troublebot
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2021
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- 12
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- 250
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- Location
- Portland, OR
- Vehicles
- 2021 MME Premium EXT AWD, Infinite Blue
- Occupation
- Industrial Design & Mechanical Engineering
- Thread starter
- #1
My wife and I just returned last night from a 2700 mile round trip drive from Dallas to Las Vegas and back with overnight stops on each leg in Albuquerque (about the half-way point). We used only Electrify America DCFC chargers.
I’m driving a 2021 Job 1 Premium EXT AWD (Infinite Blue) with the original HVBJB. As of the end of the road trip I have 19,780 total miles on the odometer. The HVBJB has given me a lot of anxiety and I was sure that if it was going to ‘go’ any time soon, it would do so on this trip..and that if it did, it would do it at the worst possible time when I’m hundreds of miles away from a Ford dealership and with spotty cell service! Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
I was prepared to write a very long post detailing everything, but it turns out that all that’s really necessary is a fairly quick summary; pretty much a flawless trip. The car was supremely comfortable, reliable, and I discovered just how efficient (or inefficient!) it can be depending on how _you_ drive it.
I made 11 EA charging stops on the way there (a few more than necessary but I was having some range anxiety due to elevation changes and decided to “top up” more often than needed during the Flagstaff portion of the drive) and 8 more on the way back. Of the ~19 total charging, I only had hiccups on 3 occasions, which was solved by moving to a different charger (usually after checking Plugshare for recent checkins).
I will say though; the number of other people I saw having issues getting EA chargers to work was disappointing. A lot of it is on EA’s unreliability, but also it seems a lot of people just haven’t done any homework. Several people I talked to didn’t have the EA app, hadn’t activated Plug-and-Charge (or their non-Ford equivalents when they exist), never heard of ABRP or Plugshare, or would try one charger and if it didn’t work, would give up on the entire site and drive off.
Another thing I noticed is that hardly anyone actually posts positive checkins on Plugshare. I was worried because when we departed several of the chargers hadn’t had a check-in in days. Turns out, that’s a sign the site is actually mostly functioning well.
I drove probably about 80% of the trip with hands-free Bluecruise activated, which seriously reduces the fatigue of driving. I did all of the driving with my wife there for navigation, snack and napping duties (she’s my Passenger Princess and we both prefer it that way, but she can be a backup driver if needed).
The ~30 minute charging stops are also a lot less annoying than I expected, after decades of driving long distances only stopping a few minutes at a time to fill up and at best giving myself 30-45 minute power-naps at rest stops, having to actually “pause” and be able to really stretch my legs, eat an actual meal, check messages, surf the internet, plan the next stretch (and see if there’s anything neat worth stopping for) or watch a video is actually kind of nice. Yes at the end of the day it adds a couple hours of travel time, but my travel days are usually set aside from my enjoyment days so I don’t have to be anywhere until the next morning, so arriving a little late is fine.
I should also note; I have an old Android phone connected via OBDII running Car Scanner to display my live usage (mi/kwh and actual =/- wattage), speed and battery level. During a long trip you can definitely learn how much energy you're using/saving/regenerating in different conditions. I do need to refine my setup a bit (like find a way to show average usage over the past n seconds because it fluctuates wildly), but I really liked having it as a sanity check. Plus it was cool to watch the SoC go up when descending over long hills.
Alternately, I would enter the next charging stop in my navigation system, and figure out my initial "buffer" (i.e. 208 mi on the GOM and 158 miles to the next stop = 50 miles buffer). I periodically would do quick mental math to see if and how much of that 'buffer' I was burning through, and if I was safe to crank up the speed, extend to the next stop beyond the upcoming one, or if I was burning through the buffer too fast and needed to dial things down a bit. This really helped me keep my range anxiety in check, and sometimes dialing back the speed 5mph would make huge, almost immediate difference.
Mostly non-MME related stuff:
We’re not really ‘Las Vegas people’, but my wife was there for work and to catch up with old friends. We ended up staying at The Signature at MGM in a privately-owned unit that we rented through AirBNB. It was actually a really good deal, saved us from paying an extra $45/night resort fee and came with free valet parking (self-parking is quite a hike though). The view was excellent, we could see the new Formula 1 grandstands and main straight/paddock area being constructed. The Sphere was right in our sightlines and actually bigger than I expected, and the main strip was just a couple blocks down. The Valet crew was excellent even though their system was completely screwed by the hack and they were doing everything by hand and radio. And despite regularly parking Porsches, McLarens, Ferraris, etc., (usually rented, I’m sure), a few of them were genuinely enthusiastic about the Mach-E, which is always cool to see.
On the first solo day I had, I drove around the southern Blue Diamond route from an EA charging station in south LV. Drove through the Red Rock scenic loop, and then (tried) to drive up to Mt Charleston (the roads were closed so I couldn’t get all the way up, but it was still a cool drive).
Day 2 I drove up near Nellis AFB to see if I could do some planespotting. I stopped in a parking lot at Las Vegas Motor Speedway just in time to see a half dozen F35s tear past after just taking off, in a full hard left bank towards the west, engines roaring. Awesome to see them in a non-airshow setting. Caught a couple laden F-16s heading south as well.
Then I went to the North Las Vegas Airport, they have a great little airport café called Sunshine & Tailwinds (which reminds me of the Spruce Goose Café at the airport in my hometown of Port Townsend, Washington, also recommended) and a fantastic viewing deck atop the terminal. Lots of cool planes there, from smaller private jets to some aerobatic aircraft and a bit of everything in between.
After that, I drove down to McCarren/Harry Reid Airport and found a little parking lot they’ve carved out on Sunset Rd adjacent to the two main runways specifically for viewing planes taking off and landing. I got to catch some chaos as thunderstorms rolled through and stopped all departures/arrivals for a little while. I used the LiveATC app to listen to the different radio frequencies. I blew through almost 3 hours there and then went back to the hotel for a bit.
Day 3 I dropped my wife off for a meeting and parked at the Jack in the Box on the west end of McCarren/Harry Reid where you’re right under departing aircraft. Had a chicken sandwich and some of their 2 for 99c tacos and hung out for about 2 hours.
Some recommendations:
The Neon Museum: Historic LV signage, huge recognizable pieces, from before the era where everything is an obnoxious full-color LED display playing ads. Get the combo ticket and do the Brilliant projection show afterwards. We weren’t sure what it was, but they use projection mapping to bring old, non-working signs to live with some classic music in a 360-degree immersive display.
Sunshine & Tailwinds Café and the NLV Airport viewing deck atop the terminal: great classic American fare, and airplanes if you’re into that
303 in the Cut: This is a food truck that became “tiktok famous" in the last year, and now we know why. Firstly, as soon as we got in line, the owner came and greeted us. Absolutely a super nice guy, genuinely interested in his customers and working on building an amazing business. The Crackin’ Fried Chicken Fries with the roasted garlic aioli was unbelievably good. Get the two prickly pear juices they have mixed half-and-half. They’re known for their really good Cheesecake Sandwich but also try the Tiramisu. I don’t generally like Tiramisu, but theirs was exactly as I imagined it _should_ be.
Master Kim’s Korean BBQ off south Durango: This was my first legit KBBQ experience and while it’s not for me (too much work), the food was still quite delicious, and the service was great.
Black Bear Diner: This is a chain, but the Stuffed Blackberry French Toast where they use a bear claw instead of regular bread. Amazong.
If you're there with your SO and are looking for a little spice, Chris at The Love Store off S Rainbow near W Sahara knows his stuff quite well and will help you find something special.
In Albuquerque: National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. Seriously, if you have any interest in history, warfare, nuclear weapons or science, or anything related, this place is absolutely awesome. So many interesting artifacts, inert weapons, aircraft, etc., it was kind of overwhelming. I was just there yesterday and would go back today if I could. We went to the Nuclear Testing museum in Las Vegas as well, and while it was alright, it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for, especially for the admission price.
Drive Day 1 - 733 miles, 11 hours 38 minutes:
Drive Day 2 - 593 miles, 9 hours 22 minutes:
Red Rock & Mt Charleston Day:
Planespotting day:
Return Day 1 - 564 miles, 9 hours 16 minutes:
Return Day 2 - 784 miles, 12 hours 22 minutes:
On the road near Mt Charleston:
View from our room:
View from our room 2:
My favorite from "The Sphere"
I’m driving a 2021 Job 1 Premium EXT AWD (Infinite Blue) with the original HVBJB. As of the end of the road trip I have 19,780 total miles on the odometer. The HVBJB has given me a lot of anxiety and I was sure that if it was going to ‘go’ any time soon, it would do so on this trip..and that if it did, it would do it at the worst possible time when I’m hundreds of miles away from a Ford dealership and with spotty cell service! Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
I was prepared to write a very long post detailing everything, but it turns out that all that’s really necessary is a fairly quick summary; pretty much a flawless trip. The car was supremely comfortable, reliable, and I discovered just how efficient (or inefficient!) it can be depending on how _you_ drive it.
I made 11 EA charging stops on the way there (a few more than necessary but I was having some range anxiety due to elevation changes and decided to “top up” more often than needed during the Flagstaff portion of the drive) and 8 more on the way back. Of the ~19 total charging, I only had hiccups on 3 occasions, which was solved by moving to a different charger (usually after checking Plugshare for recent checkins).
I will say though; the number of other people I saw having issues getting EA chargers to work was disappointing. A lot of it is on EA’s unreliability, but also it seems a lot of people just haven’t done any homework. Several people I talked to didn’t have the EA app, hadn’t activated Plug-and-Charge (or their non-Ford equivalents when they exist), never heard of ABRP or Plugshare, or would try one charger and if it didn’t work, would give up on the entire site and drive off.
Another thing I noticed is that hardly anyone actually posts positive checkins on Plugshare. I was worried because when we departed several of the chargers hadn’t had a check-in in days. Turns out, that’s a sign the site is actually mostly functioning well.
I drove probably about 80% of the trip with hands-free Bluecruise activated, which seriously reduces the fatigue of driving. I did all of the driving with my wife there for navigation, snack and napping duties (she’s my Passenger Princess and we both prefer it that way, but she can be a backup driver if needed).
The ~30 minute charging stops are also a lot less annoying than I expected, after decades of driving long distances only stopping a few minutes at a time to fill up and at best giving myself 30-45 minute power-naps at rest stops, having to actually “pause” and be able to really stretch my legs, eat an actual meal, check messages, surf the internet, plan the next stretch (and see if there’s anything neat worth stopping for) or watch a video is actually kind of nice. Yes at the end of the day it adds a couple hours of travel time, but my travel days are usually set aside from my enjoyment days so I don’t have to be anywhere until the next morning, so arriving a little late is fine.
I should also note; I have an old Android phone connected via OBDII running Car Scanner to display my live usage (mi/kwh and actual =/- wattage), speed and battery level. During a long trip you can definitely learn how much energy you're using/saving/regenerating in different conditions. I do need to refine my setup a bit (like find a way to show average usage over the past n seconds because it fluctuates wildly), but I really liked having it as a sanity check. Plus it was cool to watch the SoC go up when descending over long hills.
Alternately, I would enter the next charging stop in my navigation system, and figure out my initial "buffer" (i.e. 208 mi on the GOM and 158 miles to the next stop = 50 miles buffer). I periodically would do quick mental math to see if and how much of that 'buffer' I was burning through, and if I was safe to crank up the speed, extend to the next stop beyond the upcoming one, or if I was burning through the buffer too fast and needed to dial things down a bit. This really helped me keep my range anxiety in check, and sometimes dialing back the speed 5mph would make huge, almost immediate difference.
Mostly non-MME related stuff:
We’re not really ‘Las Vegas people’, but my wife was there for work and to catch up with old friends. We ended up staying at The Signature at MGM in a privately-owned unit that we rented through AirBNB. It was actually a really good deal, saved us from paying an extra $45/night resort fee and came with free valet parking (self-parking is quite a hike though). The view was excellent, we could see the new Formula 1 grandstands and main straight/paddock area being constructed. The Sphere was right in our sightlines and actually bigger than I expected, and the main strip was just a couple blocks down. The Valet crew was excellent even though their system was completely screwed by the hack and they were doing everything by hand and radio. And despite regularly parking Porsches, McLarens, Ferraris, etc., (usually rented, I’m sure), a few of them were genuinely enthusiastic about the Mach-E, which is always cool to see.
On the first solo day I had, I drove around the southern Blue Diamond route from an EA charging station in south LV. Drove through the Red Rock scenic loop, and then (tried) to drive up to Mt Charleston (the roads were closed so I couldn’t get all the way up, but it was still a cool drive).
Day 2 I drove up near Nellis AFB to see if I could do some planespotting. I stopped in a parking lot at Las Vegas Motor Speedway just in time to see a half dozen F35s tear past after just taking off, in a full hard left bank towards the west, engines roaring. Awesome to see them in a non-airshow setting. Caught a couple laden F-16s heading south as well.
Then I went to the North Las Vegas Airport, they have a great little airport café called Sunshine & Tailwinds (which reminds me of the Spruce Goose Café at the airport in my hometown of Port Townsend, Washington, also recommended) and a fantastic viewing deck atop the terminal. Lots of cool planes there, from smaller private jets to some aerobatic aircraft and a bit of everything in between.
After that, I drove down to McCarren/Harry Reid Airport and found a little parking lot they’ve carved out on Sunset Rd adjacent to the two main runways specifically for viewing planes taking off and landing. I got to catch some chaos as thunderstorms rolled through and stopped all departures/arrivals for a little while. I used the LiveATC app to listen to the different radio frequencies. I blew through almost 3 hours there and then went back to the hotel for a bit.
Day 3 I dropped my wife off for a meeting and parked at the Jack in the Box on the west end of McCarren/Harry Reid where you’re right under departing aircraft. Had a chicken sandwich and some of their 2 for 99c tacos and hung out for about 2 hours.
Some recommendations:
The Neon Museum: Historic LV signage, huge recognizable pieces, from before the era where everything is an obnoxious full-color LED display playing ads. Get the combo ticket and do the Brilliant projection show afterwards. We weren’t sure what it was, but they use projection mapping to bring old, non-working signs to live with some classic music in a 360-degree immersive display.
Sunshine & Tailwinds Café and the NLV Airport viewing deck atop the terminal: great classic American fare, and airplanes if you’re into that
303 in the Cut: This is a food truck that became “tiktok famous" in the last year, and now we know why. Firstly, as soon as we got in line, the owner came and greeted us. Absolutely a super nice guy, genuinely interested in his customers and working on building an amazing business. The Crackin’ Fried Chicken Fries with the roasted garlic aioli was unbelievably good. Get the two prickly pear juices they have mixed half-and-half. They’re known for their really good Cheesecake Sandwich but also try the Tiramisu. I don’t generally like Tiramisu, but theirs was exactly as I imagined it _should_ be.
Master Kim’s Korean BBQ off south Durango: This was my first legit KBBQ experience and while it’s not for me (too much work), the food was still quite delicious, and the service was great.
Black Bear Diner: This is a chain, but the Stuffed Blackberry French Toast where they use a bear claw instead of regular bread. Amazong.
If you're there with your SO and are looking for a little spice, Chris at The Love Store off S Rainbow near W Sahara knows his stuff quite well and will help you find something special.
In Albuquerque: National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. Seriously, if you have any interest in history, warfare, nuclear weapons or science, or anything related, this place is absolutely awesome. So many interesting artifacts, inert weapons, aircraft, etc., it was kind of overwhelming. I was just there yesterday and would go back today if I could. We went to the Nuclear Testing museum in Las Vegas as well, and while it was alright, it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for, especially for the admission price.
Drive Day 1 - 733 miles, 11 hours 38 minutes:
Drive Day 2 - 593 miles, 9 hours 22 minutes:
Red Rock & Mt Charleston Day:
Planespotting day:
Return Day 1 - 564 miles, 9 hours 16 minutes:
Return Day 2 - 784 miles, 12 hours 22 minutes:
On the road near Mt Charleston:
View from our room:
View from our room 2:
My favorite from "The Sphere"
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