Google Maps really this much better than built-in Nav?

[Mache_Nor]

What baffles me is that @Ford Motor Company in their latest cars Capri and Explorer has a manual button to precondition. Guess the Mach E is so powerful that such a button in the wrong hands would be equivalent to dividing on 0, hence resulting the heat death of the universe.

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[ChrisO]

What baffles me is that @Ford Motor Company in their latest cars Capri and Explorer has a manual button to precondition. Guess the Mach E is so powerful that such a button in the wrong hands would be equivalent to dividing on 0, hence resulting the heat death of the universe.

Neither of these are sold in the US, that should give you a clue. We aren’t getting the Puma either.

 

[Mache_Nor]

The neither of these are sold in the US, that should give you a clue. We aren’t getting the Puma either.

Wait what? But why? (About not being sold).

 

[ChrisO]

Wait what? But why? (About not being sold).

I can only guess, my guess would be that Ford believes that Americans only want large SUVs and Large Trucks, and from what I have seen, they are probably right.

 

[ChrisO]

In my opinion if you want to see where Ford thinks the money is for vehicles in the US look at what they actually make in the US.
Ford vehicles manufactured in the USA include the Ford Explorer, Ford Mustang, Ford F-150, Ford Transit, Ford Escape, Ford Expedition, Ford Super Duty, Ford Ranger, and Ford Ranger.

 

[ralyon]

I just purchased a 2023 MME a couple weeks ago and did my first road trip this past weekend Houston to Denver and back. I haven't tried Ford's nav, only AA with google maps so far. I noticed on the way there that I got exclusively Electrify America and the rates seemed a little high to me. It also routed me a little out of the way through Kansas.

After playing with it over the weekend I found how to set which networks to use. I disabled Electrify America (Tried Blink, but I found they were almost exclusively dealerships and not available) and just left Chargepoint, EVGo, Tesla and one other which I don't remember offhand and it created a more direct route that arrived 1 hour earlier and with 2 less stops for charging. I saved about $50 on the way back between fewer charge stops and cheaper rates.

I also disabled the Plug and Charge as well as Share Charging Access and used my own accounts for each of the services as I've seen Ford charge as much as twice for the same charger at Tesla chargers. Definitely worth the extra 30 seconds to start the charger in the app vs Fords auto start on Chargepoint and Tesla.

I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience or what others have set their options to.

 

[ChrisO]

I just purchased a 2023 MME a couple weeks ago and did my first road trip this past weekend Houston to Denver and back. I haven't tried Ford's nav, only AA with google maps so far. I noticed on the way there that I got exclusively Electrify America and the rates seemed a little high to me. It also routed me a little out of the way through Kansas.

After playing with it over the weekend I found how to set which networks to use. I disabled Electrify America (Tried Blink, but I found they were almost exclusively dealerships and not available) and just left Chargepoint, EVGo, Tesla and one other which I don't remember offhand and it created a more direct route that arrived 1 hour earlier and with 2 less stops for charging. I saved about $50 on the way back between fewer charge stops and cheaper rates.

I also disabled the Plug and Charge as well as Share Charging Access and used my own accounts for each of the services as I've seen Ford charge as much as twice for the same charger at Tesla chargers. Definitely worth the extra 30 seconds to start the charger in the app vs Fords auto start on Chargepoint and Tesla.

I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience or what others have set their options to.

I think your experiences is "spot on".

Basically, if you use Plug and Charge you are going to be paying the "non member" price at every charging location. So, depending on the membership costs and how much you use DCFC you can definitely save money by not using Plug and Charge.

And as for finding a better route and saves stops I have found that to be a bit of a frustration/art.

There is first just "how good did the map program select the route" in the first place. They tend to be pretty good, but they aren't 100% going to pick the best route. And that is where using different routes or even looking at it on a map yourself can help. I personally haven't seen it pick a better route based on which charge companies I have enabled, but where I have been doing this is you basically have Electrify America and Telsa very close to each other. I don't have EVGo selected myself since I have had bad luck with them, and the couple of times I tried them they were even more expensive than Electrify America!

But the other part of this is charging. You see a review on an EV and says it has 250 miles of range. Even before we take into different weather conditions, this number is very misleading. You are hopefully never going to go to from 100% to 0%. So, there is a "loss" of at least 10% right there. Then once on the road you are probably going to be limited to 80%, so now you have 80% -10% = 70% range. And this where the kicker comes in, you can't just stop at 10% in the middle of nowhere just because that would give you the max range. The charger has to be there. And they are more spaced out than gas stations.

So, yeah depending on where the charge stations are it can definitely influence the routes.

 

[music_cities]

I think your experiences is "spot on".

Basically, if you use Plug and Charge you are going to be paying the "non member" price at every charging location. So, depending on the membership costs and how much you use DCFC you can definitely save money by not using Plug and Charge.

And as for finding a better route and saves stops I have found that to be a bit of a frustration/art.

There is first just "how good did the map program select the route" in the first place. They tend to be pretty good, but they aren't 100% going to pick the best route. And that is where using different routes or even looking at it on a map yourself can help. I personally haven't seen it pick a better route based on which charge companies I have enabled, but where I have been doing this is you basically have Electrify America and Telsa very close to each other. I don't have EVGo selected myself since I have had bad luck with them, and the couple of times I tried them they were even more expensive than Electrify America!

But the other part of this is charging. You see a review on an EV and says it has 250 miles of range. Even before we take into different weather conditions, this number is very misleading. You are hopefully never going to go to from 100% to 0%. So, there is a "loss" of at least 10% right there. Then once on the road you are probably going to be limited to 80%, so now you have 80% -10% = 70% range. And this where the kicker comes in, you can't just stop at 10% in the middle of nowhere just because that would give you the max range. The charger has to be there. And they are more spaced out than gas stations.

So, yeah depending on where the charge stations are it can definitely influence the routes.

I've been trying to use Google Maps routing and picking charging stops based on the thoughts in this thread, and frankly it's been terrible. There seems to be no easy way to tweak the charging stop selection algorithm, for example no settings for how low you want to go (%) before charging, no adjustments for extra weight, and do they even look at a future weather forecast? I don't know, how would you know? And on iOS at least you seem to need to be *sitting in your car* to force it to pick charging stops for you, otherwise it just pretends you can get there without charging. You can manually add charging stops along your route, but unless you're *sitting in your car* it doesn't guesstimate how long it will take to charge there, nor what your percentage will be when you arrive and leave the charging station.

Am I missing something?

Why not just use ABRP to plan the route? Check the charger's scores and comments on PlugShare. And once you have that, maybe you'd rather use Connected Navigation to execute the route, and keep your phone focused on music and podcasts. I just wish I could send a route to the car's connected navigation from the FordPass App like i could when I bought the car, instead of having to enter the stops in while sitting in the car. But, with ABRP and Plugshare, I can at least *plan* my route from my living room or hotel room.

 

[ChrisO]

I've been trying to use Google Maps routing and picking charging stops based on the thoughts in this thread, and frankly it's been terrible. There seems to be no easy way to tweak the charging stop selection algorithm, for example no settings for how low you want to go (%) before charging, no adjustments for extra weight, and do they even look at a future weather forecast? I don't know, how would you know? And on iOS at least you seem to need to be *sitting in your car* to force it to pick charging stops for you, otherwise it just pretends you can get there without charging. You can manually add charging stops along your route, but unless you're *sitting in your car* it doesn't guesstimate how long it will take to charge there, nor what your percentage will be when you arrive and leave the charging station.

Am I missing something?

Why not just use ABRP to plan the route? Check the charger's scores and comments on PlugShare. And once you have that, maybe you'd rather use Connected Navigation to execute the route, and keep your phone focused on music and podcasts. I just wish I could send a route to the car's connected navigation from the FordPass App like i could when I bought the car, instead of having to enter the stops in while sitting in the car. But, with ABRP and Plugshare, I can at least *plan* my route from my living room or hotel room.

You are correct you have to be in the car for it to do anything with charging.

It really isn’t that good for the planning phase, but it does do a good job once you are on the road.

 

[music_cities]

You are correct you have to be in the car for it to do anything with charging.

It really isn’t that good for the planning phase, but it does do a good job once you are on the road.

I guess that's good, but once I'm driving the job is already finished. It's just executing the plan, which is pretty easy, I could even use a paper map old-school! (But I prefer Connected Navigation for executing the plan.)

 

[ChrisO]

I guess that's good, but once I'm driving the job is already finished. It's just executing the plan, which is pretty easy, I could even use a paper map old-school! (But I prefer Connected Navigation for executing the plan.)

As I said in a previous post on this thread, I think the major thing missing with Google Maps is the fact that separated from the car it really has no EV prediction functionality, and this is a very big weakness. And I wish Google would fix that.

But I will point out something else. You and others have suggested just using ABRP for the whole thing. Well, unless something changes, I think that door is closing (ABRP needs to implement whatever API Google Maps is using). To give an accurate prediction while on the road the application needs to be feed the real time information about the charge state and such. This is currently possible up to the 2024 Mach-E through the OBD scanner, but it isn't possible with the 2025 Mach-E. Ford has encrypted the communications and as such, such scanners can't provide that information anymore.

BTW just from a personal point of view. I have found ABRP's system to be quite frustrating at times.

 

[music_cities]

This is currently possible up to the 2024 Mach-E through the OBD scanner, but it isn't possible with the 2025 Mach-E. Ford has encrypted the communications and as such, such scanners can't provide that information anymore.

Good point! I wonder what the future will bring?

I don’t actually rely on ABRP in the car, I also find it rather annoying for executing the trip. My latest problem was after I reached the destination, I tried to use ABRP to plan the return journey, and there’s no cell service out there (near Saskatchewan Crossing, AB). ABRP refused to do anything without cell service. Fortunately, I use connected navigation to execute the trip, which doesn’t need cell service.

 

[Budmen]

• Only benefits I know from Ford Nav are:
  • It will precondition the battery as you near your DC station. Doesn't seem like Google does that.

Just curious....could you run Ford Nav in the background sending directions to the charging station that google is sending you to, in order to precondition the battery? Or just do that 15 minutes away?
As a side note, there really should be a precondition button in the car either physical or virtual.

 

[Arsenic17]

Just curious....could you run Ford Nav in the background sending directions to the charging station that google is sending you to, in order to precondition the battery? Or just do that 15 minutes away?
As a side note, there really should be a precondition button in the car either physical or virtual.

You can't run Ford nav and Google nav at the same time. It makes you cancel one before allowing the other to start.

I personally struggle to use Ford nav to directly nav to a specific charger. Find a charger in the nav only allows you it show closest chargers. So if dense charging its tough to get correct one. It's just a hassle.

However as others have said here in the thread, Google maps now does preconditioning also. So shouldn't have to worry about it. Unless you are on apple.

 

[music_cities]

You can't run Ford nav and Google nav at the same time. It makes you cancel one before allowing the other to start.

I personally struggle to use Ford nav to directly nav to a specific charger. Find a charger in the nav only allows you it show closest chargers. So if dense charging its tough to get correct one. It's just a hassle.

However as others have said here in the thread, Google maps now does preconditioning also. So shouldn't have to worry about it. Unless you are on apple.

You can press the top-right button in Ford Nav to search either "near me", or "near my destination", or "along my route". It's a little circle icon.

While driving there's also the "up ahead" and "exit services" buttons that can be used to search up ahead, and near different freeway exits.

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