San Jose to LA trip -- not so good

RyZt

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I did 2 trips (SF to LA and SF to SD) shortly after I got my Mach E ER AWD.

Both trips went flawlessly. No stress involved.

1. I used ABRP. The built-in nav sometimes choose the right charge stations, but not always. In my opinion, the built-in nav isn't worth using.
2. I followed traffic, often driving 80mph or higher. Despite so, my Mach E still beats (drive farther than) ABRP's default profile of Mach E.
3. Use PlugShare to check the stations before you go. Panoche Shell and Countryside Market Shell are indeed two important stops. However, it's OK if one of them is down. ABRP knows how to handle it for you. From early April to mid May (my SD trip), Panoche Shell was completely offline for an upgrade (from 4 spots to 6).
* You don't have to know this because ABRP has the answer. But if you're curious: Harris Ranch is in the middle of the two, but it's a slow EA station (50kW). Mach E can reach that point coming from either LA or SF side. Charge for 20 minutes there will allow you to reach Gilroy Premium outlet (going to SF) or Countryside Market (going to LA) with plenty of safety margins.

You don't need to plan ahead of time. Right before your trip starts, use ABRP and PlugShare on your phone. It's a few more minutes at the beginning of the trip.

Now, everyone's different. I look forward to that charging stop when I'm 60-90 minutes into a segment. I want to stop and stretch, eat some snack. So charging stop isn't a negative to me. But that's a personal preference, and your choice may be different.
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Eosin

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I am pretty excited about my family's current setup as a combination of pure EV with the Mach E and a PHEV minivan.

The Mach e will get a lot of use, but when we take long road trips, which we do frequently, we will use the Pacifica Hybrid with a ton of space, dual back seat screens, and the ability to avoid charging stations.
 
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mwsno

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2. I followed traffic, often driving 80mph or higher. Despite so, my Mach E still beats (drive farther than) ABRP's default profile of Mach E by a lot.
Out of curiosity, how's the acceleration above 80?
 


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Quite Frankly, Ford and all other manufacturers EV marketing materials do not tell you about the "cons" or let's say "challenges" of EV ownership, which are all well highlighted here. Folks are on their own when it comes to that. It is just a different experience that you must adapt to. I can just imagine what original Leaf Owners in New England discovered when their 80 mile range became 53 or less miles in the Winter. And when degredation set in, 43, 33, 23 miles.
Yep, I learned a lesson, a rule of thumb driving on interstate in CA is 1/2 (or lower if you are in AZ ?) of the EPA range.
 

HuntingPudel

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I used to drive relatively fast. I’ve made it door to door from my house on the Peninsula to a friend’s in Glendora in a really stupid amount of time. Since buying my Fusion PHEV, I don’t generally drive like that any more. I’m always trying to make the battery last as long as possible. When I get in my gas cars, I tend to fall back into old habits.

I am a little leery of taking a long trip in the Mach-E that I don’t even have a production week for. Doesn’t mean I am not going to try at some point.
 

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* You don't have to know this because ABRP has the answer. But if you're curious: Harris Ranch is in the middle of the two, but it's a slow EA station (50kW).
A note from EA in plug share says Harris Ranch will be updated to 150kW this month. Doesn't says when it will be done.
 

Totallyford

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Yes it is. But I'm actually less disappointed than people here think. I was looking for an adventure and I got it, in spades, some adrenalin is good, driving my wife's SUV is predictable and boring ?
For our trip from WA to MONTANA 1400 mi rt. I set it up in fordpass trips. Go to maps, tap where are you going, select trip. You can select filters to set ea fast chargers only as well as network chargers. Plug in your destination , starting point. It will plan your chg stops, how long to chg at that stop, what soc you should have when you arrive at the next chg station. Send your trip to your car. In your car select nav, select my trips, choose your trip and your good to go. It took us to each ev America without a hitch. Only issue was you can't do rd trip. You have to plan the trip in reverse or just stop at the same places. It worked great and gives you a complete chg log of your trip. I may have left out a step or two but just go to maps in FordPass and play around with it, that how I did it. Good luck on next trip.
 
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Like it or not, Tesla supercharger network is currently still the best for long road trips. The only downside is if you are going to a popular destination during a busy weekend there can be a 30+ minute wait for charging.

Superchargers are everywhere and they just work. Also, the navigation on teslas are a lot better right now taking into consideration charging stops.

Ford/EA/Other charging networks are catching up, but I'm not surprised if it will take at least a few years. Early adopter pains for non-teslas, but I'm confident the infrastructure will catch up as more manufactures produce EVs and invest in charging networks.

Truth is, the average user is not going online looking up forums or abettertripplanner or using 3rd party websites to plan their trips. They expect to plug the address into the nav and have the car tell them where to go. So when looking at Tesla that experience is much easier and simpler. If we want to push for mainstream EV adoption, carmakers will have to make sure their nav systems get better with route planning and EV charging stations become more prevalent.

Think - one day the hope is to hop into an EV and drive around without worrying about range or where to charge. They will be available just as gas stations are. If I'm going on a road trip in a gas car, I'm never going to worry much about my range or where I can fuel up - unless its some remote area where I want to fill up before I enter the forest/desert/etc... or carry extra gas.

Also, fast charging is NOT cheap and is compatible with gas prices. But the draw of EVs are you never have to pay for 3rd party charging if you are just using it for daily use and charge at home.
 

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Personally, I feel like PHEVs are a compromise made of sacrifices. But if they suit your needs, then that's awesome!
Crossovers mean compromises. Even the Mach E is a sacrifice of ground clearance, range and maybe storage space compared to some other options. Even the luxury one's usually sacrifice something, often a terrible UI for the infotainment, gas mileage and high maintenance costs.
 

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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.
1623116515014.png
My Mache e shows the distance to destination right below the remaining range. I have found it to be quite accurate at 75 mph. For my long trips, I drive my Chevy Volt and reserve the MME for trips of under 300 mi, which is almost all of them.
 
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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.
1623116515014.png
I’ve been driving EV for 5 years got Mach-E last week and easily got to 320 miles per charge. Extended premium all wheel. Also I had no trouble having app take me to free chargers per Ford Access
 
 




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