San Jose to LA trip -- not so good

RedStallion

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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.
Ford Mustang Mach-E San Jose to LA trip -- not so good 1623116515014
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Issue #1: You must not drive so fast if you want so spend less time at a charging station.
Fast? Are you kidding? That's an average of the traffic, even large trucks are driving 70 mph. Fast would be at least 90 mph.
 

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I agree the Ford Navigation does a lousy job when it comes to adding chargers to a Navigation route. I find it’s much more efficient to plan the route and plan the chargers ahead of time. I’ve taken a 2,000 and 3,000 mile road trip with MME and have had no issues. But I planned all my charging stops ahead of time and then navigated to each of the chargers along the route. This is much more effective.

When it comes to cost paying the $4.00 Pass+ EA membership cost makes sense as you will recoup that in your first charging session. And you can cancel that plan at anytime. So I only pay for that plan when I’m going on a road trip. EA chargers are expensive but if only used on road trips the overall cost of an EV is still much cheaper than a ICE vehicle.
 

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I was gonna go to LA and then vegas from San Jose. Decided to fly instead. Looks like I made the right choice.

Ford should be looking at Tesla for this.
 


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Interesting. We drove N from SJ to Portland, there are EA charging stations every 30 to 50 mi. We either used the EA app or ABRP. 80 mph into a strong wind will probably get you close to 2.2 mi/ kWhr. You can adjust all these apps to only use 150kW chargers so you don’t wind up at any of those crappy chargepoint stations.
 

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Sorry to hear about this, that Ford navigation thing about it skipping all other chargers after the first stop is concerning.

I do not think all chargers are created equal and would definitely take EA stops over others from what people have written on here. I would strongly recommend playing around with a phone app or website (like ABRP or PlugShare) before the trip to figure out where you should stop ahead of time and read the reviews on the stops to make sure the chargers are rated as usually working if it is suggesting a non-EA stop.

You’re definitely right that fast charging isn’t really cost effective. You make your major cost savings when you are charging at home.

As far as the GOM goes, I don’t know if the Mach-E’s (or really any car’s) GOM is smart enough to figure out that you are on a road trip and give you a range based on current driving instead of averaging recent driving.

I’m not sure which Mach-E variant you have, but you can figure out if you are meeting, beating, or falling short of the EPA range based on the following kWh per mile figures, which your trip info page displays while driving:

SR AWD - 3.1 kWh per mile (3.1 kWh per mile * 68 kWh battery = 210.8 miles)
SR RWD - 3.4 kWh per mile (3.4 kWh per mile * 68 kWh battery = 231.2 miles)
ER AWD - 3.1 kWh per mile (3.1 kWh per mile * 88 kWh battery = 272.8 miles)
ER RWD - 3.4 kWh per mile (3.4 kWh per mile * 88 kWh battery = 299.2 miles)
CA RT 1 - 3.5 kWh per mile (3.5 kWh per mile * 88 kWh battery = 308 miles)
 

Daniel M

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Fast? Are you kidding? That's an average of the traffic, even large trucks are driving 70 mph. Fast would be at least 90 mph.
You might want to stick to ICE if you want to drive at those speeds. No current EV will be able to handle those speeds for extended periods of time.
 
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I’m not sure which Mach-E variant you have, but you can figure out if you are meeting, beating, or falling short of the EPA range based on the following kWh per mile figures, which your trip info page displays while driving:

SR AWD - 3.1 kWh per mile (3.1 kWh per mile * 68 kWh battery = 210.8 miles)
SR RWD - 3.4 kWh per mile (3.4 kWh per mile * 68 kWh battery = 231.2 miles)
ER AWD - 3.1 kWh per mile (3.1 kWh per mile * 88 kWh battery = 272.8 miles)
ER RWD - 3.4 kWh per mile (3.4 kWh per mile * 88 kWh battery = 299.2 miles)
CA RT 1 - 3.5 kWh per mile (3.5 kWh per mile * 88 kWh battery = 308 miles)
Those numbers are fine for mixed city/highway driving. I actually averaged anywhere from 3.3 to 3.5 in different days. But it's way too optimistic for long trips on interstate where you drive 80 mph most of the time. My car is AWD SR, so it has the shortest range. But for that trip it wouldn't make any difference for any other configuration, you can't make it without those two stops anyway, though you would have a bigger margin for any errors or unforeseen circumstances. I think when EA decided where to put the chargers they calculated the real range and came up with those two places, basically they did minimum still making it practical.

For my car driving on I-5 at desired speed, the efficiency was about 2.1 mi/kWh. Taking into account that you can only reasonably charge the battery to 80%, the range becomes about 114 miles. A better weather conditions can improve it, but you can't really travel like that hoping that everything will go right. Only when they put fast chargers everywhere where gas stations are now the situation will change.

Another problem is the 80% cliff. There was an E-tron charging next to me and it was going almost at the same speed as mine while charging over 80%.
 

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...which we used to travel to LA before and naturally had no problems.

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.

Ford navigation took me to the ChargePoint chargers, none of which wanted to charge my car.

I was also misled by the Ford navigation on the way to LA (perhaps I don't understand how it's working).

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.

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.

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.
Did you post this as a joke?

Do you take any personal responsibility for PLANNING or not planning a trip in a vehicle that appears unfamiliar to you?

The GOM is just that a guess-o-meter.

Did you spend time getting to know your Mach-E before taking it on a road-trip?

My takeaway from your post is- Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Ford's not at fault here.

I hope that your next road-trip brings you more joy. The MME is a great car, fun to drive but the driver must do his/her part to realize energy efficiency and stress-free travels.
 

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Those numbers are fine for mixed city/highway driving. I actually averaged anywhere from 3.3 to 3.5 in different days. But it's way too optimistic for long trips on interstate where you drive 80 mph most of the time. My car is AWD SR, so it has the shortest range. But for that trip it wouldn't make any difference for any other configuration, you can't make it without those two stops anyway, though you would have a bigger margin for any errors or unforeseen circumstances. I think when EA decided where to put the chargers they calculated the real range and came up with those two places, basically they did minimum still making it practical.

For my car driving on I-5 at desired speed, the efficiency was about 2.1 mi/kWh. Taking into account that you can only reasonably charge the battery to 80%, the range becomes about 114 miles. A better weather conditions can improve it, but you can't really travel like that hoping that everything will go right. Only when they put fast chargers everywhere where gas stations are now the situation will change.

Another problem is the 80% cliff. There was an E-tron charging next to me and it was going almost at the same speed as mine while charging over 80%.
I agree, I have the same variant. For the miles per kWh (realized I wrote that backwards before), I meant it can be used as a handy way to figure out how far you will get relatively early in your trip before it is apparent your miles are dropping too fast. Like if you see you are getting 2.0 miles per kWh on the AWD SR 15 minutes into your drive, you can estimate that you will only get about 2/3s of the EPA range if you keep moving at that level of battery drain.
 

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My car is AWD SR, so it has the shortest range
Start from home at 100%. If you’re thinking a realistic range on I-5 through the Central Valley is 136 miles based upon a 100% battery and 2.1 miles per kWh, you’re probably going to want to stop roughly at 90 miles for a charge. Run it up to 80% to avoid the cliff, then input the next 150 or better charge station into the nav and take off. Plan on stopping around 30% for a bit of a margin until you’re far more comfortable with the various charge stations and road tripping in the SR MME. Wash, rinse, repeat until you’re at the destination.

Yes that means you’ll always be working with only 50% of the useable battery, but it will allow a safety margin and a comfort factor.

Preflight planning is essential to these trips. EA is not Supercharger, and others can be much worse. Use ABRP to plan the route and stops and filter for 150 or above.

And yeah, join the “club” with EA before any trip once your 250 or 500 kWh is used up. Drop it afterwards.

Sorry the trip went poorly electron wise. It’ll get better.
 
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Start from home at 100%. If you’re thinking a realistic range on I-5 through the Central Valley is 136 miles based upon a 100% battery and 2.1 miles per kWh, you’re probably going to want to stop roughly at 90 miles for a charge. Run it up to 80% to avoid the cliff, then input the next 150 or better charge station into the nav and take off. Plan on stopping around 30% for a bit of a margin until you’re far more comfortable with the various charge stations and road tripping in the SR MME. Wash, rinse, repeat until you’re at the destination.

Yes that means you’ll always be working with only 50% of the useable battery, but it will allow a safety margin and a comfort factor.

Preflight planning is essential to these trips. EA is not Supercharger, and other can be much worse. Use ABRP to plan the route and stops and filter for 150 or above.

And yeah, join the “club” with EA before any trip once your 250 or 500 kWh is used up. Drop it afterwards.

Sorry the trip went poorly electron wise. It’ll get better.
It wasn't a bad trip despite the setbacks and it was a learning curve for me. As to planning the trip, now I know that there are only two EA charging locations, no matter what MME trim you have they are essential. What I didn't expect was that the real life range on an interstate would be almost half of the EPA. And it was only 95F outside, an ordinary windy day, a rather light traffic. I remember driving from Texas to California a few years ago in my old gas guzzler and having no problems with AC blasting on full power and car going 100 mph on long stretches in the desert. I still like my Mach-E, but I think I won't be driving long distances in it.
 

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It wasn't a bad trip despite the setbacks and it was a learning curve for me. As to planning the trip, now I know that there are only two EA charging locations, no matter what MME trim you have they are essential. What I didn't expect was that the real life range on an interstate would be almost half of the EPA. And it was only 95F outside, an ordinary windy day, a rather light traffic. I remember driving from Texas to California a few years ago in my old gas guzzler and having no problems with AC blasting on full power and car going 100 mph on long stretches in the desert. I still like my Mach-E, but I think I won't be driving long distances in it.
Yeah, that’s a bit odd. When I was looking at taking delivery in the Bay Area, I thought I’d drive it up to Idaho to visit my folks. I-5 north has EA stations roughly every 75 miles as was pointed out early in the thread. There needs to be some serious upgrading of this route by the Cheaters in Chief (Volkswagen).

95F? I used to live in Fresno. That’s sweater weather this time if the year. ;)
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