Adventures of our Grabber Blue Space Pony...

[SpaceEVDriver]

To sum up on the costs:

We went on an approximately 1,000 mile round trip roadtrip from northern Arizona to southern California. We stayed several nights at a house with only 120V trickle charging. Overall our trip cost us about $11 in electricity for a single charge we did at an EVGo charger, which doesn't seem to be in the BlueOval Network. We charged a total of:
DCFC EA: 164 kWh ($0.00--worth $70.52).
DCFC EVGo: 19.691 kWh ($10.24).
L1: 49 kWh ($0.00)
L2: 16 kWh ($0.00)

If we had paid for the L2 charging at Electrify America rates, and if we had paid for the EA DCFC charging, we would have paid a total of about $108.71.

If we had brought our only other vehicle, a Tacoma pickup truck, we would have paid a minimum of $295.00 in gas, assuming $5.00/gallon average.

Sponsored

 

[Prime Time]

Today, we went for a road trip to the Grand Canyon.

Last night I told the Mustang to charge to 100% in preparation for the drive.
Round trip was going to be ~220 miles, and it was going to be at or below freezing for nearly the entire drive at highway speeds (65-75 mph).

I checked the car when I got up in the morning, and the pony was at 100%, as requested. The Guess-o-Meter (GOM) said we had 220 miles of range. There are several charging stations in the Canyon and more a few miles south at the town of Tusayan. We would be fine.


Elevation profile is 7000 feet to about 4000 feet back up to 7000 feet, then repeated for the trip home.

I drove there, my partner drove home.

When we arrived, we had more than 63% of the battery remaining. We briefly thought about finding one of the charging stations in the Park, but I had not realized I needed to purchase the extras from the A Better RoutePlanner app or PlugShare app, so we couldn't get those to talk to the Mustang's screen from Android Auto. The GOM said we had about 140 miles remaining, which, if correct, would leave us with about 30 miles of range when we got home.

So, we parked, took some pictures, ate lunch, and then turned around and headed home.

Without charging. Dun dun dun!

Want to know your remaining range assuming your driving habits remain the same as they were on so far on a given trip? Ignore the GOM. Do the following Algebra:


We had used 37% of our battery to go 110 miles.
I calculated that our total range was thus, 110 miles/0.37 = 297 miles.
Our remaining range would thus be 297 miles - 110 miles = 187 miles.
We should arrive home with 187 miles - 110 miles = 77 miles remaining.

My partner was nervous.

We got home with 33% of the battery remaining.
The GOM said 75 miles more range.
We'd gone 220 miles and used 67% of the battery, meaning the full range of the battery was likely to be about 328 miles.

In the (literal) freezing cold, and at highway speeds.

I'm good with a 312 mile range estimate from the EPA.

Congrats!!

 

[GT_order_#1001]

Thank you for all your detailed trip logs @SpaceEVDriver. I'm enjoying the reads.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Thank you for all your detailed trip logs @SpaceEVDriver. I'm enjoying the reads.

Thanks!

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Another issue that cropped up during this trip: PAAK.

PAAK works just fine for us, except...

We spent one night in a motel. I parked the car across the parking lot from our hotel room, and it just barely was far enough away from our room to automatically lock the car. The car would automatically unlock when I opened the motel room door. If we had parked in front of our motel room, the car would likely not have locked or would have randomly unlocked itself.

That's too close.

I'm going to turn off PAAK and we'll just use the fobs.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I took my electric bicycle across town the other day and decided to do the math on it.

It has a 48 Volt, 10.6 Ah (0.51 kWh) lithium battery.
It has a top speed of about 28 mph unless I turn off the governor and then it has a top speed of about 40 mph, with its trailer attached, with minimal pedaling.
It has a range of about 40 miles at a reasonable speed and no pedaling (or minimal pedaling to help it go uphill).
40 miles / 0.51 kWh = ~80 miles/kWh. (or about 2700 mpge)

My Mustang gets about 3-4 miles/kWh (100-135 mpge). But, it can go significantly faster and can carry much more cargo and many more people.

Obviously there are trades to be made, and I'm not saying one is better than the other, just doing geek math.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

 

[macchiaz-o]

We spent one night in a motel. I parked the car across the parking lot from our hotel room, and it just barely was far enough away from our room to automatically lock the car. The car would automatically unlock when I opened the motel room door. If we had parked in front of our motel room, the car would likely not have locked or would have randomly unlocked itself.

That's too close.

Or not close enough? As an experiment, try leaving your phone at the distance you described, and then without the fob, walk up to the vehicle and see if a door will open.

My car greets me at roughly 20 feet away but it won't open the door unless the phone is very close to the door button.

On the topic of PaaK oddities... I got the RFA update last month for Phone as a Key reliability (part of 21B36 and 21P22)... Now the car seems to reliably detect the phone, which is indicated by the LEDs lighting up around the door buttons. Quite often, though, the door won't open unless I key in my pin number on the a-pillar. Or if I walk around the car and walk back, it might work. It's got a mind of its own.

Also if I walk away from the car but not very far away, say just inside my house, I get the "Walk Away Lock" notification on my phone repeatedly, maybe 10+ times. I'd never seen that notification before last month's 21P22 update.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Or not close enough? As an experiment, try leaving your phone at the distance you described, and then without the fob, walk up to the vehicle and see if a door will open.

That was the experiment I did at the motel. It would allow the car to open even with my phone and fob in the motel room.

My car greets me at roughly 20 feet away but it won't open the door unless the phone is very close to the door button.

This is the usual behavior I expect and have had happen most of the time.

On the topic of PaaK oddities... I got the RFA update last month for Phone as a Key reliability (part of 21B36 and 21P22)... Now the car seems to reliably detect the phone, which is indicated by the LEDs lighting up around the door buttons. Quite often, though, the door won't open unless I key in my pin number on the a-pillar. Or if I walk around the car and walk back, it might work. It's got a mind of its own.

I need to spin up forscan and check to see if these updates are necessary for my car.

Also if I walk away from the car but not very far away, say just inside my house, I get the "Walk Away Lock" notification on my phone repeatedly, maybe 10+ times. I'd never seen that notification before last month's 21P22 update.

Or maybe I don't want that update... Haha!

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I needed an afternoon away from the computer, so I took the Mustang to the Canyon.

Started at just about 100% SOC with a predicted range of 242 miles.

Returned after 178.4 miles with a remaining predicted range of 84 miles at 40%. Using 60% of the battery to go 178.4 miles means I "should" have started with an estimated range of 297 miles.

I started the trip at below freezing, the temperature dropped to several C below freezing as I climbed the mountain, and then warmed up a few degrees as I came down off the mountain and then headed to the Canyon. At the Canyon, the temperature was several degrees C above freezing.

Dropping down from the rim into the nearby desert allowed the temperatures to rise again. Then I had to climb the mountain and fight the wind.

I started the trip with 79.128 kWh to empty according to the CarScanner. We ended the trip with 32.634 kWh to empty. The trip's efficiency was 3.84 miles/kWh.

I stopped on the way because the woods were lovely, dark, and deep.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Well, today I did my first FDRS update of the Mustang.

It was an experience.

First, I ordered the tools and parts I would need.
Regulated AC-to-DC Power Converter (30 Amp)
Note that this does not come with the clips you'll need. I happened to have a set already, so it wasn't a big deal for me.

I also ordered some nylon knockout seals (2"). I ordered black, but they came in grey. Will get black ones some other time.

I did the LVB access mod explained here: https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/how-to-add-access-ports-for-lvb-connection-points.4107/

I ordered a Mongoose-Plus Ford2. https://www.opusivs.com/products/j2534-pass-thru/mongooseplus/ford

Note that there are two Mongoose devices available that look nearly the same. Mongoose-Plus and Mongoose-Pro. These are not interchangeable. You have to download the correct software for your hardware version. It took me a few minutes to figure out that's why my Mongoose wouldn't talk to Forscan.

I then installed ForScan so I could check that everything was working. As I hinted at just above, not everything was working. In particular, ForScan would not talk to my Mongoose-Plus. Because it was looking for a Mongoose-Pro because that's the firmware I had installed. After I corrected that issue, ForScan worked fine.

Once I knew I would be able to read from (and presumably write to) the car, I downloaded and installed the Ford FDRS and IDS software, the updates, and etc.

I set up the LVB to be on the power converter, plugged in the charger, and got to work.

I'm using a Macbook Pro with Windows 10 installed through Bootcamp. The Macbook Pro has USB-C only, so I had to use an adapter for it to talk to the Mongoose. It did so just fine with one issue. The adapter was not of the highest quality and any little bump would break the connection.

After getting everything ready, I purchased a 2-day FDRS license, logged in, and scanned the car (see the great thread about this here: https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...ach-e-with-fdrs-alternative-to-forscan.10217/)

The FDRS software worked fine, but it's not wonderfully designed. There were three modules in the SW Update tab. I set about installing those.

When I first started, I was sitting in the driver's seat. After about 10 minutes of running the first module, I shifted in my seat and the poor connection at the USB-C to USB connector disconnected my computer from the Mongoose. That caused all the errors.

I set up a table near the door and started again. After about 15 minutes, the automatic sleep mode on the laptop engaged and the Mongoose got disconnected from the computer.

I fixed that. Third time's a charm?

I didn't test the long module right away. There were two other modules and one of them finished successfully in a couple of minutes. Then I tried the one that had been interrupted. This time it worked. Then I did the third module.

However, none of those modules was related to the reason I was doing the update in the first place. I had experienced two main screen reboots while driving over the past few weeks and Ford explained that this meant I needed a BlueCruise maps update that couldn't be done OTA. (see: https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/3-14-22-bluecruise-recall.15498/#post-370875)

I don't know how they could tell that update needed doing, but FDRS didn't tell me this. So, I had to go find the GWM module and install that. I have no idea if it fixed the map issue because there was nothing in FDRS or ForScan that informed me that the issue even existed.

Anyway, after running all the updates, I was left with dozens of DTCs because of those failed updates. I ran a Clear and Retest of the DTCs, and everything came up green.

Took the car for a test drive and nothing seems out of the ordinary.

Overall, I think it went okay. I would like to figure out how to get the full reports about optional and non-optional updates from Ford. I sure do prefer this kind of maintenance over the kind where I have to go under the car and hope the oil filter doesn't drop off and splash dirty motor oil under my safety glasses and into my eyes.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I was in a pull-in parking spot this afternoon. The parking lot is crowded. As I was backing out, I looked both ways as usual, and saw a car coming from the left. The cross-traffic alert dinged and I let the passing car go by. I looked both ways again, but the right-side was blocked by a large pickup. I started to creep back, head pivoting. As I was looking to the left, the car braked hard and the cross-traffic alert started wailing at the same time.

Some idiot in a raspberry-blowing Civic blew by at about 40 mph.

I don't think I would have seen them. I have never relied on these kinds of driver assists, but I'm thrilled I have it in the Mustang.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

My partner is taking her Mustang on her second solo long-distance trip tomorrow. After the horror stories of towing and lifting foolishness, I got the first set of warning stickers installed along with lifting pucks. I'm not too happy with the quality of the pucks I purchased. I may pull them off before she hits the road tomorrow. They just didn't slip all the way in and they rattle around in the holes a bit.

 

[kindofblue]

Thanks. Please give us a link for the pucks and the stickers.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Thanks. Please give us a link for the pucks and the stickers.

These are all Amazon links. I found similar items off of Amazon, but several charged more for shipping than the item itself.

High Voltage Stickers

Lift Here Stickers

DOT C2 Red Reflective Tape

Lifting Pucks

Sponsored