First Road Trip Charging Nightmare

[jason330i]

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.

Yikes! Sorry you had to go through that.
We are currently on a Los Angeles to Vegas road trip. We used EA at Hesperia and it was great. EA at Baker seems derated but works. Now to find a good EA here in Vegas…

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[Auto Motive]

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.

Wow...my story is short and to the point. Tesla superchargers are 99.5% working and are everywhere with no range anxiety. We own a GTPE and had problems with charger around Oh, Pa. My wife gave me her gtpe3 and bought a 2023 Model Y. 160 miles in 15 minutes works everytime. This AWD long range epa at 320 and we get 300 miles highway at 65 mph ac on fan at 3 79 deg. One con no android. Godd luck in the future.

 

[Guss-E 2021]

A few posts hardly have any statistical significance. It remains to be seen how good/bad the experience will be, but logic says there will be more problems at superchargers, not less, and unlike EA, Tesla has zero incentive resolving them.

Whatever you say man ?.

 

[Tampamike]

Is EVGO safe to use or should I stick with EA for reliability?

I use them both. EVGo’s work pretty well. You can even set up Plug and Charge through the EVGo app. It‘s pretty slick. I check PlugShare ahead of time to see reliability and what’s nearby each station. Pricing can be different but at this point of the DCFC evolutionary spectrum, pricing, within reason, takes a back seat to charger reliability for me.

 

[LOPHman]

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.

21 mme GT here. Just finished a 1200 mile round trip from Jersey to Indiana. I know most of the tricks, check the charger status before going, brought my charger and an extension cord etc. The ONLY time I had an issue was using FordPass to initiate/execute the charging at both an EA and Shell station. I did that bc I still have free “blue oval” time. On other trips, I’ve used the independent apps to activate and have had issues. I stuck to EA for a majority of my trip as they just have more plugs than most.

 

[crownmountain]

Thanks for such a comprehensive write-up. To your point planning is everything and using all the tools is key. I have had mine for 28 months and have taken it on 4 round trips of no less than 750 miles one way. In each case, I have had to traverse the DC fast-charging black hole of West Virginia. (how is it a state that mines fuel for electric power plants not have tons of EVs and DC fast chargers.) The first 2 times no findable DC fast charges. Early on even Tesla chargers were sparse. Now there is a Hyundai dealer in Charleston with two ChargePoint 65KW dispensers out in the lot. Another possibly less accessible one in Beckley. Mine is 2WD and eXtended battery. If I charge to 95% SOC or more in Virginia I can make it 256 miles through the mountains to a Walmart in OHIO. While not all dispensers worked enough did. For this last trip, I used the Trip Planner in the car and in Fordpass because of the update improving range calculations. Took some effort but I got it to work for me. I always selected the fastest route and disabled automatic EVSE selection. Also did the routing between stops and not for the entire trip. Well, that's enough rambling for now.

 

[cjljr41]

Was hoping to find an answer in this thread. I’m currently “stuck” in NJ at an L1 charger for 10 hours (thanks to the recent reduction in L1 charging rates) because my car wouldn’t connect to any L3 chargers.

 

[Logal727]

Was hoping to find an answer in this thread. I’m currently “stuck” in NJ at an L1 charger for 10 hours (thanks to the recent reduction in L1 charging rates) because my car wouldn’t connect to any L3 chargers.

Have you turned the car off for 20 minutes?

 

[dmastro]

Have you turned the car off for 20 minutes?

And lose out on 1 mile of charging?

 

[Logal727]

This makes me wonder, does CarScanner reset codes? Can it reset the charge fault DTC?

 

[cjljr41]

Have you turned the car off for 20 minutes?

No.

 

[cjljr41]

Have you turned the car off for 20 minutes?

It appears the car won’t talk to the charger. There were no warnings on the dash. No orange ring at the connector.

 

[Mach-Lee]

It appears the car won’t talk to the charger. There were no warnings on the dash. No orange ring at the connector.

Once it's in an error state, it won't work at any further DC chargers until reset per the below procedure. A lot of people don't turn it off after a failed attempt and end up striking out at all the remaining chargers (which would work) as a result.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...ng-service-vehicle-soon-while-charging.26983/

 

[cjljr41]

Once it's in an error state, it won't work at any further DC chargers until reset per the below procedure. A lot of people don't turn it off after a failed attempt and end up striking out at all the remaining chargers (which would work) as a result.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...ng-service-vehicle-soon-while-charging.26983/

Thank you. I will try this.

 

[Fordmaybe]

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.

Hope the family had better times at disneyland

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