First experience using Unbridled.

[jeffdawgfan]

One of the joys of an EV (at least to me) is the one pedal driving. The stronger the regen the better in IMO. Granted, it takes getting used to but after using it for a couple of weeks it is second nature. You never have to touch the brakes unless emergent braking when some idiot pulls out in front of you. Driving through the Appalachian mountain roads where I live the OP driving is fantastic. It is like driving those curvy roads with a manual. If you do not use regen you will lose so much range if driving in traffic and city driving. Not so much on open highway. My biggest disappointment on my two test drives is that the Regen when in OPD is not stronger. My Chevy Bolt had wonderful Regen. The Leaf is so so. The MME is very similar to my Leaf. Get used to OPD and your brakes will last the life of the vehicle. Just think, when you brake in an ICE all that kinetic energy is converted to heat and wasted. When using OPD in an EV a large percentage of is converted back to chemical energy in the battery.

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[Papa T]

That may be the biggest letdown for me so far. Love the car overall, despite the many Sync4 and charging quirks that I have faith will get fixed with OTA software patches. But the thing I assume is locked in is the suspension. Our Escape has a smoother suspension than the Mach-E. I wasn't expecting that, even though I knew the MME would have some sportiness to it. I hoped the ride would be as luxurious as the interior. It's not.

It does fine at high speed. Get it going at 60+ and it has a smooth highway feel. But anything much slower than that doesn't glide through very well. You feel the bumps more, and it's quick to start bouncing more.

My tires show 39 cold and 41 when hot. I wonder if dropping those to 35 or something would be safe enough and soften it a little? I can always pump them back up to 39 for a road trip to improve range. But around home range doesn't matter.

Do you have an opinion of how much of this is the MME, and how much is the car that you are used to driving? I have not taken delivery yet, but I have had two test drives now. My daily car is currently a BMW with a pretty stiff ride, and if anything, I would have thought that the MME was a little more forgiving than my BMW. However, like I said, I've only had a couple of 30 to 60 minute test drives, and I was definitely in the "still enamored" mode. Have you driven anything more recently with a "sportier" suspension to compare to?

 

[dbsb3233]

Do you have an opinion of how much of this is the MME, and how much is the car that you are used to driving? I have not taken delivery yet, but I have had two test drives now. My daily car is currently a BMW with a pretty stiff ride, and if anything, I would have thought that the MME was a little more forgiving than my BMW. However, like I said, I've only had a couple of 30 to 60 minute test drives, and I was definitely in the "still enamored" mode. Have you driven anything more recently with a "sportier" suspension to compare to?

Unfortunately I haven't. Years ago I used to drive a number of rental cars where I could give you a better comparison, but not lately. All I can really compare to is my 2013 Escape. Which is fairly nice, but I'd probably consider it more just a slightly-above-average vehicle. Maybe a 6 or 7 on a 0-10 scale of ride suspension comfort.

On the same scale I'd probably give the Mach-E a 5 (7 on the highway, 4 on slower roads). It's not way worse, but for 60 grand, I just expected it would be at least as smooth as the Escape.

To be fair though, I wanted the Mach-E to be 90% SUV/crossover and 10% sports car. Many other people want it to be more sports car and less SUV. It does a good overall job of being a unicorn (doing everything pretty well), but that's one area where it leans more sports car than I prefer. It's not super bad or anything, it's just firmer than I expected for 60 grand.

 

[kgautam28]

I found it a rather drastic change from the other modes. It was like having the car in low gear. As soon as I let up on the accelerator the car would immediately slow down. Is this normal?

Unbridled is sport mode, in a race or on a track when you lift off gas pedal, it is to slow down, so will help you stop faster. Also that's regen on High

 

[dbsb3233]

If you do not use regen you will lose so much range if driving in traffic and city driving.

Not in the Mach-E. Unlike many BEVs, the MME uses regen for most of it's brake pedal slowing too. The brake pads only kick in if you need really strong braking. Or as Darren Palmer put it, your really smash the brake pedal.

There's a Brake Coach feature too. When on, it tells you how much of the slowing down with the brake pedal was recovered as regen. Most normal deceleration gets 100%, unless you slow down really quickly for force the disks to engage.

 

[Garbone]

Whisper OPD is a nice mix.

 

[Tsand4]

I'm surprised that so many people have had their cars for days (or longer) and haven't tried Unbridled yet. I'll be trying all modes on my first test drive, and playing with them more on the first drive home from the dealer. To each their own.

I started in Unbridled and realized quickly that it was too easy to drive like an A$$hat and was on track to getting a ticket. I was also killing my range! I have since almost exclusively stuck to Engaged with 1PD. Only use brakes 1x/day to wear off any rust from my rotors to keep 'em shiny.

 

[Tsand4]

I worry about getting used to OPD and then hopping in my F150 and Rear Ending someone!

I've already had this issue, luckily didn't actually rear end anyone, just way heavier on the brakes than I normally am (more similar to my daughter's driving).

 

[Seriously]

This is perfectly normal and expected behavior. Unbridled mode has the strongest regen setting on "coast", such that when you release the accelerator peddle, the motors immediately start acting as a generator and very aggressively start to return power back to the vehicle which causes it to slow down as it takes that momentum and converts it to electrical power. This will be even more apparent if one pedal driving is enabled, however even with one pedal drive disabled, the slowing down of the vehicle is rather aggressive when "coasting" which in this case will not be much of a coast and feels more like gently pressing the brakes on an ICE vehicle.

If you put the vehicle in low gear mode with "L" setting in transmission on (any mode), it essentially does the same and maps to the most aggressive regen mode which to me seems identical to the default regen on unbridled mode. This would be ideal for going downhill as it converts allot of that forward momentum to the vehicle as electrical power to recharge the pack.

If you put the vehicle in "whisper" mode, the regen level is almost non-existent and removing your foot from the accelerator causes the vehicle to coast for what seems like forever, particularly on the highway lol.

For me personally "engaged" mode seems like the most familiar driving mode, in the sense that coasting behaves more like a regular ICE vehicle.

Thank You! This explanation really helped me understand what I was experiencing.

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