Blaine, Washington to Denver, Colorado and Back: 8 days, 3,345 miles, 57 hours wheel time, 2.7 m/kwh

[WallyS56]

Journeyed to Loveland, Colorado for next-oldest grandson’s high school graduation: eight days, 3,345 miles, 57 hours of wheel time, 2.7 m/kwh. Observations:

1. Glad I renewed BlueCruise for a month. Probably used 60% of the time. BC is not fond of corners and kicks into adaptive cc and lane keeping when confronted with too many of them at higher speeds. It will also kick to cc when set to any speed above 81 mph.
2. Wyoming and Montana are charging deserts, but you CAN traverse them with careful planning. Had to use Blink chargers at a GM and a Jeep dealership.
3. Tesla Superchargers rock. Fairly plentiful, stalls always available (except in LA), much cheaper (with membership), and always dependably fast. Electrify America was a second choice, but much more expensive and occasionally glitched (reduced KWH charging).
4. These cars are noisy, especially on the ragged roads of the freeze-over states. Can’t hardly hear media at speed. And what happened to YouTube on the choices? Any quieter tire options available?
5. Aside from noise, the Mach E is a comfortable ride. Had a BMW 328 Touring in Europe last month for two weeks and my back still aches just thinking about it.
6. Finally, I find it much more effective and logical to start with a 85% charge and plan each day’s charging needs the night before. I’ve tried the trip planning apps, but find them all glitched in some way.

And a moment of silence in respect for the 1,879,236 insects that sacrificed their lives to make this trip possible.
Questions, comments, criticism?

2024 AWD, Extended Range, Premium

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[lightningandmache]

What type of corners+speed would Bluecruise not handle?

 

[WallyS56]

Curvy mountain roads, almost any corner that created g-force, rounding a corner with the nose pointed/angled at a large vehicle, bumps in a corner.

 

[Lord Hamlet]

Nice car! Glad you had a good overall experience. Sounds like you prepared well.

We have a ‘23 GTPE and while we haven’t taken any road trips in it yet, I have driven it from the North San Fernando Valley up to Santa Barbara and back for a gig and had blast driving through the Santa Monica Mountains and then PCH.

In another lifetime I was selling Commercial Insurance to Contractors in Seattle. We used to have a biannual retreat at Semiahmoo. 250 drunk contractors…what could go wrong! ?

 

[Ahlarict]

Wonderful capture of a rare "whistle pig wrestling match"

 

[WallyS56]

Yes, quite. There was an entire village of the sprites near Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.

 

[WallyS56]

Nice car! Glad you had a good overall experience. Sounds like you prepared well.

We have a ‘23 GTPE and while we haven’t taken any road trips in it yet, I have driven it from the North San Fernando Valley up to Santa Barbara and back for a gig and had blast driving through the Santa Monica Mountains and then PCH.

In another lifetime I was selling Commercial Insurance to Contractors in Seattle. We used to have a biannual retreat at Semiahmoo. 250 drunk contractors…what could go wrong! ?

Hmmm, you could trip on a sea urchin.

 

[ave]

What type of corners+speed would Bluecruise not handle?

Here in the EU we dont have BC or any kind of hands free systems because not allowed (yet, if ever).

So how does BC differ from adaptive cruise + lane keep? Not much. The differences are: 1) hands on the wheel 2) assisted lane change. Aside from these two things, the BC is nothing more that I can tell. So basically every car out there is BC capable, but just not fully enabled because legal raisins.

With this in mind, here is one local place where the "self drive" consistently drops off. Marked in green for your pleasure.

Somewhere along the midpoint of this curve where the curvature rate of change is greatest, the whole system drops off and gives you that ding sound; take the wheel buddy.

I have a strong suspicion that around the same type of curvature is too much also for BC and the root cause is it loses forward visibility to do any calculations and gives up. It also isnt speed dependant, same happens fast or slow.

 

[Elmst-e]

Journeyed to Loveland, Colorado for next-oldest grandson’s high school graduation: eight days, 3,345 miles, 57 hours of wheel time, 2.7 m/kwh. Observations:

1. Glad I renewed BlueCruise for a month. Probably used 60% of the time. BC is not fond of corners and kicks into adaptive cc and lane keeping when confronted with too many of them at higher speeds. It will also kick to cc when set to any speed above 81 mph.
2. Wyoming and Montana are charging deserts, but you CAN traverse them with careful planning. Had to use Blink chargers at a GM and a Jeep dealership.
3. Tesla Superchargers rock. Fairly plentiful, stalls always available (except in LA), much cheaper (with membership), and always dependably fast. Electrify America was a second choice, but much more expensive and occasionally glitched (reduced KWH charging).
4. These cars are noisy, especially on the ragged roads of the freeze-over states. Can’t hardly hear media at speed. And what happened to YouTube on the choices? Any quieter tire options available?
5. Aside from noise, the Mach E is a comfortable ride. Had a BMW 328 Touring in Europe last month for two weeks and my back still aches just thinking about it.
6. Finally, I find it much more effective and logical to start with a 85% charge and plan each day’s charging needs the night before. I’ve tried the trip planning apps, but find them all glitched in some way.

And a moment of silence in respect for the 1,879,236 insects that sacrificed their lives to make this trip possible.
Questions, comments, criticism?

2024 AWD, Extended Range, Premium

I can’t quite understand your noise complaint. We have logged many long trips in the Mach-e and one of the pleasures of the drives is the quiet ride. It makes it the best road-trip car we have owned. The charging stops are a relaxing break, except os course those Electrify America shuffles, which still happen too often.

 

[Tampamike]

@ave Blue Cruise is basically adaptive CC with lane-keeping, without the constant nagging to keep your hands on the wheel. Once it engages, you can let go of the wheel, or not, but it will stop bugging you about it. The automatic lane change is just a nice add-on so that it doesn’t disengage when changing lanes - it just stays in BC and moves the car. Sorry you guys can’t get it. We like it here.

 

[Gumber]

I'm more interested in how you managed this... lol

 

[mkazen]

Here in the EU we dont have BC or any kind of hands free systems because not allowed (yet, if ever).

So how does BC differ from adaptive cruise + lane keep? Not much. The differences are: 1) hands on the wheel 2) assisted lane change. Aside from these two things, the BC is nothing more that I can tell. So basically every car out there is BC capable, but just not fully enabled because legal raisins.

With this in mind, here is one local place where the "self drive" consistently drops off. Marked in green for your pleasure.

Somewhere along the midpoint of this curve where the curvature rate of change is greatest, the whole system drops off and gives you that ding sound; take the wheel buddy.

I have a strong suspicion that around the same type of curvature is too much also for BC and the root cause is it loses forward visibility to do any calculations and gives up. It also isnt speed dependant, same happens fast or slow.

Heh legal raisins...

 

[Shepherd]

I can’t quite understand your noise complaint. We have logged many long trips in the Mach-e and one of the pleasures of the drives is the quiet ride. It makes it the best road-trip car we have owned. The charging stops are a relaxing break, except os course those Electrify America shuffles, which still happen too often.

Rough highway surface is very noisy in my Mach-E at 70 mph. Suchas I-95 in Georgia. Fortunately most of the roads I drove were paved smoother.

 

[Ahlarict]

For my daily commute, I've been happier without BC - It's constant "now I've got it, now I don't" chiming was more irritating than relaxing. I did like it for some long-range drives where it did better, but there's no way this is worth $50/mo. Good riddance.

 

[Dnorwood98]

Journeyed to Loveland, Colorado for next-oldest grandson’s high school graduation: eight days, 3,345 miles, 57 hours of wheel time, 2.7 m/kwh. Observations:

1. Glad I renewed BlueCruise for a month. Probably used 60% of the time. BC is not fond of corners and kicks into adaptive cc and lane keeping when confronted with too many of them at higher speeds. It will also kick to cc when set to any speed above 81 mph.
2. Wyoming and Montana are charging deserts, but you CAN traverse them with careful planning. Had to use Blink chargers at a GM and a Jeep dealership.
3. Tesla Superchargers rock. Fairly plentiful, stalls always available (except in LA), much cheaper (with membership), and always dependably fast. Electrify America was a second choice, but much more expensive and occasionally glitched (reduced KWH charging).
4. These cars are noisy, especially on the ragged roads of the freeze-over states. Can’t hardly hear media at speed. And what happened to YouTube on the choices? Any quieter tire options available?
5. Aside from noise, the Mach E is a comfortable ride. Had a BMW 328 Touring in Europe last month for two weeks and my back still aches just thinking about it.
6. Finally, I find it much more effective and logical to start with a 85% charge and plan each day’s charging needs the night before. I’ve tried the trip planning apps, but find them all glitched in some way.

And a moment of silence in respect for the 1,879,236 insects that sacrificed their lives to make this trip possible.
Questions, comments, criticism?

2024 AWD, Extended Range, Premium

Great write-up. Not sure what your route was, but Starbucks/Volvo partnered to install chargers all the way to Denver. I believe they are ChargePoint chargers. Might be good info if you need to do this trip again.

https://www.volvocars.com/us/l/starbucks-partnership/

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