ROAD TRIP MUST READ! 1 pedal driving: BAD Destination chargers (even Tesla) GOOD

[TurboC]

Evening all,

I am a VERY happy MachE owner since December, and have already put over 16k miles on it (NOT a typo; 3 big road trips over 3k each!). I've learned some really crucial nuggets to share, so I strongly advise a quick read/verification on this.

**** ONE PEDAL DRIVING DRAINS RANGE! *****

I know there's a lot of enthusiasts on this site, I'm one of them, and for context, my wife is an AeroE at Boeing and I'm a ComputerE; we're science geeks. She literally sat in the passenger seat with a laptop and MS Excel spreadsheets collecting data in our FULLY Loaded MachE (I'm talking 4 bikes, bike rack, 2 kids, full frunk/trunk, we estimated over 900 lbs of total weight including heavy bike rack) and the BEST range we could get over the summer was around 200-220 miles a charge, and thru the mountains getting more like 185. I was super disappointed thinking "man, it MUST be that we're so weighted down". That was certainly a factor, except...the constant? My wife got a TON more range when she started driving the exact same route/weight/conditions...without 1 pedal driving turned on. It was HUGE..

I'm saying it was around 1.8-2.0 kw/mi range to 2.4-2.8 kw/mi range. Over a 91kw battery, and you're going from at the worst, a 164 mile range to 255 miles!! My wife kept saying "you must be a more aggressive driver" and I couldn't believe it, so when I kept the 1 pedal off, BOOM the range went WAY up. I'm now convinced that I can (finally) break the 300 mile barrier when I'm driving solo and without a bunch of stuff in it.

Other things beyond weight of course effect range (i.e. MPH is HUGE; every MPH over 60/65 and you'll see significant range drops) and a smidget to air conditioning and driving habits, but by far the worst results, EVEN ON FULL BLUE CRUISE is with 1 pedal driving. This is coming from an owner who swore by it, loves the feature, still loves it in stop and go city traffic, but will never use it on highway driving again if I'm concerned about range.

I wanted to share this knowledge; please pass it on to others, and also keep logging your trips on PlugShare with your experiences. There were a few chargers in the middle of no where Wyoming/Nebraska where we had some scares, but ultimately the EV community was REALLY good about chiming in.

Oh one other important note on this thread; book your trips with destination chargers in mind. I estimate we saved b/w $125-$175 in charging fees just by booking Hampton Inns with Tesla or non-tesla destination chargers. Getting the Tesla charger adapter worked AMAZING and got all the free juice we could every night, and hit the road with 100% full charge every day, a great bonus. Remember, you CANNOT YET use the Tesla Super Chargers (they are not designed to work with our batteries YET) but the designation chargers at 6-8kw/hr work beautifully with the adapter.

I hope this makes your lives easier; overall we LOVED the road trip (ok I loved it, my wife was less thrilled about charging times at 35 minutes but she'll lives) and bottom line, it 100% can be done with some forward planning and 1 pedal driving turned off.

Happy trails!
Chris aka "Turbo-C", proud MachE Premium AWD owner (with faux carbon fiber detailing because why not).

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[Billyk24]

One pedal driving is like using the "L" gear in the Ford CMax Energi and my previous Escape Hybrid reducing glide distance. Hindering efficiency.

 

[generaltso]

1PD in and of itself isn’t less efficient than driving without it. But if the way you drive with it enabled causes you to use regen when you should be coasting, it will certainly decrease your efficiency.

 

[steveg95]

Evening all,

I am a VERY happy MachE owner since December, and have already put over 16k miles on it (NOT a typo; 3 big road trips over 3k each!). I've learned some really crucial nuggets to share, so I strongly advise a quick read/verification on this.

**** ONE PEDAL DRIVING DRAINS RANGE! *****

I know there's a lot of enthusiasts on this site, I'm one of them, and for context, my wife is an AeroE at Boeing and I'm a ComputerE; we're science geeks. She literally sat in the passenger seat with a laptop and MS Excel spreadsheets collecting data in our FULLY Loaded MachE (I'm talking 4 bikes, bike rack, 2 kids, full frunk/trunk, we estimated over 900 lbs of total weight including heavy bike rack) and the BEST range we could get over the summer was around 200-220 miles a charge, and thru the mountains getting more like 185. I was super disappointed thinking "man, it MUST be that we're so weighted down". That was certainly a factor, except...the constant? My wife got a TON more range when she started driving the exact same route/weight/conditions...without 1 pedal driving turned on. It was HUGE..

I'm saying it was around 1.8-2.0 kw/mi range to 2.4-2.8 kw/mi range. Over a 91kw battery, and you're going from at the worst, a 164 mile range to 255 miles!! My wife kept saying "you must be a more aggressive driver" and I couldn't believe it, so when I kept the 1 pedal off, BOOM the range went WAY up. I'm now convinced that I can (finally) break the 300 mile barrier when I'm driving solo and without a bunch of stuff in it.

Other things beyond weight of course effect range (i.e. MPH is HUGE; every MPH over 60/65 and you'll see significant range drops) and a smidget to air conditioning and driving habits, but by far the worst results, EVEN ON FULL BLUE CRUISE is with 1 pedal driving. This is coming from an owner who swore by it, loves the feature, still loves it in stop and go city traffic, but will never use it on highway driving again if I'm concerned about range.

I wanted to share this knowledge; please pass it on to others, and also keep logging your trips on PlugShare with your experiences. There were a few chargers in the middle of no where Wyoming/Nebraska where we had some scares, but ultimately the EV community was REALLY good about chiming in.

Oh one other important note on this thread; book your trips with destination chargers in mind. I estimate we saved b/w $125-$175 in charging fees just by booking Hampton Inns with Tesla or non-tesla destination chargers. Getting the Tesla charger adapter worked AMAZING and got all the free juice we could every night, and hit the road with 100% full charge every day, a great bonus. Remember, you CANNOT YET use the Tesla Super Chargers (they are not designed to work with our batteries YET) but the designation chargers at 6-8kw/hr work beautifully with the adapter.

I hope this makes your lives easier; overall we LOVED the road trip (ok I loved it, my wife was less thrilled about charging times at 35 minutes but she'll lives) and bottom line, it 100% can be done with some forward planning and 1 pedal driving turned off.

Happy trails!
Chris aka "Turbo-C", proud MachE Premium AWD owner (with faux carbon fiber detailing because why not).

What Tesla adapter are you using? Does it work at normal Tesla charging sites?

 

[breeves002]

1 pedal driving doesn't reduce efficiency, the way you drive with it does.

 

[KevinS]

What Tesla adapter are you using? Does it work at normal Tesla charging sites?

There is an adapter (TeslaTap, etc.) that can work on Tesla destination chargers, which are like the L2 chargers you may already be used to.

It does not work with Superchargers, which are the ones you'd see like Electrify America on larger pad sites.

 

[Flint302]

Great write up. Thank you for taking the time to submit that.

 

[eleven24]

Interesting. When you say range, are you referring to actual miles driven or miles projected on the display? Just based on how regen works, I can't see how it would do anything but add range to a drive. I'll certainly try it out for myself - as I'm also in the same stat geek boat as you - but my latest 800+ mile road trip returned an average of 3.2 miles per kw. Over the same drive last year in my Tesla Model Y LR I averaged 3.7.

If turning off 1PD gives me more?! I was shocked at 3.2, I'd be stunned with anything more.

 

[generaltso]

Just based on how regen works, I can't see how it would do anything but add range to a drive.

There are losses, so regen can never recoup all of the energy that is used to get the car up to speed. Regen is great for slowing down, but not when coasting.

 

[TurboC]

1 pedal driving doesn't reduce efficiency, the way you drive with it does.

Breeves, I'm telling you, it 100% did effect it (and I was shocked). Here's the most important piece of info on the matter; BOTH OF US WERE USING BLUE CRUISE. The same conditions WRT weather, elevation, weight, etc were used, and literally the ONLY difference was 1 pedal vs. not. Believe me, I was as shocked to see it as I am to type it, but this is why I made this post, to help others. Feel free to test this theory yourself, but this wasn't a case of "me being a lead foot and my wife not" it was under the exact same driving conditions including top speed AND amount of acceleration. You would have to tell me that Blue Cruise works differently for different people for your response to be true (or another "control" factor that we're not considering).

 

[TurboC]

One pedal driving is like using the "L" gear in the Ford CMax Energi and my previous Escape Hybrid reducing glide distance. Hindering efficiency.

100%!

 

[TurboC]

1PD in and of itself isn’t less efficient than driving without it. But if the way you drive with it enabled causes you to use regen when you should be coasting, it will certainly decrease your efficiency.

Again, I would encourage you and Breeves/others to test this, but I literally can't find/think of any other control factors to suggest this is true. The weight, top speed, blue cruise being activated, type of terrane, temperatures, elevation were all extremely similar. This wasn't a one off experience either; we literally had spreadsheets and captured data over the course of about 30 hours of driving in both conditions. It is SIGNIFICANTLY different b/c Blue Cruise with 1 pedal does not allow coasting.

To be clear (everyone) I'm specifically referring to Blue Cruise + 1 pedal driving (I should have made that more clear) as I didn't see the point of 1 pedal driving without cruise at speeds above 55 mph..

 

[TurboC]

What Tesla adapter are you using? Does it work at normal Tesla charging sites?

Great question! I read great reviews about the "Lectron" adapter, and I've been very happy with it. Extremely sturdy/well built and snaps right into place https://tinyurl.com/5ynxncuw

 

[TurboC]

Interesting. When you say range, are you referring to actual miles driven or miles projected on the display? Just based on how regen works, I can't see how it would do anything but add range to a drive. I'll certainly try it out for myself - as I'm also in the same stat geek boat as you - but my latest 800+ mile road trip returned an average of 3.2 miles per kw. Over the same drive last year in my Tesla Model Y LR I averaged 3.7.

If turning off 1PD gives me more?! I was shocked at 3.2, I'd be stunned with anything more.

Hello Rob, yep, I'm referring to the total distance on a charge which includes both the total miles you can drive, and the range per kwh (m/kwh). We could rarely breach 3+, but again, with a family of 4, and a bike rack + 4 bikes weighing several hundred pounds and nearly a half ton of cargo (we had a ton of crap) I'm not surprised our range was lower compared to my own solo driving. Your response about "I'd be surprised with how regen works" is PRECISELY why I started this thread, and glad to see the responses. I was "certain" that 1 PD was better all around b/c of regen, but the lack of coasting seems to be more hurtful than helpful wrt range at high speeds. I'd love to see others test/try this as I can't seem to find any info by Ford/others out there speaking of the range difference either way..

 

[Vulnox]

Correlation isn't causation, even repeated correlation. It would help if there was a theory as to why it would make a difference. As others noted, people that use 1 Pedal by just letting off the throttle completely instead of gradually are going to have less benefit than those that can coast down, but if someone uses 1 pedal as a way to modulate speed then it should be equal or more beneficial than coasting.

I don't see how you would have enough coasting when using BC for it to make that much of a difference. We have driven a good number of highway miles with BC and I exclusively use 1 pedal, had no issues getting expected range figures for the MME, we were actually driving more efficient than the route planner had expected as we arrived almost 10% higher on charge level.

I am not saying your theory isn't valid, as there just isn't enough evidence one way or the other. I think having an OBD reader hooked up and doing a loop style test on the same roads would be needed and use the OBD scanner to record the amount of energy used. It shouldn't take much, like a 10 mile loop on fairly flat and low traffic areas. That would provide actual data we could work from. But if it's down to, BC brakes more in heavy traffic instead of coasting, then that isn't so much a 1 pedal issue as it is a BlueCruise logic issue around how it handles 1 pedal (as in, less efficiently).

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