First Mustang Mach E Road Trip ?

theo1000

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Having said all of that, if Ford and Chevy would install two L3s in every dealership in the next six months, it would go a long way, very quickly, in filling some big holes in the current charging infrastructure. so, I guess, I'm arguing for stop-gap as well as fall back.
Waaal.... Ford has paid the local dealers to install L2's. But this being small town America the dealership I drove by keeps their charger under lock and key because some dude used it without their permission. Another dealership has placed their Trash Dumpster in front of their charger. One of those on the ground Ahems! that defeat strategy. Folks here are comfortable with gas station type set up, they know not to block gas stations, anything else is going against their better angels....
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dbsb3233

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Waaal.... Ford has paid the local dealers to install L2's. But this being small town America the dealership I drove by keeps their charger under lock and key because some dude used it without their permission. Another dealership has placed their Trash Dumpster in front of their charger. One of those on the ground Ahems! that defeat strategy. Folks here are comfortable with gas station type set up, they know not to block gas stations, anything else is going against their better angels....
I didn't hear that Ford paid them, only that for the dealership to be EV certified, Ford required they had to have 2 chargers (one available to service, one available on the customer/sales side).

But I don't think the strategy by Ford was ever intended to provide public charging, only that they felt it was needed for sales and service. And it only needed to be a minimum of L2, during business hours.

Dealerships can choose to offer more, of course. But that would be their own strategy if they choose to put in DCFC, and make it available to the public or not.
 

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Even for the people without a single family home, I think the right solution is L2 being installed where people live (apartments, condos). I know some won't have that and will need to DCFC, but frankly, I don't think people that don't have L2 available for 90% of their routine charging for good candidates for BEV at all. Full-time DCFC is a poor use of precious resources, and is bad for the batteries anyway.

A little DCFC in cities/towns is OK, and even potentially necessary for travelers. But I don't want to see that become the routine way to charge for locals. Lots of L2 is the answer for local driving, IMO.

If a dealership chooses to install DCFC, that's fine. But I don't see any good reason for Ford to pay for any of it. They actually make less profit on BEV than ICE sales, so it doesn't make sense for them to subsidize chargers like that.

I get the desire to want more DCFC. And we definitely need it. I just don't agree that Ford should be installing chargers just because they sell a some BEVs. And because Tesla did it that way (they had little choice as the trailblazer a decade before the rest). Ford doing it would in effect subsidize their competition (since all but Tesla use CCS). And limiting them would be a terrible waste of resources. Better to promote EA, CP, EVgo and the others that are universal (minus Tesla).
Okay. We aren't far apart, and I'm happy to agree to disagree on the fine points. ;)

Thanks for the input and the well reasoned debate.
 

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They should lobby their landlords to install much cheaper L2.

It's much easier to simply plug in overnight than sit for half an hour at one location to DCFC every week anyway.
Couple of things: if the DCFC is located next to where you do your grocery shopping, it's not much of an issue, time-wise.

And there are a lot of apartments that don't provide parking: so the L2s have to be on the street, if you want to use them. Doable, but likely by the city, not the landlords.

Again, we aren't far apart on all of this, and I don't know exactly how all of this will shake out...
 

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I didn't hear that Ford paid them, only that for the dealership to be EV certified, Ford required they had to have 2 chargers (one available to service, one available on the customer/sales side).

But I don't think the strategy by Ford was ever intended to provide public charging, only that they felt it was needed for sales and service. And it only needed to be a minimum of L2, during business hours.

Dealerships can choose to offer more, of course. But that would be their own strategy if they choose to put in DCFC, and make it available to the public or not.
The way you describe it is how I understand the L2s in Ford dealerships. And they do seem amazingly stingy with them, turning them off at night, etc. Sigh.
 


dbsb3233

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The way you describe it is how I understand the L2s in Ford dealerships. And they do seem amazingly stingy with them, turning them off at night, etc. Sigh.
I just wouldn't call it stingy to not be giving away freebies for no good reason. It would be like Home Depot giving away free 2x4s to anyone that drives up.
 

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I took my brand new (literally brand new, picked it up Wednesday) Mach-E from Memphis to Denison, TX, to visit family this past Friday. Maybe not a great idea, but I wanted to get to know the car, and this seemed like a great way to do it quickly.

Had to make 4 stops along the way, charged to 80% and then moved on to the next segment. It added about 2 hours to my trip, and the novelty wore off a bit after the 4th charging session :) Still, it was fun to try, and I have to do it again on the way back Monday. At my first stop in Forrest City, AR, a couple of guys towing a landscaping trailer pulled up behind me and talked to me about it for a few minutes, drove off, then came back to ask more questions.

I am really pleased that the charging was as easy as it was. I plugged in and the only input needed from me was to press Continue after it did all the handshaking, sync’d to my Ford account and showed me the rate. Amazed that it worked so well every time. Still a pain in the ass to wait during charging, but we know this going in. At least I haven’t had to pay a dime to charge yet, thanks Ford!

The drive flew by, it was almost as if the car needed very little from me with the cruise control going, just needed me to keep it on the road. I found the ride very smooth and comfortable. My last charging stop was about 20 minutes off my route, but I really had no choice unless I wanted to spend an extra hour or more in Hope, AR, getting to 100%.

I don’t think I’ll do it again — a 1000-mile round trip is just easier in a rental right now. But I’m pleased to know it can be done, even if it cost me two extra hours. Also I found lots of little things it can do that I didn’t know even after all my research.
Replying to my own post here :) Made it back to Memphis in one piece, but still very likely I won't be taking my Mach-E on a long road trip again. Charger-hopping is just too much of a hassle at the moment. When I take a rental to Dallas, I typically stop for gas once on the way there, so stopping four times with 30 minute waits each time made the trip a little tedious. If I'd opted for the ER, it would have helped, but it wasn't worth the extra $5k for a few road trips compared to the cost of renting a car.

I ran into two Mach-E's in Texas -- one guy at Royse City who was there to repair a stall, and another one in Mt Pleasant, TX ... except this guy was having a hard time getting his Mach-E to charge, kept getting the fault message. I felt bad I couldn't give him any advice other than to call the help line, since mine worked perfectly almost every time (and when it didn't take, trying again always worked). He was also on a very long road trip, so I imagine it'd be extremely stressful to run into that issue on a route where every single charging station is essential to your journey.

Also ran into a couple of Bolt owners (of which I was one until last week) who were ogling the Mach-E. I loved my Bolt, but man, side by side, they are a totally different species.
 

dbsb3233

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Replying to my own post here :) Made it back to Memphis in one piece, but still very likely I won't be taking my Mach-E on a long road trip again. Charger-hopping is just too much of a hassle at the moment. When I take a rental to Dallas, I typically stop for gas once on the way there, so stopping four times with 30 minute waits each time made the trip a little tedious. If I'd opted for the ER, it would have helped, but it wasn't worth the extra $5k for a few road trips compared to the cost of renting a car.
It's definitely more of a challenge vs ICE. We drive Denver to Vegas a lot. 785 miles. If doing it in one day (~12 hours), it's just 2 quick gas stops, one of them lunch. But in the Mach-E it's 6 half hour stops, making it a 2-day affair (actually, 1.5).

But, we enjoyed it, and we'll keep taking the Mach-E instead of the Escape. We're retired, so the slower pace and extra days don't matter too much to us. But if time were more of an issue (days off from work), we'd take the Escape again.
 

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It's definitely more of a challenge vs ICE. We drive Denver to Vegas a lot. 785 miles. If doing it in one day (~12 hours), it's just 2 quick gas stops, one of them lunch. But in the Mach-E it's 6 half hour stops, making it a 2-day affair (actually, 1.5).

But, we enjoyed it, and we'll keep taking the Mach-E instead of the Escape. We're retired, so the slower pace and extra days don't matter too much to us. But if time were more of an issue (days off from work), we'd take the Escape again.
We'll be relocating from suburban Chicago to the Phoenix area as we edge closer to full retirement in March. Have taken several 300 mile trips using both 150kW and 50kW stations. Our trip to Phoenix will be almost 1900 miles that we'll do over 3 days/2 nights with 4-5 stops each day depending on efficiency & weather as it will be November. We'll use the time at the charging sessions for human & canine bio breaks and snacks/refreshments/food. ABRP is invaluable for route planning and will only get better with time for MME owners. If you're anxious about station reliability, PlugShare and EA give more detail about station availability and last usage.

Have setup accounts on ABRP, EA, PlugShare, Greenlots, and will add ChargePoint & Francis Energy to have alternatives and use their apps to initiate charging sessions unless I haven't exhausted my credit on FordPass. Knocking on wood, I've had success using FP, EA and Greenlots without incident.

Definitely looking forward to the leisurely pace and time spent in the vehicle. When I get back into an ICE vehicle, it reminds me how much I like driving the MME instead!!!
 

dbsb3233

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Definitely looking forward to the leisurely pace and time spent in the vehicle. When I get back into an ICE vehicle, it reminds me how much I like driving the MME instead!!!
Yep, pros and cons both ways. Our Escape has always been nice, but the Mach-E is downright luxurious. On highways, it's so quiet and smooth. And of course all the tech has advanced a lot relative to our 8yo Escape.

If time were an issue, we'd have no problem taking the Escape. And there are some destinations/routes we'll still need to. We have a Rapid City drive to do this summer, and that'll have to be in the Escape. But the extra features and luxury of the Mach-E make it worth the slower drive (where possible) since taking an extra day or two doesn't hurt us (time-wise) in retirement. Although it does cost us more $$ for extra hotel nights.
 

@kWhpony

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Yep, pros and cons both ways. Our Escape has always been nice, but the Mach-E is downright luxurious. On highways, it's so quiet and smooth. And of course all the tech has advanced a lot relative to our 8yo Escape.

If time were an issue, we'd have no problem taking the Escape. And there are some destinations/routes we'll still need to. We have a Rapid City drive to do this summer, and that'll have to be in the Escape. But the extra features and luxury of the Mach-E make it worth the slower drive (where possible) since taking an extra day or two doesn't hurt us (time-wise) in retirement. Although it does cost us more $$ for extra hotel nights.
We've passed down our 2008 Edge with 200,000+ miles to our college graduate. That vehicle has taken us to Steamboat Springs, Cooperstown, Niagara Falls, Virginia, Birmingham, Lexington, Windsor, and the Atlanta area twice. Still love the way that SUV drives and performs. Returned a leased Lincoln MKC for the MME. Nice vehicle as well and same platform as the Escape.

Don't forget to use your AARP discounts on those hotel nights or the low-priced hotel apps to find something even cheaper !!
 

dbsb3233

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Don't forget to use your AARP discounts on those hotel nights or the low-priced hotel apps to find something even cheaper !!
Oh yeah, travel planning is one of my things so definitely getting every discount I can. It takes on a whole new dimension with the Mach-E, trying to find the right hotels with or near chargers so we can double-up the time.
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