huge opportunity for improvement. Add more beefy hardware for the infotainment system. Ford is riding on a ton of hype and publicity right now. As other auto makers enter the market they could see their market share shrink if they have a repeat of Sync MyFord Touch. Ford is not just selling a car they are selling hardware\software. People love it when things just work.
  9. Updates listed in infotainment system are for Sync only. Would be nice to know versions of other components. As a tech guy I like to know this info.
  10. Stop the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality. I’ve seen several others post on this forum about how the disparity between module versions on various cars is vast. This increases troubleshooting time and adds way too many variables for solving an issue. Ford should ask their IT support guys how they feel about having disparity between workstations. If you have all workstations patched to the same level you now limit how many variables are involved with troubleshooting an issue. Ford needs to start looking at their software in this method. Old school auto mentality is not going to cut it if they want to remain competitive. Also, provide system OS version info instead of just Sync version info.
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ARK

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Great write up, thanks for sharing your experience.

From your profile, because you have a Grabber Blue Mach-E, it means you must have a First Edition, so an ER AWD with a 270 mile EPA range. I have a SR AWD so 211 mile EPA range.

What did you think over all of how spaced out the current charging infrastructure was on your route? Since it looks like you put in a decent amount of effort in planning your charging stops, do you think it would be basically impossible to take the route you took with a SR AWD, cutting it close on many legs, or likely doable without much issue?

For the key fob in the faraday bag, do you know if the bag was completely effective? For example, did you ever get back to your Mach-E to see the mirrors had unfolded and the car unlocked itself because it randomly detected the fob despite being in the faraday bag?

I’ve been thinking about keeping the key fob in a faraday bag inside the Mach-E on longer trips, just in case. I figure, the door code doesn’t need internet so at least if PaaK cannot work at all because of lack of internet, I could just use the door code to gain entry into the car and get the key fob out of the faraday bag. Was that what you were doing too?

I agree about a faster processor for Sync 4. I think it is decent, but definitely there is room for improvement. At least when you think about how much certain paint options cost, how much the interior protection package costs, and how much this vehicle costs over all, what’s another few hundred dollars to go from an adequate to a leading processor in terms of Sync’s responsiveness. I think as ever more vehicle functions get rolled into the infotainment system, this will become a better and better use of the manufacturing budget on vehicles like the Mach-E.
 
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MJMachForum

MJMachForum

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Great write up, thanks for sharing your experience.

From your profile, because you have a Grabber Blue Mach-E, it means you must have a First Edition, so an ER AWD with a 270 mile EPA range. I have a SR AWD so 211 mile EPA range.

What did you think over all of how spaced out the current charging infrastructure was on your route? Since it looks like you put in a decent amount of effort in planning your charging stops, do you think it would be basically impossible to take the route you took with a SR AWD, cutting it close on many legs, or likely doable without much issue?

For the key fob in the faraday bag, do you know if the bag was completely effective? For example, did you ever get back to your Mach-E to see the mirrors had unfolded and the car unlocked itself because it randomly detected the fob despite being in the faraday bag?

I’ve been thinking about keeping the key fob in a faraday bag inside the Mach-E on longer trips, just in case. I figure, the door code doesn’t need internet so at least if PaaK cannot work at all because of lack of internet, I could just use the door code to gain entry into the car and get the key fob out of the faraday bag. Was that what you were doing too?

I agree about a faster processor for Sync 4. I think it is decent, but definitely there is room for improvement. At least when you think about how much certain paint options cost, how much the interior protection package costs, and how much this vehicle costs over all, what’s another few hundred dollars to go from an adequate to a leading processor in terms of Sync’s responsiveness. I think as ever more vehicle functions get rolled into the infotainment system, this will become a better and better use of the manufacturing budget on vehicles like the Mach-E.
Infrastructure in Cali was the best. NV is only good in Vegas area. Wouldn’t take trip up thru the 93 If you have the choice. There is only 1 DCFC in the middle of that route. Utah was ok and Idaho less so. In Idaho there was one stretch where, if the charger was dead, I would have been in trouble. I specifically chose the FE because of the range it had and AWD. If Ford releases more battery the the range would be even more in line with my comfort zone. I personally did not feel comfortable with range numbers lower than the 270.

The Faraday bag worked perfectly. I tested before I went on my trip. I could walk up to the car without my phone, bag in hand and the car did not recognize that the key was near. When I opened the bag and pulled the key out it would work. I always used the passcode and never removed my key on my trip.
 

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@MJMachForum great write up! That's some really good insight on road tripping and especially your experience with charging infrastructure.

The stretch between Boise and Seattle is really relevant to me since I make that trip 1-2x a year. My in-laws do it no sweat in a Tesla Model 3 LR RWD but I'm finding myself stressing a bit at the thought of the drive in a loaded down GT.

I-84 between Hermiston and Boise is really sparse on charging. How were the stations in Huntington, OR and La Grande, OR?
 

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Start date\mileage: 04-24\789
End date\mileage: 05-27\5803

Please excuse the verboseness of this post and feel free to skip down to the end to see my conclusions and perceptions of the vehicle. Figured since I have the ability to work from anywhere I’d do a road trip and test out my range anxiety. Since I had my Mach E I decided to go visit friends and family back in Cali where I moved from a little over a year ago.

I decided to use PaaK exclusively and had my key fob with me for emergencies but had it in a Faraday bag the entire trip. Along with the in car navigation I also used ABRP and PlugShare to plan out my trip. I also looked for hotels with a charger on-site or near by.

Disclaimer: For those concerned I am vaccinated and only stayed with\visited other vaccinated people or social distanced when appropriate and I made sure I would be fully vaccinated 14 days prior to my departure.

Trip Down Along the 5\99

First Leg: Seattle to Eugene

After getting my house buttoned up and ready for my absence I headed out in the on a Saturday afternoon around 4:30. I plugged in the address of the hotel and off I went. Navigation had me stop off north of the border between WA and OR for a quick DC fast charge. Used the 150 kW Electrify America charger and had no problems. Charge from about 30% to 80% in about 25 mins.

Next stop was the hotel which I made it with about 40% battery. Stopped at a near by EA DCFC to get to 80% then back to the hotel where they had a destination charger. Was able to leave the car plugged in for free overnight and started the next day with 100%.

Second Leg: Eugene to Sacramento
This leg required two charge stops. Again, like the first leg I put in the hotel in Sacramento and the system told me when, where and how long to stop. All charging was at EA DCFC’s. Prior to getting to the hotel I stopped at the EA chargers at the regional airport. I did not

The first charger I plugged in had a fault after 2 kW charge was delivered. I moved to another charger and all was good. Once arriving at the hotel I was able to plug in overnight to get 100% the next morning. No issues were experienced with the destination charger.

Third Leg: Sacramento to Los Angeles
Overnight charging was available at the hotel I was staying at. Staring out at 100% again was nice. I loved being able to just get on the road. This last leg required three charge stops. Navigation worked like a charm again telling me when and where to stop. I did have an issue with a stop in Barstow. The property management was paving and the charger was not taken out of service so I was routed to a dead charging station. This was more of a problem with EA not being notified that their location was not going to be available while the paving was going on. My destination was at a friends house so I also did a DCFC at an EA station near their house. This station was my station of choice while I was in the LA area.

Travels within SoCal
Few weeks were spent in LA and Ventura counties. Then a few weeks in San Bernardino and Riverside counties before making the trek back to Seattle. Chargers were pretty readily available where I was staying that I had no issues getting the car charged up. DCFC worked like a charm in almost all situations. Pay per min was pretty pricy so I avoided when possible.

Nothing of note happened during this part of my trip. I got a few questions from people about that car and a ton of looky-loos. People were really interested in the Mach E.

Trip Up Along the 15\84\82\90
Different experience entirely. No hotel chargers and the charging infrastructure was not as robust as the one down the 5.

First Leg: Palm Springs to Las Vegas
Drive was nice but recommended charging was a problem. The embedded navigation said to stop at two rest stops along the 15. Both rest stop chargers said they were not in the Ford network. The selected charging stops also had single chargers. This has potential to become a problem really quick if a charger was dead or caused a delay if the charger was in use. Favoring stops with multiple chargers would be my preference.

The first rest stop was closed so I had to pass it. The navigation had no option to state that the stop was closed or out of order so the navigation kept rerouting me back to the rest stop. I had to cancel the navigation and restart so it would stop telling me to back track. Ford needs to add an option to state that a stop is out of order so the navigation can properly reroute. I ended up picking stops with the PlugShare app.

Another problem with the embedded navigation is that it skipped other faster chargers just to “split the difference”(so to speak) between the start and destination. I would much prefer to be able to choose from a selection of charging stops instead of the navigation making the choice for me. Maybe add an option to set a preferred network, min\preferred charging speed, and minimum available chargers. Don’t have peace of mind with the embedded navigation. Heavily relied on other apps for my trip.

Second Leg: Las Vegas to St. George\Bryce Canyon\Zion
Drive from Vegas was in the afternoon of day one of this leg. I got into St. George early evening. The next day I did a trip up the 15 to Cedar City for a top off before heading over to Bryce Canyon, then down to Kanab for a quick charge, then over to Zion, and back to St. George. I tried to use the embedded navigation “trip” feature but it would not let me set way points. After messing with it a bit the “trip” feature became grayed out where I could not select it. I tried turning off the car and back on but it never become available.

I gave up and used A Better Route Planner (ABRP) to map my trip from St. George > Cedar City > Bryce > Kanab > Zion > back to St. George. ABRP worked much better than the in car nav. Pretty impressed with it. It’s calculations need some tweaking (you can set these in the app settings) to be more accurate for the Mach E but it was pretty spot on. I didn’t even need the charge in Kanab but it gave me peace of mind. I also loved that, with ABRP, you have the option to stipulate the charge you want to have at the destination. Ford needs to also add this into their navigation. I would have loved to use the in car navigation exclusively but it’s no where near prime time yet. It would work for an ICE vehicle really well but still too feature limited for a BEV in my opinion.

Third Leg: St. George to Salt Lake City
This run I did pre mapping of chargers with PlugShare. The drive was easy and quick. I was able to charge in locations that provided easy dining. Most of the route was 80 mph speed limit which I did 85. This really drains the battery fast and hurts the efficiency. I think the m/kWh was between 1.8 and 2 this stretch. I did notice my guess-o-meter range drop between charges.

Fourth Leg: Salt Lake City to Boise
Another fast drive. This was similar to the previous leg. Nothing really new to report on this leg.

Fifth Leg: Boise to Seattle
This was the longest leg of the trip back to WA. Charging was easily available in the populated areas but very sparse in the rural areas. I planned this trip based on charge stops. I found EA chargers using the PlugShare app and navigated using Apple Maps in CarPlay. There was one section in Boise where is the charger was dead I would have to go to one of the slow chargers in the nearby area. Infrastructure still needs to be built out in Boise.

Conclusions
Charging: Oasis in the Desert

Make sure you check your destinations for charging before heading out on any road trip. With the sparseness of charging and the fact that some chargers can become unavailable without notice, you will want to always make sure you have a plan B. This will put your mind at ease and reduce some anxiety.

I highly recommend using the ABRP and the PlugShare apps. They were a life saver. I was able to plan out contingency chargers in the places I was staying overnight and along the route in general.

PaaK: Retire the key fob?
I do like PaaK and it worked most of the time but I don’t like the constant drain on my battery with “always allow” tracking enabled. If the key fob had remote start features I may not use PaaK. PaaK seems too gimmicky right now. Hope Ford does some improvements here.

Seating: Something chic for your cheeks
Love the styling and comfort of the seating. Although I prefer the seats in my Flex more, the seats in the Mach E were comfortable for the distance I had driven. Don’t think most people will have issues with long drives in the Mach E.

Efficiency: Burning electrons!
Most of the trip I was able to get around 3 miles/kWh so long as you stayed below 65 mph and did not have a ton of heavy grades to climb. Most of the driving I did around LA area was all surface streets. I was able to get the guess-o-meter to show 290 range fully charged. Due to the ability to do 70+ in Nevada/Utah/Idaho my efficiency dropped significantly.

Styling: Turning heads
This car certainly attracts attention. I had people gesturing me thumbs up and smiles while out and about. Way too many people snapping photos of the vehicle. I even had several situations where people would ask me about the car when I was parked.

Power: Need for speed
Love the torque in this thing. There were several times I could just open up and take off. You don’t know how fast you are going. I even had an opportunity to show up an ICE Mustang. I was on the 99 and in the left lane of 2 lanes when some dude came rolling up on my rear. I was going 70 and passing trucks in the right lane. The guy kept riding my rear that I just floored it to get away from him. I could see in my rear view that he was trying to keep up. I blew past the line of trucks and then got over so he could ride some else’s rear. He pulled up next to me, presumably to either ask about the car or provide some other gestures, but I ignored him and he went on his way. All in all, this car is not lacking in power. GT’s are gonna be amazing.

DC Fast Charging: Spare me the kilowatts
Most of the charging throughout the trip was done at EA chargers. The 500 free kWs got me into LA with about 120 to spare. Practically all charging sessions started around 150-160 kWs and would drop to around 90-100 witching 5 mins. I didn’t pay too close attention to the charging rate while the car charged but longest I was at an EA DCFC to get to 80% was 40 mins with the battery at 9%.

While in the areas I was staying for extended periods I used various different public chargers. I chose to go to EA locations when possible as I knew what to expect. Volta free level 2 chargers were nice when I was at shopping centers and the ChargePoint and EVGo chargers worked without issues. I even got some free charging from EA one time when their network had issues processing payments. Cali electric rates are hella expensive especially since most of my friends places were on time of use charging. I decided that I would not be using their electricity to charge my car. (Also, all of them wouldn’t let me pay for my stay so I didn’t want to impose any further than I had.)

My Impressions of the Mach E
These are my personal opinions\suggestions\critiques after owning the car for a few months. Most of my gripes are easy OTA fixes or are nit picky items.

The Good (What I liked)
  1. Overall I love this car. High praises to Ford and all those involved with building this vehicle. Love, love, love it!
  2. Love the get up and go. Really fast car. My car enthusiast friends loved the car.
  3. Backup break assist saved me from hitting some idiot that decided it was a good idea to skateboard behind a moving vehicle. Love this feature! However, there were a few times when I was backing out of a driveway the emergency breaking kicked in with nothing behind me. Don’t know if the car sensed the street as an obstacle due to the angle of the driveway but it didn’t concern me.
  4. Love how quiet the car is.
  5. Opening he drivers door while stopped and in drive puts the car in park. Love this safety feature. I discovered this when I had to slightly open my door to punch in a gate code.
  6. Seating was comfortable for the long ride. I do like the seats in my Flex better but was impressed with the seats in the Mach E.
The Bad (What I didn’t like)
  1. Door armrest where it meets the door panel. Dirt accumulates there and needs to cleaned out with a small brush.
  2. [Personal issue not relating to the car or it’s functions] I don’t like being the center of attention so having people stare at the car, take pictures, and ask questions was kinda strange. 1st world problem but I asked for it when I bought it.
  3. Don’t like the blind spots on this car.
  4. You need internet connectivity to use PaaK. Although I can see why it may be required for authorization from a back end server, it should not be required to get into your vehicle and start the car. This defeated the purpose of having PaaK. Microsoft’s Active Directory product allows for the caching of a users credentials on a local workstation so that the machine does not need to hit a Domain Controller to validate the credentials. This tech has been around since 2000. Little disappointed with this setup. Ideally would have loved to use Apple’s UWB tech. Excluding addition of UWB hardware possible fix with OTA.
  5. I don’t like that I have to always allow location to the FordPass app. I’m not a fan of letting any app track my location all the time and it also drains my battery fast. There is no reason why this should be a requirement in my opinion. Just another way for Ford to get more data on users.
  6. Wireless CarPlay with wireless charging was not possible on a long trip as the phone would overheat. This is an Apple issue 100%.
  7. CarPlay was buggy. For a day CarPlay would not work at all. Removing the phone not re-adding it, rebooting phone and car, and resetting connection did not work. I don’t know why it stopped and started working again. This is an issue that has plagued Sync 3. The two year updates would make system stable for a bit but once Apple released new OS updates issues would start to creep in again. I hope Ford does not go to a two year update cycle on Sync 4. Please keep up with the technology.
  8. Would also be nice to have a restart option for the infotainment system instead of just reset. My flex has issues where CarPlay won’t run. I have to reset the head unit for CarPlay to work again.
  9. Sync 4 is laggy at times, especially when you first start the car. Hardware seems to be on the cheap side. If Apple and Google can make inexpensive phones that are stable for years after release then Ford should do some forward thinking with their hardware. It’s not a good sign when the system is laggy from the get go. The previous sync version hardware was underpowered as well. Little disappointed that Ford still has yet to learn this lesson.
  10. Break blending needs improvement. I’m one that does a slow roll to the stop and you can tell when the hydraulic breaks kick in. Kinda jolts at the end. I was able to anticipate it and kinda accommodate for it.
  11. OTA update turned on some options I turned off. I don’t like to use the auto hold as I don’t want to become accustomed to it. My Flex doesn’t have it and I’m afraid I’d get too use to it that when I drive the Flex I’d forget and roll into someone.
  12. None of the valets I took the car too wanted to deal with using a code. One valet let me park my car in a valet spot upfront and the other I just skipped. Don’t know how this can be made better. I suppose that valets will have to adapt or be replaced with auto parking garages.
  13. I did some research before hand so I knew where I would need to charge to get me to at least 80% before stopping for the night. This enabled me to be ready to hit the road the next day instead of having to find a charger in the morning. Easy OTA addition. The embedded navigation is not ready for BEV use. For this to be BEV worthy Ford needs to add:
    1. Ability to select charge stops from a list of provided stops. PlugShare and ABRP both have better options for selecting chargers than the embedded nav. Ford, please take notes.
    2. Ability to stipulate how much charge you want to have at the destination. The embedded nav does not take into account how much charge to leave you. You are not always going to end up somewhere where you can fast charge. You are left having to figure out charging at your destination. If you pick a destination that has limited or no charging the nav can strand you.
The Ugly (Opportunities I see for improvement)
  1. Although I prefer to never go through a car wash the car does need a car wash button to put the car in true neutral. You can never take it to a car wash that won’t let you ride in the car as explaining how to truly get into neutral is insane. It also would make getting into neutral quicker. Easy OTA addition.
  2. Fix plug and charge to use member pricing. PnC was extremely useful but it’s useless when the free kWs were gone.
  3. Wish Ford would have installed the dual pane windows in the rear to add more sound insulating.
  4. Fan in the dash screen is kinda loud for a car that is touted as a quiet ride. You may not hear the road (under 70 mph) but you hear that fan. Defeats the purpose of a quiet cabin.
  5. Weather strip under the front lip of the hood accumulates debris that scuffs the mating surface. Overtime it will wear down the pained surfaces.
  6. Wish the rear seats had ambient lighting like the mock ups showed. Little disappointed.
  7. Fix the nav. I’ve added some details in the bad section but wanted to repeat here. Fixing this has huge potential for BEV adoption.
  8. Another repeat but also huge opportunity for improvement. Add more beefy hardware for the infotainment system. Ford is riding on a ton of hype and publicity right now. As other auto makers enter the market they could see their market share shrink if they have a repeat of Sync MyFord Touch. Ford is not just selling a car they are selling hardware\software. People love it when things just work.
  9. Updates listed in infotainment system are for Sync only. Would be nice to know versions of other components. As a tech guy I like to know this info.
  10. Stop the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality. I’ve seen several others post on this forum about how the disparity between module versions on various cars is vast. This increases troubleshooting time and adds way too many variables for solving an issue. Ford should ask their IT support guys how they feel about having disparity between workstations. If you have all workstations patched to the same level you now limit how many variables are involved with troubleshooting an issue. Ford needs to start looking at their software in this method. Old school auto mentality is not going to cut it if they want to remain competitive. Also, provide system OS version info instead of just Sync version info.
Great write up. Living at the northern onramp to the I-5 Valley run, I've been quite curious about the practicality of what you did, so much appreciate what you've shared here.

With accessibly priced EV ranges hovering near 300 miles for the foreseeable future, not only is it going to be incumbent on auto companies to push useful software, but for the interstate ecosystem to undergo a suitable facelift. In an ironic twist, the modern EV ecosystem, seems primed to go retro with a "Route 66" like "auto-network." By "Route 66" like, I mean shorter runs between way points, and more services at each node. By "auto-net" I mean each vehicle is simultaneously a packet and router, dynamically optimizing and scheduling services at suitable way points along the route, based on conditions and user input. Service optimization shouldn't be an argument with your co-pilot on whether the next stop is sketch or not.

It seems like getting beyond 150kW DCFC is going to be important here, I wish Ford had been a bit more cutting edge, and props to the Dark Lord and Tesla for having some vision here.
 


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MJMachForum

MJMachForum

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@MJMachForum great write up! That's some really good insight on road tripping and especially your experience with charging infrastructure.

The stretch between Boise and Seattle is really relevant to me since I make that trip 1-2x a year. My in-laws do it no sweat in a Tesla Model 3 LR RWD but I'm finding myself stressing a bit at the thought of the drive in a loaded down GT.

I-84 between Hermiston and Boise is really sparse on charging. How were the stations in Huntington, OR and La Grande, OR?
I know what you mean, I was worried before I started my trip. I wanted to experience the rang anxiety for myself which prompted the trip. I actually stopped in Huntington early in the morning. The EA chargers worked great. I had originally planned to stop in Le Grande but bypassed and went to Hermiston before crossing the border. Chargers there worked great as well. Just plan out some stops with PlugShare. That app helped me decide my stops along the way home.
 

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I know what you mean, I was worried before I started my trip. I wanted to experience the rang anxiety for myself which prompted the trip. I actually stopped in Huntington early in the morning. The EA chargers worked great. I had originally planned to stop in Le Grande but bypassed and went to Hermiston before crossing the border. Chargers there worked great as well. Just plan out some stops with PlugShare. That app helped me decide my stops along the way home.
I'm surprised you made it to Hermiston from Huntington since you have to cross the Blues.

What would make me feel much better is if there were decent DCFC stations in Baker City and Pendleton. California has a plethora of options on I-5 and 99 in the Central Valley. Hopefully soon!
 

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I don't understand why there aren't more charging stations out there. How hard is it to put these out there and make sure they have enough diesel fuel ?
Ford Mustang Mach-E Mach-E Road Trip: Seattle to Los Angeles and Back - Experience, Data, Impressions diesel-generator-ev-charger-m
 

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Model 3 owner here. Thanks for the excellent write up - I didn't find it verbose at all! Sounds like EA's network is coming along nicely.

You mentioned some mild range anxiety due to elevation changes. Was the next charger at higher elevation? I ask because when crossing the Smokies on a recent trip, we regained most of the energy lost climbing on the way down.

Still hoping Ford (or Tesla) will produce a convertible. I miss the wind blowing through what's left of my hair when I drove my late great (gas-powered) Mustang.

Thanks again - great post!
 

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Still hoping Ford (or Tesla) will produce a convertible. I miss the wind blowing through what's left of my hair when I drove my late great (gas-powered) Mustang.
SAME HERE!
 

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The Ugly (Opportunities I see for improvement)
  1. Although I prefer to never go through a car wash the car does need a car wash button to put the car in true neutral. You can never take it to a car wash that won’t let you ride in the car as explaining how to truly get into neutral is insane. It also would make getting into neutral quicker. Easy OTA addition.
As far as I understood you can put the "direction-shifter" into N and then press the "L" button. That would give you a 30 minute "Temperary Neutral mode", which could be used for a car wash.
Not too complicated...
 

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As far as I understood you can put the "direction-shifter" into N and then press the "L" button. That would give you a 30 minute "Temperary Neutral mode", which could be used for a car wash.
Not too complicated...
Very true and I use this every time I have had the car washed
 

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Start date\mileage: 04-24\789
End date\mileage: 05-27\5803

Please excuse the verboseness of this post and feel free to skip down to the end to see my conclusions and perceptions of the vehicle. Figured since I have the ability to work from anywhere I’d do a road trip and test out my range anxiety. Since I had my Mach E I decided to go visit friends and family back in Cali where I moved from a little over a year ago.

I decided to use PaaK exclusively and had my key fob with me for emergencies but had it in a Faraday bag the entire trip. Along with the in car navigation I also used ABRP and PlugShare to plan out my trip. I also looked for hotels with a charger on-site or near by.

Disclaimer: For those concerned I am vaccinated and only stayed with\visited other vaccinated people or social distanced when appropriate and I made sure I would be fully vaccinated 14 days prior to my departure.

Trip Down Along the 5\99

First Leg: Seattle to Eugene

After getting my house buttoned up and ready for my absence I headed out in the on a Saturday afternoon around 4:30. I plugged in the address of the hotel and off I went. Navigation had me stop off north of the border between WA and OR for a quick DC fast charge. Used the 150 kW Electrify America charger and had no problems. Charge from about 30% to 80% in about 25 mins.

Next stop was the hotel which I made it with about 40% battery. Stopped at a near by EA DCFC to get to 80% then back to the hotel where they had a destination charger. Was able to leave the car plugged in for free overnight and started the next day with 100%.

Second Leg: Eugene to Sacramento
This leg required two charge stops. Again, like the first leg I put in the hotel in Sacramento and the system told me when, where and how long to stop. All charging was at EA DCFC’s. Prior to getting to the hotel I stopped at the EA chargers at the regional airport. I did not

The first charger I plugged in had a fault after 2 kW charge was delivered. I moved to another charger and all was good. Once arriving at the hotel I was able to plug in overnight to get 100% the next morning. No issues were experienced with the destination charger.

Third Leg: Sacramento to Los Angeles
Overnight charging was available at the hotel I was staying at. Staring out at 100% again was nice. I loved being able to just get on the road. This last leg required three charge stops. Navigation worked like a charm again telling me when and where to stop. I did have an issue with a stop in Barstow. The property management was paving and the charger was not taken out of service so I was routed to a dead charging station. This was more of a problem with EA not being notified that their location was not going to be available while the paving was going on. My destination was at a friends house so I also did a DCFC at an EA station near their house. This station was my station of choice while I was in the LA area.

Travels within SoCal
Few weeks were spent in LA and Ventura counties. Then a few weeks in San Bernardino and Riverside counties before making the trek back to Seattle. Chargers were pretty readily available where I was staying that I had no issues getting the car charged up. DCFC worked like a charm in almost all situations. Pay per min was pretty pricy so I avoided when possible.

Nothing of note happened during this part of my trip. I got a few questions from people about that car and a ton of looky-loos. People were really interested in the Mach E.

Trip Up Along the 15\84\82\90
Different experience entirely. No hotel chargers and the charging infrastructure was not as robust as the one down the 5.

First Leg: Palm Springs to Las Vegas
Drive was nice but recommended charging was a problem. The embedded navigation said to stop at two rest stops along the 15. Both rest stop chargers said they were not in the Ford network. The selected charging stops also had single chargers. This has potential to become a problem really quick if a charger was dead or caused a delay if the charger was in use. Favoring stops with multiple chargers would be my preference.

The first rest stop was closed so I had to pass it. The navigation had no option to state that the stop was closed or out of order so the navigation kept rerouting me back to the rest stop. I had to cancel the navigation and restart so it would stop telling me to back track. Ford needs to add an option to state that a stop is out of order so the navigation can properly reroute. I ended up picking stops with the PlugShare app.

Another problem with the embedded navigation is that it skipped other faster chargers just to “split the difference”(so to speak) between the start and destination. I would much prefer to be able to choose from a selection of charging stops instead of the navigation making the choice for me. Maybe add an option to set a preferred network, min\preferred charging speed, and minimum available chargers. Don’t have peace of mind with the embedded navigation. Heavily relied on other apps for my trip.

Second Leg: Las Vegas to St. George\Bryce Canyon\Zion
Drive from Vegas was in the afternoon of day one of this leg. I got into St. George early evening. The next day I did a trip up the 15 to Cedar City for a top off before heading over to Bryce Canyon, then down to Kanab for a quick charge, then over to Zion, and back to St. George. I tried to use the embedded navigation “trip” feature but it would not let me set way points. After messing with it a bit the “trip” feature became grayed out where I could not select it. I tried turning off the car and back on but it never become available.

I gave up and used A Better Route Planner (ABRP) to map my trip from St. George > Cedar City > Bryce > Kanab > Zion > back to St. George. ABRP worked much better than the in car nav. Pretty impressed with it. It’s calculations need some tweaking (you can set these in the app settings) to be more accurate for the Mach E but it was pretty spot on. I didn’t even need the charge in Kanab but it gave me peace of mind. I also loved that, with ABRP, you have the option to stipulate the charge you want to have at the destination. Ford needs to also add this into their navigation. I would have loved to use the in car navigation exclusively but it’s no where near prime time yet. It would work for an ICE vehicle really well but still too feature limited for a BEV in my opinion.

Third Leg: St. George to Salt Lake City
This run I did pre mapping of chargers with PlugShare. The drive was easy and quick. I was able to charge in locations that provided easy dining. Most of the route was 80 mph speed limit which I did 85. This really drains the battery fast and hurts the efficiency. I think the m/kWh was between 1.8 and 2 this stretch. I did notice my guess-o-meter range drop between charges.

Fourth Leg: Salt Lake City to Boise
Another fast drive. This was similar to the previous leg. Nothing really new to report on this leg.

Fifth Leg: Boise to Seattle
This was the longest leg of the trip back to WA. Charging was easily available in the populated areas but very sparse in the rural areas. I planned this trip based on charge stops. I found EA chargers using the PlugShare app and navigated using Apple Maps in CarPlay. There was one section in Boise where is the charger was dead I would have to go to one of the slow chargers in the nearby area. Infrastructure still needs to be built out in Boise.

Conclusions
Charging: Oasis in the Desert

Make sure you check your destinations for charging before heading out on any road trip. With the sparseness of charging and the fact that some chargers can become unavailable without notice, you will want to always make sure you have a plan B. This will put your mind at ease and reduce some anxiety.

I highly recommend using the ABRP and the PlugShare apps. They were a life saver. I was able to plan out contingency chargers in the places I was staying overnight and along the route in general.

PaaK: Retire the key fob?
I do like PaaK and it worked most of the time but I don’t like the constant drain on my battery with “always allow” tracking enabled. If the key fob had remote start features I may not use PaaK. PaaK seems too gimmicky right now. Hope Ford does some improvements here.

Seating: Something chic for your cheeks
Love the styling and comfort of the seating. Although I prefer the seats in my Flex more, the seats in the Mach E were comfortable for the distance I had driven. Don’t think most people will have issues with long drives in the Mach E.

Efficiency: Burning electrons!
Most of the trip I was able to get around 3 miles/kWh so long as you stayed below 65 mph and did not have a ton of heavy grades to climb. Most of the driving I did around LA area was all surface streets. I was able to get the guess-o-meter to show 290 range fully charged. Due to the ability to do 70+ in Nevada/Utah/Idaho my efficiency dropped significantly.

Styling: Turning heads
This car certainly attracts attention. I had people gesturing me thumbs up and smiles while out and about. Way too many people snapping photos of the vehicle. I even had several situations where people would ask me about the car when I was parked.

Power: Need for speed
Love the torque in this thing. There were several times I could just open up and take off. You don’t know how fast you are going. I even had an opportunity to show up an ICE Mustang. I was on the 99 and in the left lane of 2 lanes when some dude came rolling up on my rear. I was going 70 and passing trucks in the right lane. The guy kept riding my rear that I just floored it to get away from him. I could see in my rear view that he was trying to keep up. I blew past the line of trucks and then got over so he could ride some else’s rear. He pulled up next to me, presumably to either ask about the car or provide some other gestures, but I ignored him and he went on his way. All in all, this car is not lacking in power. GT’s are gonna be amazing.

DC Fast Charging: Spare me the kilowatts
Most of the charging throughout the trip was done at EA chargers. The 500 free kWs got me into LA with about 120 to spare. Practically all charging sessions started around 150-160 kWs and would drop to around 90-100 witching 5 mins. I didn’t pay too close attention to the charging rate while the car charged but longest I was at an EA DCFC to get to 80% was 40 mins with the battery at 9%.

While in the areas I was staying for extended periods I used various different public chargers. I chose to go to EA locations when possible as I knew what to expect. Volta free level 2 chargers were nice when I was at shopping centers and the ChargePoint and EVGo chargers worked without issues. I even got some free charging from EA one time when their network had issues processing payments. Cali electric rates are hella expensive especially since most of my friends places were on time of use charging. I decided that I would not be using their electricity to charge my car. (Also, all of them wouldn’t let me pay for my stay so I didn’t want to impose any further than I had.)

My Impressions of the Mach E
These are my personal opinions\suggestions\critiques after owning the car for a few months. Most of my gripes are easy OTA fixes or are nit picky items.

The Good (What I liked)
  1. Overall I love this car. High praises to Ford and all those involved with building this vehicle. Love, love, love it!
  2. Love the get up and go. Really fast car. My car enthusiast friends loved the car.
  3. Backup break assist saved me from hitting some idiot that decided it was a good idea to skateboard behind a moving vehicle. Love this feature! However, there were a few times when I was backing out of a driveway the emergency breaking kicked in with nothing behind me. Don’t know if the car sensed the street as an obstacle due to the angle of the driveway but it didn’t concern me.
  4. Love how quiet the car is.
  5. Opening he drivers door while stopped and in drive puts the car in park. Love this safety feature. I discovered this when I had to slightly open my door to punch in a gate code.
  6. Seating was comfortable for the long ride. I do like the seats in my Flex better but was impressed with the seats in the Mach E.
The Bad (What I didn’t like)
  1. Door armrest where it meets the door panel. Dirt accumulates there and needs to cleaned out with a small brush.
  2. [Personal issue not relating to the car or it’s functions] I don’t like being the center of attention so having people stare at the car, take pictures, and ask questions was kinda strange. 1st world problem but I asked for it when I bought it.
  3. Don’t like the blind spots on this car.
  4. You need internet connectivity to use PaaK. Although I can see why it may be required for authorization from a back end server, it should not be required to get into your vehicle and start the car. This defeated the purpose of having PaaK. Microsoft’s Active Directory product allows for the caching of a users credentials on a local workstation so that the machine does not need to hit a Domain Controller to validate the credentials. This tech has been around since 2000. Little disappointed with this setup. Ideally would have loved to use Apple’s UWB tech. Excluding addition of UWB hardware possible fix with OTA.
  5. I don’t like that I have to always allow location to the FordPass app. I’m not a fan of letting any app track my location all the time and it also drains my battery fast. There is no reason why this should be a requirement in my opinion. Just another way for Ford to get more data on users.
  6. Wireless CarPlay with wireless charging was not possible on a long trip as the phone would overheat. This is an Apple issue 100%.
  7. CarPlay was buggy. For a day CarPlay would not work at all. Removing the phone not re-adding it, rebooting phone and car, and resetting connection did not work. I don’t know why it stopped and started working again. This is an issue that has plagued Sync 3. The two year updates would make system stable for a bit but once Apple released new OS updates issues would start to creep in again. I hope Ford does not go to a two year update cycle on Sync 4. Please keep up with the technology.
  8. Would also be nice to have a restart option for the infotainment system instead of just reset. My flex has issues where CarPlay won’t run. I have to reset the head unit for CarPlay to work again.
  9. Sync 4 is laggy at times, especially when you first start the car. Hardware seems to be on the cheap side. If Apple and Google can make inexpensive phones that are stable for years after release then Ford should do some forward thinking with their hardware. It’s not a good sign when the system is laggy from the get go. The previous sync version hardware was underpowered as well. Little disappointed that Ford still has yet to learn this lesson.
  10. Break blending needs improvement. I’m one that does a slow roll to the stop and you can tell when the hydraulic breaks kick in. Kinda jolts at the end. I was able to anticipate it and kinda accommodate for it.
  11. OTA update turned on some options I turned off. I don’t like to use the auto hold as I don’t want to become accustomed to it. My Flex doesn’t have it and I’m afraid I’d get too use to it that when I drive the Flex I’d forget and roll into someone.
  12. None of the valets I took the car too wanted to deal with using a code. One valet let me park my car in a valet spot upfront and the other I just skipped. Don’t know how this can be made better. I suppose that valets will have to adapt or be replaced with auto parking garages.
  13. I did some research before hand so I knew where I would need to charge to get me to at least 80% before stopping for the night. This enabled me to be ready to hit the road the next day instead of having to find a charger in the morning. Easy OTA addition. The embedded navigation is not ready for BEV use. For this to be BEV worthy Ford needs to add:
    1. Ability to select charge stops from a list of provided stops. PlugShare and ABRP both have better options for selecting chargers than the embedded nav. Ford, please take notes.
    2. Ability to stipulate how much charge you want to have at the destination. The embedded nav does not take into account how much charge to leave you. You are not always going to end up somewhere where you can fast charge. You are left having to figure out charging at your destination. If you pick a destination that has limited or no charging the nav can strand you.
The Ugly (Opportunities I see for improvement)
  1. Although I prefer to never go through a car wash the car does need a car wash button to put the car in true neutral. You can never take it to a car wash that won’t let you ride in the car as explaining how to truly get into neutral is insane. It also would make getting into neutral quicker. Easy OTA addition.
  2. Fix plug and charge to use member pricing. PnC was extremely useful but it’s useless when the free kWs were gone.
  3. Wish Ford would have installed the dual pane windows in the rear to add more sound insulating.
  4. Fan in the dash screen is kinda loud for a car that is touted as a quiet ride. You may not hear the road (under 70 mph) but you hear that fan. Defeats the purpose of a quiet cabin.
  5. Weather strip under the front lip of the hood accumulates debris that scuffs the mating surface. Overtime it will wear down the pained surfaces.
  6. Wish the rear seats had ambient lighting like the mock ups showed. Little disappointed.
  7. Fix the nav. I’ve added some details in the bad section but wanted to repeat here. Fixing this has huge potential for BEV adoption.
  8. Another repeat but also huge opportunity for improvement. Add more beefy hardware for the infotainment system. Ford is riding on a ton of hype and publicity right now. As other auto makers enter the market they could see their market share shrink if they have a repeat of Sync MyFord Touch. Ford is not just selling a car they are selling hardware\software. People love it when things just work.
  9. Updates listed in infotainment system are for Sync only. Would be nice to know versions of other components. As a tech guy I like to know this info.
  10. Stop the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality. I’ve seen several others post on this forum about how the disparity between module versions on various cars is vast. This increases troubleshooting time and adds way too many variables for solving an issue. Ford should ask their IT support guys how they feel about having disparity between workstations. If you have all workstations patched to the same level you now limit how many variables are involved with troubleshooting an issue. Ford needs to start looking at their software in this method. Old school auto mentality is not going to cut it if they want to remain competitive. Also, provide system OS version info instead of just Sync version info.
Really great writeup. Thanks for taking the time to do it. I agree with so much of it, especially the software and Sync points. I've been frustrated with the "fit" between my phone and the Mach-E. Android Auto is a hot mess and I've abandoned it until Google & Ford execute on their new alliance, whatever it may be.

I'm taking a road trip in 7 days from the SF Bay Area to the Manhattan Beach area in SoCal. Your tips on trip planning and charging are especially great. This will be my first time to do on-the-road charging and I appreciate your advice. I didn't know about ABRP at all -- started playing with it last night and I can definitely see how it will be indispensable. Otherwise I would have depended on the Ford nav app to find chargers, which clearly isn't the best option right now.

Thanks again!
 
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MJMachForum

MJMachForum

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I'm surprised you made it to Hermiston from Huntington since you have to cross the Blues.

What would make me feel much better is if there were decent DCFC stations in Baker City and Pendleton. California has a plethora of options on I-5 and 99 in the Central Valley. Hopefully soon!
There is about 160 miles between Huntington and Hermiston. That section tons of opportunities for regen as you coast down sections. I don’t remember losing very much battery during that run.

Im not certain what would be the best spot to add more chargers. I know Le Grande has some chargers that I bypassed to get to Hermiston. Cali had the best infrastructure of the states I visited.
 
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MJMachForum

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Model 3 owner here. Thanks for the excellent write up - I didn't find it verbose at all! Sounds like EA's network is coming along nicely.

You mentioned some mild range anxiety due to elevation changes. Was the next charger at higher elevation? I ask because when crossing the Smokies on a recent trip, we regained most of the energy lost climbing on the way down.

Still hoping Ford (or Tesla) will produce a convertible. I miss the wind blowing through what's left of my hair when I drove my late great (gas-powered) Mustang.

Thanks again - great post!
Glad I could share my perspective. Most of the anxiety was due to the DCFC scarceness in some stretches of highway. If one of the chargers I had to use were out I’d be waiting a long time for a charge. I checked PlugeShare for status and validate before I left previous charging stop.

I’m sure it’s a matter time before BEVs are convertibles. Once battery tech and motors get more range and efficiency, then they will have larger buffers so that range with the top down doesn’t strand you.
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