Love road tripping this car

[imstriker]

I can be a bit doubtful on here sometimes, so I wanted to balance it by saying how much I love road trips in this car. Heading up to Milwaukee for a Brewers game from Indy. ABRP is way pessimistic for this car. We totally skipped one of it's recommended charges after being 18% higher then it expected there.

Cruised into Chicago for a charge. Car was pretty much charged back to 80 before we even sat down for lunch. Just love it..

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[RickMachE]

You can either move the slider during the trip to match the % left or go into settings and change the miles per kW default.

At 73 with AC running we averaged 2.88.

 

[TRP]

I've road tripped a lot with mine. Going back to MD Monday from TN and then back on Wednesday.

Very comfortable on trips. I usually set the cruise at 70mph and just go. Getting 3.3 average. On that long stretch of I81 going north I get 3.3-3.5, on the return it gets 2.8-3.3......I guess it's a little more uphill going south.

No issues getting charged at the EA stations along the way and they are all pretty fast. Been averaging about 30min per stop....so I can't complain

 

[timbop]

go into settings and change the miles per kW default.

THIS. That's the beauty of ABRP: it is highly configurable. I've noticed that it miscomputes mi/kwh when it displays the final values, but you can do the math by hand (%charge difference and miles) to validate that it is more accurate after tuning the settings

 

[SnBGC]

I can be a bit doubtful on here sometimes, so I wanted to balance it by saying how much I love road trips in this car. Heading up to Milwaukee for a Brewers game from Indy. ABRP is way pessimistic for this car. We totally skipped one of it's recommended charges after being 18% higher then it expected there.

Cruised into Chicago for a charge. Car was pretty much charged back to 80 before we even sat down for lunch. Just love it..

Agree. I was expecting a little more drama. There was none. Car did great. Pretty much drives itself. I ignored ABRP too because it was going to have me stop twice when I really only needed to stop once and the places it wanted me to stop was undesirable (nothing to do but wait in the car) so I chose my own recharge location where there was adequate shopping and dining.

First leg consumed 72% of the charge and drove 192 miles. Works out to about 26 miles/10% charge. I use that value to figure out when I should charge next. Easy peasy.

So many EA stations here in California. There are 3 or 4 sites with a 10 mile radius of my location at the moment. Very convenient.

 

[AZBill]

Not a fan of ABRP, I have found it does not properly compute higher speed limits and elevation changes. Maybe it works fine for flat roads and 65-70 mph, after you adjust m/kWh.

 

[TruWrecks]

In a few weeks I'll be road tripping my car south to Nevada for a week of driving and enjoying the scenery. I also find the Mach-E very pleasant to drive.

 

[imstriker]

Just to close out my own topic, the MME made for a great weekend. It was not nearly as smooth on the way home, but worked out. Stopped at a Target in Chicago for what was planned to be our only charge. Tried multiple chargers and kept getting capped at around 32 after a minute or two. Got just enough charge to head south to Lafayette, IN. Again, kept getting limited speed but eventually got enough to get home.

As an added bonus, we ended up with an impromptu rally in Lafayette. Three of us charging. I have barely seen one other MME on the road, let alone 3 all together.

 

[SnBGC]

In retrospect, ABRP might have been correct in it's route plan. My trip was Phoenix to San Diego. About half way is Yuma AZ (AZ/CA border) 192 miles from my home and 172 miles from destination in San Diego. ABRP wanted me to charge at the EA station in Dateland AZ (67 miles prior to Yuma) and then again in El Centro California (61 miles after Yuma) which seemed weird to me. I think it did this because there is a huge mountain range after El Centro that sucks the battery down like crazy.

I didn't charge in El Centro and I made it over the mountains fine but leaving a destination with only 80% S.O.C. compared to 100% does throw off my internal range calculations in my head.

So, after some thought......
I came up with a way to coach my brother and brother-in-law when they decide to road trip their Mach-Es. I think they need to learn their magic numbers. Day to Day magic numbers are fine and dandy but road trip consumption is different. For 3 basic reasons....higher speeds, different conditions compared to in town and most times you depart the station with only 80% vs 100% S.O.C.

So, while my day-to-day magic numbers are 3.0/30/300 miles. My road trip numbers are 2.5/25/200. Miles per %, Miles per 10% and Miles per 80% because that is what we normally charge to when on the road. Stations need to be spaced no further than 200 miles part and even that is pushing the limits. It would have to be fairly moderate elevation change and speeds lower than 75 mph to make the jump between stations.

I used exclusively EA stations because of the holiday promotion so once I left Phoenix, the first station was 131 miles from my home. The 2nd station was 67 miles further, 3rd station 61 miles further, 91 miles to the next and then another one 18 miles from my final destination. So, plenty of stations to choose from and they all showed as being online when I looked.

So, why did I deviate from what ABRP wanted me to do? I didn't want to stop in Dateland and El Centro. I don't really like those places. Yuma is a much larger place and there are more dining choices and a Target that I wanted to shop at so I figured it would be better since it was about half way. I arrived with 28% SOC but leaving with only 80% already put me in doubt about reaching my destination. I didn't expect the mountain range to drain my battery as much as it did but there wasn't any range anxiety because I knew there were 3 more opportunities to charge and it was downhill for the last 35 miles anyway.

Still......It would have been wiser to charge in El Centro just to be safe.

At any rate, I came up with some printed guides so I can explain stuff to my brother.
I am sure I left out some important stuff but this gets us started and he can ask questions if he wants.

 

[ncaadam]

Just to close out my own topic, the MME made for a great weekend. It was not nearly as smooth on the way home, but worked out. Stopped at a Target in Chicago for what was planned to be our only charge. Tried multiple chargers and kept getting capped at around 32 after a minute or two. Got just enough charge to head south to Lafayette, IN. Again, kept getting limited speed but eventually got enough to get home.

As an added bonus, we ended up with an impromptu rally in Lafayette. Three of us charging. I have barely seen one other MME on the road, let alone 3 all together.

Awesome! I use that charging station a lot. Live in Chicago, am from Indy. It’s the only DCFC on 65 between Chicago and Indy (which I think is pretty absurd honestly) have never seen another MME there.

I will definitely second the fun and comfort this car provides for road trips. We love it! Went up to lake Geneva then over to Milwaukee this past weekend.

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