Terrible Highway mileage!

[hawkeye3point1]

Speed tolerance? What is that? Is that a setting in the Navigation system?

Refers to Speed Limit sign recognition, the setting in Sync that allows cruise @ posted limits with a user selected additional X mph.

Sponsored

 

[Ron Bonifas]

Most posters here have AWD and less efficient wheels. I get that on flat ground. I did a trip Phoenix to Grand Canyon, which involves a 6000 ft climb and got 3 mile/kwh.

I have always been amazed how much highway efficiency increases by tucking in behind large trucks traveling at 65mph (believe many UPS, FedEx and others are limited to 65 mph) set following distance to 1 bar, engage blue cruise and watch efficiency climb to well over 3 mi/kwh. Maybe not the most funny way to go, but I just chill out, relax and no worries about range especially if not in pinch for time. Having to add a stop to charge would take longer than slowing up a bit.

 

[Scarpia]

I have always been amazed how much highway efficiency increases by tucking in behind large trucks traveling at 65mph...

Yes, a great tactic, but beware of trucks throwing up rocks. Windshields are expensive.

 

[rmillis]

162 miles? lofl...

I think I left Austin 70% charged so I cut it close. Final 20 minutes I turned off AC and drove like a normal person to hopefully get home lol

 

[SnBGC]

Refers to Speed Limit sign recognition, the setting in Sync that allows cruise @ posted limits with a user selected additional X mph.

Oh okay. Thanks. That is the Intelligent Cruise choice.....correct? I don't use that. Speed limit is the same here almost everywhere. 65 mph on the highway and 45 mph on surface streets.

 

[rpr]

(First, apologies for the lack of a reference here. It's out there somewhere, I just didn't find it with a quick search.)

There was an interesting article a while back, I think it was on one of the EV sites like insideevs or another. What they did was calculate actual trip time as a function of highway speed for a trip that required at least one charging stop. There are of course many variables, but what they did was assume easy access to fast chargers, and a realistic charging rate based on what people typically can count on getting (not the "ideal" charging rate we rarely get). I don't recall what vehicle they assumed, might have been a Tesla. What they showed was that driving faster above a certain highway speed can actually cost you time.

As others have pointed out, at high speeds aerodynamic drag goes up rapidly (square of velocity) so the time saved with speed really costs energy. And given the limitations on even fairly fast charging, you end up losing more time to charging than you gained with speed. I routinely do a trip that's about 340mi, almost all highway, so even with the ER battery I have to stop for a ~50% recharge. My takeaway from the calculations in this article was that I might as well hold it to 70mph or so, because even if I can go faster without ticket risk in some sections, I'd simply lose the time I gained to the need for a longer charging stop, maybe more if I don't get a good charger.

I'll try to find the article later, but for now, YMMV, as they say.

 

[Scc18603]

Hi
So I have been reading through the thread and I think I might have a point of view.

So speed is bad on a road trip… and yet it is called a Mustang. Sure Ok.
A good majority of us are first time ev owners and look at a display giving you a range that is nowhere near what the sticker said, and try to explain physics to our significant others about why the car isn’t going to come close.

We are comming from ICE cars that have a supporting infrastructure to refuel every 5 feet, and a refuel time of 5 minute. While possibly live in a changing desert as I do in Northeast PA with a refuel time of an hour, and not to full.

So we ordered a car that supposedly went up to 247 miles and you have to try to arrive at a charger with 10 to 20 miles left just in case the charger is broke / full or whatever. When we fill it on the trip you only go to 80% or you should have walked to your destination. So best case on a good day if the planets aligned you get to drive 150 miles in between hour charging stops. Again this is Mustang?
So was Ford trying to perfect the old Fails on race day joke With the don’t go fast and your going to have a terrible pit time Mustang.

I am not even going to discuss all the talk about HVAC. Your brain has an id10t error if you think driving a car without hvac in the winter is acceptable to make your destination. Please I want to be the fly on the wall as you tell you wife, or children you can’t run the heat or defrost because you might not make it home. What is this the Mustang horse and buggy with the smallpox blanket ride in Central Park… Common Man They have to do better.

We all spent upwards of 50k for this car, we should expect more.

Now I love ,my Mach e. I think it is cool and fun.
I did one 265 mile road trip. From Pa to Princeton NJ. I charged to 75% in Philadelphia on the way back. Car said it had 172 miles and the rest of them trip was 121. At the Highway exit I got the you might not make your destination message no chargers near by. (Made it home but not fun having the wife think she’s walking down the highway to a service station)

Back and forth in town to work and errands ok, It maybe a Mustang but it is definitely not a road trip car.
Vacation time is too valuable to waste charging.

Yes I know I should have bought a bigger battery car, but PA to Flordia 7 stops of 30 to 40 min.. that’s nuts.

Finally the GOM.
Here is my problem. When I first got my car, it wasn’t charged at the dealer and the first drive home was range anxiety. After charging it to 100% at home the GOM said 196. In my warm garage. I have never seen the 247 number there that my select advertised.

I get all the reasons, but seriously a car that can do all this cool stuff CAN WE JUST GET SOME OF WHAT SHOULD BE SIMPLER AND CALMING A LITTLE MORE ACCURATE. I not asking a lot just a descent realistic fuel guage.

Mach e owners are going to hold standup comedy acts about their cars.

 

[Stimulant]

I saw this thread earlier while I was on a break and didn’t have a chance to reply. You’ve probably quit reading by now but just in case it helps, I wanted to let you know how I play the range game.
You’ve undoubtedly realized that speeds in excess of 55 MPH or so will not get you EPA standard guesses. You’ve also realized that highway speeds won’t yield range equal to the GOM (unless you ALWAYS drive 80MPH everywhere you go).
My driving is widely varied. Making my GOM completely worthless. What I resort to doing is setting my destination in my navigation app of choice. This morning my destination was 202 miles away. The GOM showed 253 miles of range. In a perfect world I should have 51 miles remaining when I get to my destination. So I check every once in a while. Is the difference going down? And how fast? Especially when getting close to a fast charger. When I passed one fast charger, I had driven 50 miles. Distance to destination is down to 150 miles. Range is showing 195 miles. My difference is down to 45 miles. So I’m using battery a little faster than the GOM predicted originally. But I’m pretty confident because over another 150 miles (3 times the distance already traveled) that would leave me using another 15 miles off my excess. So probably arrive home with 30 miles range left. It’s not the 51 miles excess I was originally quoted, but it’s enough.
Next charger I come to is 60 miles from my destination. GOM shows 87 miles. Again, battery is going down a little quicker than GOM predicted but I’m showing 27 miles of excess range. And I’ve only used up 24 miles of excess range in the last 140 miles.
I just play a game where I don’t really care about the charge. I do t really care about the GOM. I care about the delta between my waypoint and my GOM. If the delta is getting smaller, I can slow down or alter my charging plan as needed.

Exactly what I did recently. Noted my starting range, found miles to destination, and calculated buffer miles/miles remaining at the end. Kept an eye on it. If it was dropping faster than I was comfortable, I slowed down (or turned off heat, etc). Ended my trip with about 10 miles of range remaining (started the trip with around 30-50 calculated buffer miles) and researched the "oh crap" chargers available before my trip, just in case. This was in winter, having just got the car.

 

[KCole21]

Man, numbers are all over the board here. I am highly skeptical of anyone claiming to get better than 3mi/kWh at 75mph+. Maybe with optimal temp, no HVAC, no passengers, and a massive tailwind, but that is not realistic.

2.5mi/kWh is more realistic at highway speeds, but you can count on that dropping to 2 or even lower if the battery is cold, you're carrying a lot of extra weight, or you're driving into a headwind. Welcome to the joys of road-tripping with the MME. This is the cost of driving a car that isn't shaped like a dorkmobile.

I have a 21 Premium RWD EXT. Yesterday I had to make a trip from Glendale, CA to Solvang, CA for a 15 minute meeting. Google maps was saying it would be about 133 miles to Solvang. Charged it to 100% the night before and left with the GOM saying I had 303 miles (I never put much into this). Trip there took me exactly 2 hrs 10 min and my SoC was 56% averaging 3.5 mi/kwh. I was going between 75-85 mph the whole way and it was probably 60 degrees.

Charged it to 85% while there and headed back. It took 2 hr 11 min back and my SoC was at 36% when I got home. I did take a longer route distance wise on the way back but it was shorter in time. I was going between 75-85 mph the whole way back too and I was averaging 3.1 mi/kWh (honestly it could have been 3.3, but I clearly remember it was above 3 mi/kWh).

Only reason I know this is because I texted my wife my status as she wanted to compare it to her GV60. I wrote this up just to let you know while it sounds unlikely, it is possible to average more than 3 mi/kwh 75 mph+ depending on conditions. Solvang is normally a 2.5 hr drive for us. Since I was by myself I was definitely pushing it more.

 

[EVnewbie3000]

on the highway at cruising speed does AWD and RWD have the same efficiency? The front motors should not be drawing power right? My understanding was the AWD engages at low speeds or accelerating or am I wrong?

 

[bbulkow]

I'm saying the the starting range is inaccurate. I'm simply asking for tips on highway driving not smart a$$ remarks. This was my first trip. I thought the Forum would be helpful? ?

Helpful? Internet forum? Yeah kinda

Here's a helpful comment. Bring up the charging panel while you're driving. You'll find percentages for driving, "exterior temp" (which is heating the battery), accessories, climate control. And you'll find four bars for acceleration, deceleration, and speed.

Obviously for maximum range you want 100% driving, but you can't do anything about exterior temperature except drive south. Climate control I usually try to keep at about 3% or less, it ends up 15% on short trips where I only go 10 miles and it's cold and I'm feeling wimpy. You will be shocked how much range you can burn on climate control. I find the most pleasant setting is heat off, ac off, fan on, low, and I wish there was an "auto" setting that would "do the right thing" but never turn on ac or heat.

For the lower bars and freeway driving, you expect acceleration decelleration to be about 95%. Speed is what can get you since the mache is such a smooth driving quiet car. Mine shows *much* better numbers at 63 compared to 73.

 

[Just Lurking]

I routinely do a trip that's about 340mi, almost all highway, so even with the ER battery I have to stop for a ~50% recharge. My takeaway from the calculations in this article was that I might as well hold it to 70mph or so, because even if I can go faster without ticket risk in some sections, I'd simply lose the time I gained to the need for a longer charging stop, maybe more if I don't get a good charger.

I wonder how much more range you could squeeze out if you went 50mph? Obviously below a certain speed it's unsafe, and for some fast-moving highways the speed that feels safe might be 60mph or more. But in a theoretical world when minimum speed wasn't an issue, it's interesting to consider just how slow you would need to go to make it without charging at all, and whether that would save you time over going faster and charging.

 

[MacherAWD]

Oh okay. Thanks. That is the Intelligent Cruise choice.....correct? I don't use that. Speed limit is the same here almost everywhere. 65 mph on the highway and 45 mph on surface streets.

Yes intelligent cruise, but do you do 65 all the time? I have mine set to go 7mph over posted speeds when on cruise

 

[Mirak]

I have a 21 Premium RWD EXT. Yesterday I had to make a trip from Glendale, CA to Solvang, CA for a 15 minute meeting. Google maps was saying it would be about 133 miles to Solvang. Charged it to 100% the night before and left with the GOM saying I had 303 miles (I never put much into this). Trip there took me exactly 2 hrs 10 min and my SoC was 56% averaging 3.5 mi/kwh. I was going between 75-85 mph the whole way and it was probably 60 degrees.

Charged it to 85% while there and headed back. It took 2 hr 11 min back and my SoC was at 36% when I got home. I did take a longer route distance wise on the way back but it was shorter in time. I was going between 75-85 mph the whole way back too and I was averaging 3.1 mi/kWh (honestly it could have been 3.3, but I clearly remember it was above 3 mi/kWh).

You should get about 0.3kWH better than me because of RWD versus AWD. That’s why your range is rated 30 miles better than mine with the same battery. The rest of the difference is called “California.”

 

[Benny’66]

I'm saying the the starting range is inaccurate. I'm simply asking for tips on highway driving not smart a$$ remarks. This was my first trip. I thought the Forum would be helpful? ?

I haven’t read through all 5 pages yet, but a tip I have is definitely monitor your tire pressures. Highway trip, stay on the higher side of the psi range.

Sponsored