First Road Trip Charging Nightmare

[VegasWeezy]

I recently completed my first road trip in my MME, going roughly 600 miles round trip from Las Vegas, NV to Anaheim, CA taking my family to Disneyland. First off, the car performed beautifully and was a complete pleasure to drive. But we had an anxiety filled, near panic situation on the first leg of our trip.

It is 280 miles from our home to the hotel we were staying at in Anaheim. A Better Route Planner suggested a one stop strategy with a charge in Victorville, CA and estimated that we would arrive with 12% charge at the EVgo station. Being my first road trip, I decided to play it a little conservative and planned an earlier stop in Barstow, CA at an EA station where we would arrive with a little more charge in reserve.

The EA station in Barstow was in a Walmart parking lot and had 8 chargers, although 2 were out of order. When we arrived (with 36% SOC), the other 6 stations were all being used so we waited about 10 minutes for one to free up. After one became available, I plugged in, the handshake between the machine and the car went smooth, but then I received an error that the connection timed out. I tried several times, same result. Another car pulled out from a different charger, so I moved over and tried a second charger in case the problem was with the first machine. Same results. There were other drivers there watching and willing to help, including 2 other MME drivers.

I'm starting to get annoyed and anxious as we're having no luck. One person suggested turning off plug and charge and attempting to use the EA app for the connection and authorization. So I did, and got the same result. I checked all of the preferred charger settings within the FordPass app and within the vehicle, and nothing should have prevented the charge from occurring. I tried a 3rd charger at the EA station with no luck. Called their customer service number and they couldn't give me a answer.

Not knowing what to do, and wanting to try anything, I decided to give it a shot at an EVgo station a few miles away. Tried 2 of their chargers, no luck and seemingly the same issue. Called their customer service line, they reset the stations tried to troubleshoot same as EA, but again no luck. Left there and went to a dive hotel that had a ChargePoint L2 charger, it was out of order. Now I'm really starting to panic and freak out as we don't have enough charge to make it to the hotel in Anaheim.

We get back on the road and decide we will stop at the next EA station and try to figure it out. On the way there, I realize there is a Ford dealership closer and maybe we can take it there and they will be able to help. We make it to Sunland Ford in Victorville, CA with 16% SOC. I go into the dealership and explain the problem and they don't have an EV tech available or anyone knowledgeable that could help. They explain that they don't carry any MME or Lightning on the lot and they are a private dealer not part of the greater Ford network. But they do have an L1 slow trickle charger on the lot. I persuade them to please let me plug in the vehicle to get any kind of charge I can while I call Ford customer service and roadside assistance.

Ford customer service - super nice and understanding but unable to diagnose the problem over the phone. The representative creates a ticket and escalates it but says it could take up to 48 hours to resolve and suggests road side assistance.

Roadside assistance - not really helpful. There is no mobile charging solution so the only thing they can do is tow me to 1 of 3 places... 1) home (which at this point is roughly 200 miles away); 2) to the nearest Ford dealership (I'm already at one that can't help); or 3) to the nearest public charging station (which is the problem).

During our phone calls to Ford and Roadside, my wife and I are scouring the forums to see if others have had this issue. We come across one thread that had a charging issue, not exactly like ours but close enough, and they suggested deleting all preferred charging locations. After 30+ minutes of being at this dealership, we had gone from 16% to 20% SOC and I decided to go back to the plan of heading to the next EA station, this time with all preferred charging settings and locations deleted, and plug and charge turned back on.

We get to an EA station in Hesperia, CA with 17% SOC, plug in and voila, success!! In 35 minutes we went from 17% to 80% and took off for Anaheim. The ordeal was extremely stressful, especially since we had my 8 and 6 year old girls with us, and I'm worried about their first trip to Disneyland being ruined. All in all it cost us only 3 hours and a whole lot of anxiety.

I should note, I had used an EA station locally before just to see how it worked and get used to the process. With all of the same settings on the car (preferred locations and times) that were there at the beginning of the trip (at the time we left the house), and it had worked flawlessly. So there was no reason to believe it wouldn't work on the trip.

The rest of the trip we had no issues charging the vehicle. Anyway, sorry for such a long post. But I hope this can potentially save someone some heartache in the future. Also, Ford customer service did contact me the next day to say they were still working on the problem and had some trouble shooting ideas, none of which involved deleting the preferred charging locations. I told them I had resolved the issue on my own and told them how, and they closed the ticket.

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[RickMachE]

Sorry you had this issue, but none of the preferred settings or locations have any impact on DC fast charging.

 

[prinx]

I did the same trip from South Bay to Vegas recently and had no trouble on the way there. On the way back however, it was so stressful. Vegas has virtually no DC fast charging and I went to 2 locations and half the stations were down.

 

[ARK]

That is shocking to me, you did seemingly everything right in terms of planning - not waiting until your very last possible charger, doing a dry run with a fast charger at home before going on your first roadtrip. You also seem well-informed and knowledgeable enough to try troubleshooting the possible culprits and searching the forum for help.

I'd be really curious to hear what the issue ultimately was. Please do update us. That seems really unacceptable that this would happen.

 

[VegasWeezy]

Sorry you had this issue, but none of the preferred settings or locations have any impact on DC fast charging.

That is shocking to me, you did seemingly everything right in terms of planning - not waiting until your very last possible charger, doing a dry run with a fast charger at home before going on your first roadtrip. You also seem well-informed and knowledgeable enough to try troubleshooting the possible culprits and searching the forum for help.

I'd be really curious to hear what the issue ultimately was. Please do update us. That seems really unacceptable that this would happen.

The preferred settings and locations shouldn't have anything to do with it. You are correct, there should have been no impact. But of all the different things I tried, the car only allowed the DCFC to work once the preferred locations were deleted.

I can't say definitively what the issue ultimately was. However, to me it seemed as though it was some type of glitch in the software that inadvertently blocked the DCFC station from delivering the power until the preferred location was deleted. This will be my go to solve if I ever experience the same problem again. I completely agree with you though Rick, this should not have had any impact.

 

[Logal727]

Sounds like your vehicle was able to reset any trouble code it had while you tried to fast charge the first time it gave you the error. The best way to resolve this is to turn the car off and lock all the doors and let it sit for 15 minutes, then the code should be cleared. I recommend picking up a OBDII dongle and use CarScanner, that way you can scan for any codes that it is throwing then search those on the forum and hopefully that would have saved you some time.

 

[alexgorod]

Did you completely shut down the vehicle between these unsuccessful attempts? Considering that other cars were charging at the stations, it looks more like a car issue that got fixed by itself.

Very sorry for your horrible experience.

looks like my comment is 7 minutes too late

 

[Mirak]

Sounds like you had a very typical Mach E road tripping “adventure.” Wasn’t it thrilling?

I drove from Wichita to Oklahoma City this weekend. Started at 100%. Stopped off at an EA in podunk Blackwell, Oklahoma at 70% just to see if it worked. Two of the four chargers were busted. The other two were occupied. I moved on.

Stopped at a free 350kW DCFC (you read that right) new station operated by EVGateway. Only two terminals. The first appeared to be working but was occupied by an Ioniq 5. The second produced two quick charging faults. I move on and got to my destination at 35%.

No overnight charging at my hotel, so the next morning I set out to find a charger to get home. I didn’t want to chance it on the one working EVGateway (above) being free, so I found a 50kW charger operated by Francis Energy. (Keep in mind, I had to download apps for all this crap).

When I arrived, one of the terminals was dead, the other terminal’s screen had three big black dead spots like it had been hit with a hammer. I gave up after two quick charge faults. Moved on to another Francis Energy 50kW charger 2 miles further down the road. It worked!! So I went for a run while waiting on a 43kW charging speed.

After I got back up to 70%, I headed home. Stopped at the EA in Blackwell and that worked, too.

This bullshit I described is a very normal DCFC experience for me.

 

[VegasWeezy]

Sounds like your vehicle was able to reset any trouble code it had while you tried to fast charge the first time it gave you the error. The best way to resolve this is to turn the car off and lock all the doors and let it sit for 15 minutes, then the code should be cleared. I recommend picking up a OBDII dongle and use CarScanner, that way you can scan for any codes that it is throwing then search those on the forum and hopefully that would have saved you some time.

Did you completely shut down the vehicle between these unsuccessful attempts? Considering that other cars were charging at the stations, it looks more like a car issue that got fixed by itself.

Very sorry for your horrible experience.

looks like my comment is 7 minutes too late

I did completely shut down the vehicle between attempts at the first EA station in Barstow, CA. It was between attempting to use the second and third chargers at that station. Although not shut down for 15 minutes or more, the car was off for around 10 minutes while my wife took the girls into Walmart to use the bathroom and I began my initial search of the owners manual and forum threads via my phone.

At the dealership in Victorville, CA when I was charging on the very slow L1 charger for around 35 minutes, the car was off and locked for about 15 minutes or so while I talked to the people at the dealership prior to persuading them to let me use their charger, and then I moved the car over to the charger and it was off for the entirety of the 35 minutes or so it was charging. Maybe one of those stints was enough to let car clear the code itself.

I appreciate the advice and will certainly look into grabbing an OBDII dongle and the CarScanner app.

 

[Logal727]

I did completely shut down the vehicle between attempts at the first EA station in Barstow, CA. It was between attempting to use the second and third chargers at that station. Although not shut down for 15 minutes or more, the car was off for around 10 minutes while my wife took the girls into Walmart to use the bathroom and I began my initial search of the owners manual and forum threads via my phone.

At the dealership in Victorville, CA when I was charging on the very slow L1 charger for around 35 minutes, the car was off and locked for about 15 minutes or so while I talked to the people at the dealership prior to persuading them to let me use their charger, and then I moved the car over to the charger and it was off for the entirety of the 35 minutes or so it was charging. Maybe one of those stints was enough to let car clear the code itself.

I appreciate the advice and will certainly look into grabbing an OBDII dongle and the CarScanner app.

Definitely a frustrating experience, always helps to have more tools and you can use it on your other cars as well! I honestly never owned a scanner before this car, but I never tried to learn so much about a vehicle before I owned a Mach-E. At least you are on the forum, which is a great place to learn about your vehicle!

 

[phil]

First off, the car performed beautifully and was a complete pleasure to drive. But we had an anxiety filled, near panic situation on the first leg of our trip.

Sorry to hear about the problems, and glad it cost you only a few hours and a few gray hairs.

As for me, I will be waiting a few more years before I try my first electric road trip.

 

[Hammered]

EA can remotely turn on their chargers FWIW if you have an account with them and the auto car handshake issue pops up.

 

[Brian1399]

I recently completed my first road trip in my MME, going roughly 600 miles round trip from Las Vegas, NV to Anaheim, CA taking my family to Disneyland. First off, the car performed beautifully and was a complete pleasure to drive. But we had an anxiety filled, near panic situation on the first leg of our trip.

It is 280 miles from our home to the hotel we were staying at in Anaheim. A Better Route Planner suggested a one stop strategy with a charge in Victorville, CA and estimated that we would arrive with 12% charge at the EVgo station. Being my first road trip, I decided to play it a little conservative and planned an earlier stop in Barstow, CA at an EA station where we would arrive with a little more charge in reserve.

The EA station in Barstow was in a Walmart parking lot and had 8 chargers, although 2 were out of order. When we arrived (with 36% SOC), the other 6 stations were all being used so we waited about 10 minutes for one to free up. After one became available, I plugged in, the handshake between the machine and the car went smooth, but then I received an error that the connection timed out. I tried several times, same result. Another car pulled out from a different charger, so I moved over and tried a second charger in case the problem was with the first machine. Same results. There were other drivers there watching and willing to help, including 2 other MME drivers.

I'm starting to get annoyed and anxious as we're having no luck. One person suggested turning off plug and charge and attempting to use the EA app for the connection and authorization. So I did, and got the same result. I checked all of the preferred charger settings within the FordPass app and within the vehicle, and nothing should have prevented the charge from occurring. I tried a 3rd charger at the EA station with no luck. Called their customer service number and they couldn't give me a answer.

Not knowing what to do, and wanting to try anything, I decided to give it a shot at an EVgo station a few miles away. Tried 2 of their chargers, no luck and seemingly the same issue. Called their customer service line, they reset the stations tried to troubleshoot same as EA, but again no luck. Left there and went to a dive hotel that had a ChargePoint L2 charger, it was out of order. Now I'm really starting to panic and freak out as we don't have enough charge to make it to the hotel in Anaheim.

We get back on the road and decide we will stop at the next EA station and try to figure it out. On the way there, I realize there is a Ford dealership closer and maybe we can take it there and they will be able to help. We make it to Sunland Ford in Victorville, CA with 16% SOC. I go into the dealership and explain the problem and they don't have an EV tech available or anyone knowledgeable that could help. They explain that they don't carry any MME or Lightning on the lot and they are a private dealer not part of the greater Ford network. But they do have an L1 slow trickle charger on the lot. I persuade them to please let me plug in the vehicle to get any kind of charge I can while I call Ford customer service and roadside assistance.

Ford customer service - super nice and understanding but unable to diagnose the problem over the phone. The representative creates a ticket and escalates it but says it could take up to 48 hours to resolve and suggests road side assistance.

Roadside assistance - not really helpful. There is no mobile charging solution so the only thing they can do is tow me to 1 of 3 places... 1) home (which at this point is roughly 200 miles away); 2) to the nearest Ford dealership (I'm already at one that can't help); or 3) to the nearest public charging station (which is the problem).

During our phone calls to Ford and Roadside, my wife and I are scouring the forums to see if others have had this issue. We come across one thread that had a charging issue, not exactly like ours but close enough, and they suggested deleting all preferred charging locations. After 30+ minutes of being at this dealership, we had gone from 16% to 20% SOC and I decided to go back to the plan of heading to the next EA station, this time with all preferred charging settings and locations deleted, and plug and charge turned back on.

We get to an EA station in Hesperia, CA with 17% SOC, plug in and voila, success!! In 35 minutes we went from 17% to 80% and took off for Anaheim. The ordeal was extremely stressful, especially since we had my 8 and 6 year old girls with us, and I'm worried about their first trip to Disneyland being ruined. All in all it cost us only 3 hours and a whole lot of anxiety.

I should note, I had used an EA station locally before just to see how it worked and get used to the process. With all of the same settings on the car (preferred locations and times) that were there at the beginning of the trip (at the time we left the house), and it had worked flawlessly. So there was no reason to believe it wouldn't work on the trip.

The rest of the trip we had no issues charging the vehicle. Anyway, sorry for such a long post. But I hope this can potentially save someone some heartache in the future. Also, Ford customer service did contact me the next day to say they were still working on the problem and had some trouble shooting ideas, none of which involved deleting the preferred charging locations. I told them I had resolved the issue on my own and told them how, and they closed the ticket.

Thanks for sharing man! I have a 2022 Mach E and am planning a 850km road trip from Toronto to Chicago and am a bit nervous about having charging hang ups!

 

[Deleted member 9461]

Sounds like you had a very typical Mach E road tripping “adventure.” Wasn’t it thrilling?

I drove from Wichita to Oklahoma City this weekend. Started at 100%. Stopped off at an EA in podunk Blackwell, Oklahoma at 70% just to see if it worked. Two of the four chargers were busted. The other two were occupied. I moved on.

Stopped at a free 350kW DCFC (you read that right) new station operated by EVGateway. Only two terminals. The first appeared to be working but was occupied by an Ioniq 5. The second produced two quick charging faults. I move on and got to my destination at 35%.

No overnight charging at my hotel, so the next morning I set out to find a charger to get home. I didn’t want to chance it on the one working EVGateway (above) being free, so I found a 50kW charger operated by Francis Energy. (Keep in mind, I had to download apps for all this crap).

When I arrived, one of the terminals was dead, the other terminal’s screen had three big black dead spots like it had been hit with a hammer. I gave up after two quick charge faults. Moved on to another Francis Energy 50kW charger 2 miles further down the road. It worked!! So I went for a run while waiting on a 43kW charging speed.

After I got back up to 70%, I headed home. Stopped at the EA in Blackwell and that worked, too.

This bullshit I described is a very normal DCFC experience for me.

That is what we usually do on long trips....take the dog and run

 

[Phil Martin]

This is why Ford has an agreement with Tesla to use their Supercharging network, that's how bad it's gotten to DCFC. Reports like this is having a negative impact. With the amount of $$ Ford and GM is investing in their EV product lines, they need to get this right the second time.

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