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A few observations from my weekend trip to LA. I had a choice of taking my wife's SUV, which we used to travel to LA before and naturally had no problems. Though I was concerned about charging we decided to try my MME anyway to get an idea what it's like to travel in EV.
First, (I should have researched that beforehand) there are two EA charging stations on I-5 that are absolutely essential: Panoche Shell and Countryside Market Shell. As far as I know if you miss any of those there are no other EA stations on the route and you are going to be in trouble. On the way back from LA, for whatever reason Ford navigation took me to the ChargePoint chargers, none of which wanted to charge my car. I used both my phone and CP card to initiate the charging and nothing worked. Those stations are awful, the ancient two line display only shows something like ERROR # and check the CP application. The cell phone data was unreliable and slow at that place and I had trouble using their app. Adding insult to injury, CP sent a warning that I will be charged $0.2/min after 15 min for parking without charging. I had to search for EA station and go 10 miles back, while the battery charge was rather low.
I was also misled by the Ford navigation on the way to LA (perhaps I don't understand how it's working). As I was leaving home, it did set the stops for charging, so I though I was all set, but after the first charge I apparently needed to set the next charging again. I assumed it would take me to the second charger and it didn't. I realized the problem only after the car flashed 10% battery warning. At that time the navigation was taking me to LA while I had about 15 miles of the charge left. Who designs a navigation app that doesn't warn the user that he won't make it to the destination without charging? It should have been flashing red right away. Anyway, I searched for the nearest charger while driving 80mph and it showed I passed one 10 miles back and the next exit was about another 1+ miles away. By that time the GOM showed 12 miles left. I thought I was screwed. I dropped the speed to 60mph, turned off the AC, and navigated to the charger arriving with 1 mile on GOM left. Fortunately the charger worked fine.
Another flaw in Ford navigation is their unreasonable assumptions about efficiency. I was driving on I-5 at 80 mph (an average speed of the traffic), there was a strong wind, as it often happens on that stretch of the road. The GOM showed more than 40 miles margin in the beginning, which I noticed was quickly disappearing as I was driving. When it dropped to 15 miles with still 60 miles to the charger I suspected I might not make it. I had to reduce AC and drop the speed, at about 71 mph the GOM stopped bleeding miles. At that point the car showed 2.2mi/kWh. I was humiliated by large trucks passing me.
A few words about the EA chargers. The plug-and-charge mostly worked. The first EA charger faulted after initiating charging almost immediately. Another one didn't recognize the car and demanded payment. One charger dropped power to about 50kW, but following the advice of other people here, I disconnected and reconnected and the power went up to 110kW and then settled around 90kW. The other four chargers I used during the trip worked fine. I haven't used any charger that would go about 110kW even for a few minutes. In LA I charged at the Target plaza, and some idiots blocked the chargers. Two cars parked taking all the space so I couldn't get to the third charger. I got lucky and while I was thinking about my options the Target employee took carts away allowing me to squeeze to the third charger under "No Parking" sign.
Now a few words about the cost of the interstate travel (after using free kWh). Currently EA charges 43c/kWh for nonmembers. Using 2.2mi/kWh as a reasonable approximation, the cost becomes 19.5c/mi. I saw $4.29/gal prices on the gas station, it might be more or less in other places. At that price the EV equivalent efficiency is a paltry 22 miles per gallon. When we traveled to LA in my wife's full size SUV last time we had 29 miles per gallon and had to stop only once to get gas. The moral of this story, it's really stupid idea travel large distances in EV, only additional inconveniences and it costs more.
P.S. I met three other Mach-Es while charging, the most I've seen so far.
First, (I should have researched that beforehand) there are two EA charging stations on I-5 that are absolutely essential: Panoche Shell and Countryside Market Shell. As far as I know if you miss any of those there are no other EA stations on the route and you are going to be in trouble. On the way back from LA, for whatever reason Ford navigation took me to the ChargePoint chargers, none of which wanted to charge my car. I used both my phone and CP card to initiate the charging and nothing worked. Those stations are awful, the ancient two line display only shows something like ERROR # and check the CP application. The cell phone data was unreliable and slow at that place and I had trouble using their app. Adding insult to injury, CP sent a warning that I will be charged $0.2/min after 15 min for parking without charging. I had to search for EA station and go 10 miles back, while the battery charge was rather low.
I was also misled by the Ford navigation on the way to LA (perhaps I don't understand how it's working). As I was leaving home, it did set the stops for charging, so I though I was all set, but after the first charge I apparently needed to set the next charging again. I assumed it would take me to the second charger and it didn't. I realized the problem only after the car flashed 10% battery warning. At that time the navigation was taking me to LA while I had about 15 miles of the charge left. Who designs a navigation app that doesn't warn the user that he won't make it to the destination without charging? It should have been flashing red right away. Anyway, I searched for the nearest charger while driving 80mph and it showed I passed one 10 miles back and the next exit was about another 1+ miles away. By that time the GOM showed 12 miles left. I thought I was screwed. I dropped the speed to 60mph, turned off the AC, and navigated to the charger arriving with 1 mile on GOM left. Fortunately the charger worked fine.
Another flaw in Ford navigation is their unreasonable assumptions about efficiency. I was driving on I-5 at 80 mph (an average speed of the traffic), there was a strong wind, as it often happens on that stretch of the road. The GOM showed more than 40 miles margin in the beginning, which I noticed was quickly disappearing as I was driving. When it dropped to 15 miles with still 60 miles to the charger I suspected I might not make it. I had to reduce AC and drop the speed, at about 71 mph the GOM stopped bleeding miles. At that point the car showed 2.2mi/kWh. I was humiliated by large trucks passing me.
A few words about the EA chargers. The plug-and-charge mostly worked. The first EA charger faulted after initiating charging almost immediately. Another one didn't recognize the car and demanded payment. One charger dropped power to about 50kW, but following the advice of other people here, I disconnected and reconnected and the power went up to 110kW and then settled around 90kW. The other four chargers I used during the trip worked fine. I haven't used any charger that would go about 110kW even for a few minutes. In LA I charged at the Target plaza, and some idiots blocked the chargers. Two cars parked taking all the space so I couldn't get to the third charger. I got lucky and while I was thinking about my options the Target employee took carts away allowing me to squeeze to the third charger under "No Parking" sign.
Now a few words about the cost of the interstate travel (after using free kWh). Currently EA charges 43c/kWh for nonmembers. Using 2.2mi/kWh as a reasonable approximation, the cost becomes 19.5c/mi. I saw $4.29/gal prices on the gas station, it might be more or less in other places. At that price the EV equivalent efficiency is a paltry 22 miles per gallon. When we traveled to LA in my wife's full size SUV last time we had 29 miles per gallon and had to stop only once to get gas. The moral of this story, it's really stupid idea travel large distances in EV, only additional inconveniences and it costs more.
P.S. I met three other Mach-Es while charging, the most I've seen so far.
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