1st MachE road trip from Seattle to Phoenix..any tips for charging anxiety and solutions?

[dbsb3233]

I'll for sure have to study Electrify America's maps now that I have my car. Thanks for this map!

That's just a snapshot. You'll want to use the real interactive map in the EA app or on the EA website (it's a little slow, give it 5 seconds to populate).

https://www.electrifyamerica.com/locate-charger/

These are all in Plugshare too, along with every other network. But since EA is usually the #1 choice for road trip DCFC for us (for non-Teslas), I find it easiest just to start with the EA map. Gives an uncluttered view of the well-covered routes. Then use Plugshare to fill in any gaps with other networks (or identify alternates for backup purpuses in case an EA station is full or having issues), look for hotels that have L2 chargers, etc.

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[TurboC]

Copy all that, downloaded and already mapping my route via Plugshare. WOot!

 

[PEldridge]

This is an AWESOME visualization, gives me all the confidence I need to not get stranded. From what I understand, we get 2 full years of free EA charging correct? I haven't tried that yet..

This is what I understand, 2 years of free charging compliments of Ford. Not sure what the usage limit is in addition to having 2 years to use it, but it's nice to know we have it. Picked up my car on Jan 17th and have yet to go any distance but sure want to!

 

[dbsb3233]

This is what I understand, 2 years of free charging compliments of Ford. Not sure what the usage limit is in addition to having 2 years to use it, but it's nice to know we have it. Picked up my car on Jan 17th and have yet to go any distance but sure want to!

It's just the first 250 kWh that's free. See my post above.

 

[alaric]

I strongly recommend using A Better Route Planner and Plug-Share apps during long trips as others have described.

ABRP can become more helpful if you have an account on that site. You can use an existing Facebook or Gmail account or sign up on ABRP directly. In your account you can select which charging networks to include for planning. Most importantly, you can select your vehicle and its 'reference consumption at 65 mph', defined as xxx Wh/mi. That description of efficiency is the reciprocal of the 'mi/kWh' term shown on the MME display (and convert Watts to kiloWatts). For example, 3.0 mi/kWh is the same as 333 Wh/mi.

ABRP's default efficiency for my 2021 Premium RWD ER was 317 Wh/mi while I was planning a trip in December from Windsor Ontario to Seattle to Southern California and back. I noticed early in the trip that I was consistently arriving at chargers with lower SOC than ABRP predicted. Also, I noticed that mi/kWh displayed in the car was typically around 2.5. So, I logged in to ABRP, updated the reference consumption 400 Wh/mi, and repeated the route plan. Not surprisingly, the new plan indicated more frequent charging stops, but the arrival SOC was closer to the prediction, and I had more confidence I would arrive as planned.

Other values you can tweak in ABRP are the starting and ending SOC for each driving leg. I would advise leaving the departure SOC at 80% as a time-saver, since DCFCs reduce the charging rate significantly above 80%. Reducing the arrival SOC to 10% or 5% will allow ABRP to plan longer driving legs, but with the consequence that your 'cushion' of range at the end of the leg will be reduced. Do you feel lucky?

If you can find a hotel with an L2 charger near a good spot in your trip for an overnight stay, you should take it. You can recharge in bed while your car recharges in the parking lot, and the next day you will need one less charge stop. I can recommend the Marriott in Twin Falls Idaho as an example. Download the Noodoe app to use their chargers.

 

[Subdude]

That's great advice, and I will absolutely "do right" by posting my own experience to be a part of the community on data sharing from an open source standpoint to other EV drivers. Thanks!

I just completed an 8,000 mile round trip coast-to-coast. I went through Phoenix twice (as I was driven south by the blizzard that cancelled my Grand Canyon leg of the trip).

Long story short - the route planners are incredibly sub-par. I paid for the subscription for ABRP for the duration and used it to rough out the route. It wasn't useful for navigation as any deviation from the route plan (like a side trip into a town for a meal) caused it to abandon the route. I exported the route to a spreadsheet and printed it out.

The locations of chargers in ABRP are very cryptic - may take some Google searches to find the actual addresses which you can put into Google maps to use for navigation. That's where the printout can be handy - you add a column for the rest of the info needed when on your trip to be able to plug your next location into Google Maps.

Plugshare didn't route plan well at all for me but was good for looking for alternate charging locations in a given location.

Beware hotels (chargers tend to be slow and people camp on them), municipalities (few chargers and less maintenance), and Diners with two plugs (one will be broken and the other will have a Tesla plugged in with an adapter and the owner doesn't return right away when it finishes charging).

FordPass is good to activate the charger you're standing in front of (about 80% of the time). It's useless for Navigation as FordPass help told me Ford has discontinued the feature of transferring the route from your FordPass phone app to the car.

The car will scare you occasionally, posting a message to your screen saying you are not in range of a charger - stop and find one. This despite the fact you have 100+ miles range and the car itself can find 5 chargers within 5 miles.

As others have written, expect your range to be cut in half if the temperature is in the teens.

As for mountains, I found I lost half the expected range on the way up the mountains into San Diego (4,000 feet up from zero in the desert) but gained about half of it back coming down (regenerative braking). Here's the trick though - turn on one pedal driving - I found the rest of the trip whatever range I lost going up, I regained on the way down - sometimes even coming out ahead. Cautionary note on this - I didn't really tackle the Rockies, so my experience is somewhat limited. Crossing the Applachians isn't the same thing

Be sure to have all the charger apps - you can start charging with them when Fordpass can't. ChargePoint, Electrify America, EV Connect, Evgo, Francis Energy (if you're going through Oklahoma at some point), Shell Recharge (only encountered them once).

When the chargers won't start, or when they are running slow, the people on the 800 numbers can sometimes get you going remotely. Electrify America was the best in that regard (short hold time, high competence), Francis Energy the worst (20 minute hold time).

Beware the newbie that tries to connect the other cable on the charger you're using and starts pushing buttons on the screen - they can cut you off without meaning to. When away from the car when charging, you can monitor the status of the charge with the FordPass app - about half the time. The other half, you're just hoping it's still charging

Staying to the Interstates I never had to go more than 130 miles between chargers (I have the standard range base model). I never got to a place I couldn't charge, and only had to wait for a charger a handful of times. The one exception was in the Dallas area - the BMW dealership said they had a rapid charger but it was the same one I have at home. And, the Ford dealership wouldn't let me charge there because I didn't buy my car there.

By the end of the trip I was no longer sweating whether I'd get where I was going. I just had to be vigilent about the route. Once, chasing a working charger I picked the next working charger I could find and it was past the point I should have switch from one Interestate to another - cost me about 20 miles getting over to the correct route.

Someone will get rich building an app that actually lets you plan and drive a route, though Google might get there first as they have started adding chargers in some locations.

 

[TurboC]

It's just the first 250 kWh that's free. See my post above.

RAndom question on this and update. I used an Electrify America charger today in Seattle to test and make sure it works. It did, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to ACCESS the free 250 free kWh of charge. Is it via the Electrify America App or the FordPass? Sorry for the mundane question, as an engineer I'm half embarrassed to ask since I couldn't figure it out. As someone that checks his ego, I'd don't mind being vulnerable and just solving the problem via this awesome community.

THanks!
CB

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

RAndom question on this and update. I used an Electrify America charger today in Seattle to test and make sure it works. It did, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to ACCESS the free 250 free kWh of charge. Is it via the Electrify America App or the FordPass? Sorry for the mundane question, as an engineer I'm half embarrassed to ask since I couldn't figure it out. As someone that checks his ego, I'd don't mind being vulnerable and just solving the problem via this awesome community.

THanks!
CB

To use the EA free charging, set up Plug & Charge on the Mustang. It'll do the negotiation for you. When you're done using the free charging, turn off P&C and activate your EA Pass+ account (if you're going that way--if you have to use DCFC often and EA is your charger option, the Pass+ $4/mo is worth it.

 

[dbsb3233]

I'll add a bit to what SpaceEVDriver responded. Yes, P&C would do it, but it doesn't necessarily have to be with P&C per se. The best was to understand it is to thing of which wallet you're paying with: you EA account, or your Ford account.

Your Ford account is set up at Ford.com, then go to Connected Services. Register a credit card in the Wallet. Then go into FordPass on your phone. You can toggle P&C on or off there. If on, it will start the session automatically using your Ford wallet. If P&C is off, you can start each charging session with a swipe in the app. That uses your Ford wallet just like P&C, because it's all part of the Ford services. Ford starts you off with a free 250 kWh in the Ford wallet so as long as you activate the charging session one of those 2 ways, it uses that free amount up first before then charging the credit card in your Ford wallet.

But if you want to have your EA wallet pay for it, you should turn P&C off (only need to do it once and it'll stay that way). Plug in and activate the session with the EA app. Two possible ways to do that: with a swipe in the app, or just taping your phone to the EA charger on the NFC spot.

As Space said, typically you want use up your free 250 first, then turn P&C off, sign up for the EA Pass+ discount in the EA app, and start all subsequent sessions using the EA wallet.

 

[TurboC]

I'll add a bit to what SpaceEVDriver responded. Yes, P&C would do it, but it doesn't necessarily have to be with P&C per se. The best was to understand it is to thing of which wallet you're paying with: you EA account, or your Ford account.

Your Ford account is set up at Ford.com, then go to Connected Services. Register a credit card in the Wallet. Then go into FordPass on your phone. You can toggle P&C on or off there. If on, it will start the session automatically using your Ford wallet. If P&C is off, you can start each charging session with a swipe in the app. That uses your Ford wallet just like P&C, because it's all part of the Ford services. Ford starts you off with a free 250 kWh in the Ford wallet so as long as you activate the charging session one of those 2 ways, it uses that free amount up first before then charging the credit card in your Ford wallet.

But if you want to have your EA wallet pay for it, you should turn P&C off (only need to do it once and it'll stay that way). Plug in and activate the session with the EA app. Two possible ways to do that: with a swipe in the app, or just taping your phone to the EA charger on the NFC spot.

As Space said, typically you want use up your free 250 first, then turn P&C off, sign up for the EA Pass discount in the EA app, and start all subsequent sessions using the EA wallet.

This all makes sense boys. I think I "got it" with a bit of tweaks. Now, to figure out my actual route! LOL I think I'm going to make it a point to sleep over/hang out in Page, AZ. I had NO idea how many cool hikes/sites there are there! Then golf in Sedona, and finally get to Phoenix via Flagstaff. Man I'm getting pumped!

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

This all makes sense boys. I think I "got it" with a bit of tweaks. Now, to figure out my actual route! LOL I think I'm going to make it a point to sleep over/hang out in Page, AZ. I had NO idea how many cool hikes/sites there are there! Then golf in Sedona, and finally get to Phoenix via Flagstaff. Man I'm getting pumped!

You'll want to swap those last two: Page -> Grand Canyon (maybe) -> Flagstaff -> Sedona (golf) -> Phoenix.

 

[NJDevFan30]

Apart from ABRP, another way to figure out how much to charge to at each stop (assuming you have the luxury of not needing 100% of your battery to reach the next charger) is to figure out how many kWh you'll need to go a particular distance.

Say you're doing 2.1 mi/kWh, and you need to go 100 miles: 100/2.1 = 47.6kWh. 47.6/88kWh = 54% of charge. (Yes, I know newer model years have 91kWh usable, but why not play it safe and round down to the old 88?) You can then round up another 10% for contingencies, etc. In this case, I'd probably hit 65% SoC before I unplug to go on the 100 mile leg.

Hope this makes sense.

Along these lines but eliminating math on the go, I highly suggest making and printing out a chart similar to this one:
https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...ip-a-much-better-experience.16485/post-399960

Update it with your trim of MME and range of efficiencies and it's a lifesaver for easing range anxiety.

While on the go, compare your efficiency on 'This Trip' to estimate how much more range you realistically have.

 

[Shayne]

Cool already got Plugshare just haven't used it for a real road trip yet so now I'll be sure to!

You can turn off all chargers under 100 KW and see if you can make it, then lower to 50 KW if needed and see what chargers pop up. The app really gets best use before the trip and rechecking. You can start planning virtual trips any time. See if you can make it across the country

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