TRP

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Do you eat fast? When you're charging for 28 minutes, and then tying things up at the charger while it slowly continues to charge from 80 to 100%, you're going to tick off a lot of people. We found most stops were equal to two bathroom visits. Some Walmart chargers were close to a fast food restaurant, none were near to a QUALITY restaurant.
I get your point but at this stage of the game not sure that's a real issue. I've never seen more than 2 other cars at the same charge station I pulled into. Still a stall or 2 available. Now, fast forward a little bit and as we get more EVs on the road it very well may become an issue. As sotek2345 said, you could always run out and move it.
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I was thinking charging times were closer to 45 minutes vs 30, but even then I see your point. That said, I would still rather have something nicer than fast food (even a diner or something). I don't mind going out to move the car when it is done charging if the station is full.
My wife and I get take out (from a restaurant if at all possible, not fast food) on the way to the charger, then eat in the car with the AC on while it charges. Typically, she orders in so it's ready by the time we get there. We have a dog that comes with us most of the time which makes going into a restaurant more difficult. Once we're done eating, let the dog out, stretch the legs, the car is done.

It helps that the MME seats are amazingly comfortable :)
 

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I get your point but at this stage of the game not sure that's a real issue. I've never seen more than 2 other cars at the same charge station I pulled into. Still a stall or 2 available. Now, fast forward a little bit and as we get more EVs on the road it very well may become an issue. As sotek2345 said, you could always run out and move it.
Exactly. We've never seen an EA station even close to full, in almost 40 charges now. In fact I don't remember more than 1 other car ever charging. Usually none.

We find it kind of a perk now that it slows way down at 80%, as it allows us to do an hour-long sit-down meal without worrying about idle charges. Sometimes we'll let it run up to 85% or so for a full lunch. One time we had really slow service and it charged up to 96%.

If we run into a busy station though, we'd cut that shorter.
 

dbsb3233

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While Ford states the "peak" rate of 150kw, as you saw that is only breiefly at best. If you look at their statements about how long it takes to DCFC from 20% to 80% you realize that the average is closer to 110kw. It's misleading on Ford's part, and shame on them
When I was calculating my EA charges, I found roughly 95 kW to be my calculation for the average charging power (prior to the the 80% cliff).

But to Ford's credit, that is pretty consistent with their advertised charge times. In fact, it exceeds it some. They advertise 10-80% in 45 minutes (ER battery). That's 70% of 88 kWh = 61.6 / 0.75 hr = 82 kW average. ~95 kW average beats that. Unfortunately 150 kW is the headline number people usually focus more on, when the 82 kW avg is the real benchmark.
 

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I get your point but at this stage of the game not sure that's a real issue. I've never seen more than 2 other cars at the same charge station I pulled into. Still a stall or 2 available. Now, fast forward a little bit and as we get more EVs on the road it very well may become an issue. As sotek2345 said, you could always run out and move it.
While I agree from our experience the chargers haven't had a line, I've had to move chargers repeatedly, from a 350 to a 350 then to a 150. Those were 3 of the 4 stations at those locations.

Also, after using up your free charging hours, you probably won't want to use EA chargers from 80 to 100% in states where they charge by the minute. Haven't gone much over 80%, but it drops to 14kw at 80%. At 24 cents per minute, one could spend ~$20 to go from 80 to 100%.
 


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Good info. Did you track speed? On our trip down to FL, we were driving 74 or more most of the time. My roughly calculated m/kwh is 2.88. If you were driving slower, that might explain your higher numbers.
Didn't track but probably around 75 most of the time, using ACC. Do you have AWD? That could explain your slightly lower numbers compared to our 3.19 on the trip out and 3.28 coming back.
 

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Didn't track but probably around 75 most of the time, using ACC. Do you have AWD? That could explain your slightly lower numbers compared to our 3.19 on the trip out and 3.28 coming back.
Yes AWD.

When we drive back starting tomorrow, I am going to try and track info per charging stop to see where we net out.
 

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Didn't track but probably around 75 most of the time, using ACC. Do you have AWD? That could explain your slightly lower numbers compared to our 3.19 on the trip out and 3.28 coming back.
We average 2.8 MPK on our 1600 mile round trip drives Denver-Vegas (AWD ER). Done 3 of them now. Roughly half of those miles are at 80 MPH (Utah). The rest mostly 75 with some 65-70. Overall average cruising speed probably ~77.

Speed and elevation make a huge difference. Some legs we get as low as 2.2 MPK, others as high as 3.6.
 

TRP

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While I agree from our experience the chargers haven't had a line, I've had to move chargers repeatedly, from a 350 to a 350 then to a 150. Those were 3 of the 4 stations at those locations.

Also, after using up your free charging hours, you probably won't want to use EA chargers from 80 to 100% in states where they charge by the minute. Haven't gone much over 80%, but it drops to 14kw at 80%. At 24 cents per minute, one could spend ~$20 to go from 80 to 100%.

I have had to change machines on occasion but have never had to go elsewhere to find a charge. I think it will improve as time goes on.

Agree about the per/min states. Would get expensive sitting there belong 80%
 

Greta

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We had a road trip planned and happened to take delivery of our extended range, RWD MME 2 weeks beforehand. Now or never... we dove head first and packed up the car, our 4 year old daughter, 2 year old son, and dog and headed from NJ to St. Louis.

For those who like to delve into the data and numbers I wanted to start this thread in hopes you could teach me a thing or two about some oddities related to charging.

Before I get to that, the car and the trip were/are amazing. There was ample room in the back seat for two young kids, our dog, and more than enough toys to (attempt to) keep our kids entertained. The frunk and below floor storage in the rear gave us much needed storage for extra items leaving the trunk for our luggage and items we needed easy access to. The car was a gem to drive and got lots of attention on the road and at DCFCs. As many before have stated, this car is such a joy to drive. Are there some quirks... definitely, but nothing that made us regret the purchase or taking it on our adventure.

Now on to the purpose of this thread.

Observations and Questions:
1. On about half my charge sessions when I plugged in, the DCFC would charge but max out at +/- 33kW or ramp up to high speed but only for a few minutes and then drop down to about 33 kW. This was not an 80% charge cliff issue. The car was often only at 20% SoC or less. Solution: I would unplug, switch bays and then it would ramp up to 110-120kWh. This was definitely not a one off and not a coincidence, it happened multiple times at multiple EA stations. 110-120 speed seemed to be the most consistent max. draw I would pull. Is this an issue with the MME (what it is calling for) or with EA's DCFCs?

2. A few EA bays wouldn't activate. Solution: Switched bays and then no problem.

3. At one EA station both on the trip out and the trip home (different stations), EA charged (kWh) the car but there was some error and didn't charge me ($). No complaints.

4. After using up my Plug & Charge allowance and deactivating to use EA's Pass+ rate I noticed two times the EA app was showing charge rates of 200+ kWh whereas the DCFC console was showing a more realistic charge rate. Obviously the 200+ was wrong but it makes more skeptical to leave the car charging by itself and rely on the EA app.

5. In PA, the EA stations were $/min, $0.24 for Pass+. If you do the math, charging is so cheap if you can keep even a modest charge rate. The cost per kWh was on par with charging from home. I wish I realized this earlier and deactivated Plug & Charge on our way out to STL. Save your credits for $/kWh stations.

6. At the two $/min EA stations we stopped at, our charge speeds were well above any of the other $/kWh stations. We maxed out near 157 and stayed at a higher charge rate far longer. I'm not sure if this was coincidence, a result of similar conditions (they were back-to-back on the same day), or what but it was a pleasant surprise from the previous speeds were getting (note 1 above).

7. Be leery of the 'Trip' screen data.
  • Prior to our trip I reset 'Trip 1' intending to use this to track our trip. After leg 1 (220 miles, 95 degree heat, 75 MPH highway driving) it was reporting 3.9 mi/kWh. Amazing! Not so fast. If I did the math myself (see notes below and the attached chart) I was getting closer to 3.0 mi/kWH. I hadn't noticed previously but my 'Trip 1' mi/kWh was (and remains) identical to my 'Trip 2' value, which has been tracking the lifetime of my driving. The data provided is just wrong! All the posts about ignoring the GOM (yes I know) and instead multiplying your mi/kWh x battery pack (in my case 88) have no value if the car is not reporting accurate mi/kWh. Has anyone else had this issue with 'Trip 1' showing the same efficiency as 'Trip 2?'
  • Times are inaccurate. As others have suggested it seems to restart at 24 Hrs and not keep track of days, but I couldn't validate that.
  • I abandoned using 'Trip 1' for the trip out to STL. On the trip home I tried to be diligent about capturing the data on 'This Trip' for each leg before I shut the car off and those values seemed to be more accurate.
  • 'This Trip': Anyone figure out what causes 'This Trip' to reset to 0? Most of the time when you turn the car on it does but there were plenty of times where multiple stop-and-start cycles would track on the same trip. It's not based on a home or charging location either. Tried out that theory. Seems to be random.
8. DCFC-ing was a really nice break every few hours on a long road trip, especially with little kids. Not once did we feel like we were sitting around waiting for the car to finish charging. It was a good time for meals, to stretch our legs, and for the kids to play. It's nice that most of the Walmart EA stations are in the back corner of a parking lot. (Maybe one of you found our kids' chalk art.) We met plenty of folks who just wanted to chat about the car and few who did a stealth drive by photoshoot.

See attached for a log I kept to keep track of mileage, SoC, charge sessions, etc. I couldn't figure out how to upload the actual Excel file.
  • Column numbers (top row has the numbers) 1-5 provide basic info on mileage and SoC
  • Columns 6-8 provide info on energy consumption using some basic calculations based on the SoC change and mileage for each leg, along with what the 'Trip Screen' reported for mi/kWh
  • Columns 9-17 have info on the charge session including both kWh reported by the EVSE as well as calculated based on the SoC change multiplied by an 88 kWh usable battery

9. Energy Usage and Efficiency (Columns 6, 7): Based on the SoC change multiplied by an 88 kW usable battery I calculated out how much energy was used each leg and the mi/kWh based on the odometer reading. I used this for comparison to the 'Trips' mi/kWh (see point 6 above). Note: On the trip home using the 'This Trip' screen the mi/kWh were all within 0.1 mi/kWh which I can chalk up to rounding.

10. Energy Usage, Calculated vs Charger Reported (Columns 11-13): Note that the EVSE reported a difference of between -9% less and up to 14% more kWh compared to a calculation of SoC change multiplied by the battery pack.
  • Negative values were all on small charges so I assume that's a rounding issue.
  • EA stations pretty consistently reported +/- 5% more kWh than a SoC calculation. Is this typical efficiency loss?
  • The 14% was a free ChargePoint station. Not sure what the deal is with that one.
11. If any of my assumptions or calculations are incorrect , feedback is appreciated. I wish the car would visualize some of this for us.

Closing Notes:
  • Have some patience with Electrify America stations. All of our charge sessions worked out fine, but they often took a bit of troubleshooting and reconnecting.
  • Plug & Charge worked well.
  • $/min DCFCs are so cheap if you can maintain a decent charge speed! Do the math and save your Plug & Charge kWh for $/kWh stations.
  • Expect charge speeds to be below the 150kW advertised max. for the car. The majority of the charging was well below this.
  • Ford should provide better logs, historical data, and infographics on the efficiency and battery usage of the car. It's virtually non-existent other than the 'Trips' screen mi/kWh which I've lost faith in (see point 7 above). I would love to be able to see efficiency logs/graphics, charge curves, etc. built into the UI.
  • I only saw one other MME our entire trip and it was at an EA station in Ohio. Ironically we were both Infinite Blue, extended range, RWD. He was a Buckeye fan and I'm a Penn Stater so we'll let that bit of poor judgement slide.

For those who got through this long post, I give you credit. For those who may have feedback, similar or different experiences, chime in.

The car is a winner and this road trip proved it to us.
What is the maximum charge speed supported by the mach e?
 

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What is the maximum charge speed supported by the mach e?
The advertised max is 150 kW for the ER battery and 115 kW for the SR battery. But in practice, people are often seeing ~163 kW max on the ER. However that's only for maybe 2 minutes at the start of the charge. It typically falls fast from there to around 120, then slowly dips down to around 80 at 80%. It then immediately drops to Level 2 speed from 80-100% (~12 kW).
 

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I finally decided to sign up for the forum after lurking for months. There is one burning question I have for the OP which hasn't been asked yet...

What were your distractions for the kids? We're about to do an 800 mile road trip in the MME with twin 3.5 year olds. I'd really love to know what your distractions for sanity were. (I love the sidewalk chalk idea and will be bringing that for sure)
 

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Thanks for the write-up. I, too, am a Penn Stater and recently moved from State College to Pasadena, CA. I'm picking up my GT Performance in State College in November and am trying to decide whether to drive it back to CA or have it shipped. This will be my first EV, so I'm a bit apprehensive about the cross-country drive. The more I read about successful long distance excursions, the more I'm leaning toward the drive.

P.S. The team is looking pretty good today. We are!
 

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While I agree from our experience the chargers haven't had a line, I've had to move chargers repeatedly, from a 350 to a 350 then to a 150. Those were 3 of the 4 stations at those locations.

Also, after using up your free charging hours, you probably won't want to use EA chargers from 80 to 100% in states where they charge by the minute. Haven't gone much over 80%, but it drops to 14kw at 80%. At 24 cents per minute, one could spend ~$20 to go from 80 to 100%.
--------------

If you set your max charge to 80% this should not be an issue anywhere.
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