Ford Range Increase Coming?

[dbsb3233]

It's heavily weighted in the Highway number

Except it's not "heavily" weighted toward it. Just the opposite. If it were heavily weighted toward it, the average speed would be something like 73 or 77 or at least 69. Instead it's so slanted toward medium and low speed that the average is a mere 48.3 MPH (but passed off as "highway" speed).

And of course the EPA "range" number everyone actually hears about isn't even that fast. It's a combo of the 48.3 avg speed and the 19.59 avg CITY speed. That would combine for an average somewhere in the 30's.

https://insideevs.com/news/439290/how-is-electric-car-range-calculated/

Bottom line: EPA range more reflects realistic city speeds, not realistic highway speeds. Just have to wait for experts to publish results of real world tests to find out realistic highway range at various high speeds.

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[ARK]

I know @dbsb3233 linked to Car & Driver's EV range ratings multiple times in this thread, but I'm not sure their article from September 2020 was shared called The Secret Adjustment Factor Tesla Uses to Get Its Big EPA Range Numbers. It goes some way to explaining why they are seeing a particularly big disparity between Tesla's EPA ratings and their own testing as compared to EPA ratings from other BEVs.

As the article says, they aren't doing anything against the rules and it's not like other car makers don't try to do the same, but they have been in the BEV business longest and simply appear to be better at gaming the current EPA rules than all other BEV automakers.

If you read Car & Driver and Motor Trend regularly, you'll note that they often miss EPA targets no matter what type of car or SUV they are reviewing, ICE or BEV. I think part of this is they are all a bunch of lead-foot drivers.

Since this is after all supposed to be a Mustang, my hope is that Ford has accepted trade-offs in developing this car in favor of performance (aggressively tuned motors, sticky tires, etc.) and that is where much of the range gap comes from as opposed to just being technologically behind Tesla on the electric powertrain.

I'm hoping that when the car magazines get a hold of the car, they will come up with skidpad test ratings at or above 0.90 Gs. My two cents is that on a vehicle like this, stuff like that should be the development priority, not necessarily maximizing range.

 

[Jimrpa]

So sorry. That sounds like a brutal commute. I wonder if your "expressway" will be part of the geo fenced autonomous roadway system. Would be great if it were. Otherwise it will have to be adaptive cruise, which isn't so bad.

One silver lining is that at those speeds your range will probably be 350 miles! LOL

It is. In the “before time”, I took the train. Total door-to-door time was the same, and there was the inconvenience of being a slave to Amtrak/SEPTA, but not facing the expressway every morning outweighed it. When we do officially go back in, it’s only going to be 2 days a week. Since the MME has full range adaptive cruise control, I was going to see if the commute was any more tolerable before going back to mass transit.

 

[jhalkias]

I knew the car's range when I put my order in. Any improvement is great. Heat pump or no heat pump I am happy with the car. Actually, MORE than happy with my choice as I read the thread on people who have seen it. If we get a bit more range, that's just icing on the cake. Besides, adding a heat pump would have probably taken up wing space in the Frunk. A dozen less wings and someone doesn't get an invite to the tailgate.

 

[TheLight75]

The winter drop-off in my Kona EV (w/o heat pump) here in New England is closer to 30%. New BEV owners in colder climates will be upset by the winter drop-off but it’s just a fact of BEV life that you have to accept. It’s really only impacted me when doing a winter road trip where I needed to stop to charge on the way. Otherwise, I charge at home everyday In Winter so my pre-COVID round-trip commute of 130 miles was never a problem.

 

[dbsb3233]

And that's exactly my point. You just described a COMBINATION of highway+city. And that's similar to what EPA does on their "highway" test. And that's a misnomer because that's "combo", not "highway". 48 MPH avg is not "highway", it's combo (at best).

Then for the EPA "range" number, they dilute it further by splitting it with 19 MPH "city". By the time they get to their "combo" number, there's little highway speed left in it. Thus why EPA range is a very inferior number for actual interstate speeds.

 

[1pt21Gigawatts]

Look, the heat pump will have a 5-25% impact on range depending on where you live. It’s just a fact. It would’ve been nice, it’s a standard features on most EVs but also was noticeably absent on Teslas until this year after 8yrs on the market - so not mandatory. It would have been great for us to get one, it’s a disappointing incremental loss.

What it really means for us is that early adopters (read: anyone who doesn’t luck out with a GT next year or premium buyers before ~3yrs from now when we can earliest expect it) will have to wait. Mach-E chose not to have a heat pump, which isn’t ideal, and we’ll have to live with it unlesss we’re willing to wait ~4-6yrs for refresh.

The options program regrettably seems like it’s mostly there for peace of mind, not really making it economical to trade up. The TCO for swapping to a refreshed model 3-4yrs from launch is incredibly high, meaning swapping to a new car to get the heat pump is a pipe dream.

It’ll be less efficient than it could be and we’re probably looking at 25% range loss in winter. Preconditioning will soften that, as will only using the heated steering wheel/seats. But hey, Tesla owners didn’t get either a heat pump or a heated steering wheel for all these years.

 

[Redundant]

Look, the heat pump will have a 5-25% impact on range depending on where you live. It’s just a fact. It would’ve been nice, it’s a standard features on most EVs but also was noticeably absent on Teslas until this year after 8yrs on the market - so not mandatory. It would have been great for us to get one, it’s a disappointing incremental loss.

What it really means for us is that early adopters (read: anyone who doesn’t luck out with a GT next year or premium buyers before ~3yrs from now when we can earliest expect it) will have to wait. Mach-E chose not to have a heat pump, which isn’t ideal, and we’ll have to live with it unlesss we’re willing to wait ~4-6yrs for refresh.

The options program regrettably seems like it’s mostly there for peace of mind, not really making it economical to trade up. The TCO for swapping to a refreshed model 3-4yrs from launch is incredibly high, meaning swapping to a new car to get the heat pump is a pipe dream.

It’ll be less efficient than it could be and we’re probably looking at 25% range loss in winter. Preconditioning will soften that, as will only using the heated steering wheel/seats. But hey, Tesla owners didn’t get either a heat pump or a heated steering wheel for all these years.

Indeed, all of the above. And, I did consider leasing/options program to enable a trade up in 3 years, but, like you point out, as it is currently structured, it is not any better than just buying.

 

[DaveRuns]

Seems very price competitive. The Mach E with two motors and extended range battery is $54,700 minus $7500 = $47, 200. The Model Y is $49,900. Time from 0-60 MPH is the same.

Now the Model Y does have more range. At these numbers it's not a big deal but let's say it's worth more than $2700, which from a strictly logical POV is a stretch given how many kWh you can buy for $2700. However, the autonomous driving package is $6400 less on the Mach E and, the big deciding issue for me, Ford actually knows how to build a vehicle whereas Tesla is still struggling to master the skills to do so.

I'd be careful with the "minus 7,500" comment/comparison. Not all may qualify for that deduction. In addition, we likely won't see it until several months after you do your taxes anyway. SO...there will be sticker shock regardless.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

I'd be careful with the "minus 7,500" comment/comparison. Not all may qualify for that deduction. In addition, we likely won't see it until several months after you do your taxes anyway. SO...there will be sticker shock regardless.

The $7500 tax credit is not a deduction. There is no requirement you itemize before claiming it. The ev tax credit is determined after your taxable income is calculated.

The only requirement we need to be concerned with is whether we have a tax liability. If you have a tax liability you’re going to be able to claim it up to 100% of your liability or $7500, whichever is less. Do not confuse tax liability with the amount many of us owe and have to write a check for each year. There are very few people on this forum who don’t have a tax liability of $7500 or more.

 

[efisher]

Yes having the option of the Escape makes things pretty easy. I think the range issue will sort itself once you have the vehicle. I would not put too much stock in the Car and Driver numbers. I've had a couple of cars on the list and have never seen such lower numbers, and I can be a fairly aggressive driver.

Since the EPA range number is heavily weighted towards the City number, my shortcut calculation is to take the Highway MPGe number, divide it by the City MPGe number, and multiply by the range. That overweights the Highway by a small amount but it's easy and simple to do and, in my experience, will give you a very accurate approximation of the range you can expect.

In this regard, CARWOW did a similar test as Car and Driver and got quite different results. For example, the Nissan Leaf ended up at 203 miles rather than my projected 177 miles. The tests weren't exactly the same, one difference being CARWOW had more a steady 70 MPH rather than a steady 75 MPH. That can make a difference but still doesn't explain the differing results.

To me 785 miles in a day is too much for current BEVs. For trips more like 400 miles/day I think the Mach E will work OK, especially if you have the hands free driver option. That will really help on long trips.

In my entire adult live, I don't think I have ever done a trip where I drove more than 400 miles in a single day and then it included at least one stop. So, for me, if I can get one DC fast charge in during a meal stop and can stay at a hotel that has overnight level 2 charging, I can go anywhere.

 

[efisher]

There is another crucial point: That the achievable percentage of EPA range seems to deviate widely across EV brands. What is important is not the EPA range but the realistic range that you can expect on a road trip. From that perspective, Tesla does far worse than its competitors.

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