How's MME's battery compare to Tesla?

[dbsb3233]

Help me understand how you would need six charging stops for 785 miles. The MME should have better range than my current Bolt. To go 785 miles, conservatively I would stop at 175, 350, 520, and 690 without any concern about running out. My last trip from Wisconsin to Chicago (300 miles round trip). I drove ~70 mph while on the interstate and still had a 220 mile range/charge at that speed. My 175 mile segment estimate leaves me a pretty good margin.

That's what ABRP shows. Part of it is because of the spacing of EA chargers along the route. There's only 9 along the route, and there's not many that can be skipped and still make it to the next one. Part of it is high speed. Most of the drive is in Utah at 80 MPH (and I'm not slowing down). ABRP's algorithm projects a pretty good drop in range from the advertised 270 (AWD) at such high speed. No one knows for sure how much yet, but until there's actual test results published it's more dependable than someone's guess.

The MME is a bigger, heavier vehicle than the Bolt. The Bolt is amazingly efficient at higher speeds. Ever Ford's own numbers (270 mile range on 88 kWh usable ER battery) only calculate to 3.1 miles/kWh. And that's mostly city. At 65 MPH, ABRP uses a 2.64 metric. At 80 MPH it's surely even lower. Meanwhile people report getting 4+ in the Bolt on the highway.

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[JamieGeek]

That's what ABRP shows. Part of it is because of the spacing of EA chargers along the route. There's only 9 along the route, and there's not many that can be skipped and still make it to the next one. Part of it is high speed. Most of the drive is in Utah at 80 MPH (and I'm not slowing down). ABRP's algorithm projects a pretty good drop in range from the advertised 270 (AWD) at such high speed. No one knows for sure how much yet, but until there's actual test results published it's more dependable than someone's guess.

The MME is a bigger, heavier vehicle than the Bolt. The Bolt is amazingly efficient at higher speeds. Ever Ford's own numbers (270 mile range on 88 kWh usable ER battery) only calculate to 3.1 miles/kWh. And that's mostly city. At 65 MPH, ABRP uses a 2.64 metric. At 80 MPH it's surely even lower. Meanwhile people report getting 4+ in the Bolt on the highway.

I still think your numbers for the Mach-E are waay too pessimistic. I bet you'll easily get close to 230 miles out of an AWD ER MME even at speed (in the summer of course).

Using Plugshare's trip planner I see you only needing 4 stops. In addition, it looks like there are tons of Level-2s on the way: (According to plugshare all of these are 125kW or greater.)

(Of course the total time doesn't include charge time here.)

 

[Ken7]

When you plan long trips, you must have alternative charging stops in addition to the planned ones. Starting off with the assumption that every planned charging stop will find fully operational chargers, may burn you badly one day.

Although improving, EA’s reputation for reliability is not stellar. They’re not alone. Tesla has the best reputation, but I’ve certainly come upon non-functioning SCs when I owned my MS.

 

[JamieGeek]

When you plan long trips, you must have alternative charging stops in addition to the planned ones. Starting off with the assumption that every planned charging stop will find fully operational chargers, may burn you badly one day.

Although improving, EA’s reputation for reliability is not stellar. They’re not alone. Tesla has the best reputation, but I’ve certainly come upon non-functioning SCs when I owned my MS.

Note all the extra DCFC's on the map image above, plenty of backup locations (although some of them are only 50kW so it would slow the trip down).

That route isn't nearly the DCFC desert like the UP or the Northern plains are.

 

[dbsb3233]

I still think your numbers for the Mach-E are waay too pessimistic. I bet you'll easily get close to 230 miles out of an AWD ER MME even at speed (in the summer of course).

Using Plugshare's trip planner I see you only needing 4 stops. In addition, it looks like there are tons of Level-2s on the way: (According to plugshare all of these are 125kW or greater.)

I'm just going by ABRP's projections, and Ford's numbers. Hopefully they're both understated. But even Ford's own range of 270 should be for 0-100% SOC, right? So if we adjust for arriving at 10% (safety buffer), that's already down to 243. And that's an overall (mostly city) projection. 230 would only be a 5% drop in efficiency for driving 75-80 MPH (with climate control). Is that realistic?

And that's only on the first leg, starting from home at 100% SOC. Each leg thereafter won't usually be charged to 100%. 70-80% is more likely for an EA charge because it slows down so much. That takes another ~60 miles off those successive legs.

I hope I'm wrong with those parameters, but that fits most of the info I can find. I'd love a significant range boost number from Ford, but I suspect it'll be more minor.

 

[dbsb3233]

Note all the extra DCFC's on the map image above, plenty of backup locations (although some of them are only 50kW so it would slow the trip down).

That route isn't nearly the DCFC desert like the UP or the Northern plains are.

The I-15 stretch has 50 kW backups in a pinch if needed. But that's the shorter section. The I-70 stretch is most of the drive and it's got far fewer backups. In fact, they just added the Green River charger a few months ago. Before that, it wouldn't even have been a consideration in a BEV (CCS).

Between Grand Junction and Richfield, just have to pray that EA is working.

 

[SD_Solar]

And even if there were a Marriott in Richfield or Beaver (for instance) that had a charger, frankly it would cost more than a good-enough Best Western or something + an EA charge. It's usually the more expensive hotels that have chargers, not the more affordable ones. We stay in nicer hotels at final destinations where we spend some time, but for a quick sleep stop in the middle of a long drive it's just not worth it.

I agree if your on a tight time schedule using your ICE would be a better choice for that leg.

Not all hotels that have Destination Chargers are expensive, even here in Sioux Falls there is a Super 8 with 3 16KW Tesla Destination chargers --- only $58 a night and if you save a $30 charge topping off to 98KWH, makes for a cheap stay. Probably even have availability now that the Sturgis Harley Rally is over.

 

[buzznwood]

I'd actually put faster L3 charging times as a higher priority than range (although range is big too). Charging stops on many interstate routes are often more dictated by charger spacing than range anyway. But six 10-15 minute charging stops along the way would sure be a helluva lot more palatable than six 30-40 minute ones.

While I agree until it matches gas stop times it is just a none starter for me, I have already plugged some of my normal long road trips out to the national parks in to ABRP and after the results come back each time I'll be taking the focus not the mach-e . I may attempt taking the mach-e when I visit friends in las vegas as that is much is shorter trip and would only need one stop to charge so not that inconvenient but does rule out taking the more scenic death valley route

I think for most people long journeys and charging is not an issue if I was back in the uk where if I did a 400 mile trip it would take 8+ hours due to all the congestion then stopping of to charge would be a nice distraction, compared to over here on the west coast at least at least where once out from the cities is is just open road cruise control and no real holdups so traveling 400 miles is nothing and having to stop for 40 minutes is a real pain.

While having both long range and fast charging will be nice, if we could only have one I would rather get the battery density to the point that we can match the 800 miles of range you can get out of a tank on a modern diesel and as bev's become the norm we get more destination charging at hotels / resorts which should be easier to implement.

 

[dbsb3233]

While having both long range and fast charging will be nice, if we could only have one I would rather get the battery density to the point that we can match the 800 miles of range you can get out of a tank on a modern diesel and as bev's become the norm we get more destination charging at hotels / resorts which should be easier to implement.

Yeah, if batteries even got to the point of being able to do 800 miles at high speed, then that would clearly be best since we'd never have to do charging stops at all, only overnight ones. 800 miles is pretty much the upper limit for a day for all but the most extreme cannonballers.

But realistically, I doubt that's happening for a long, long time. I think we're more likely to see 400 miles, maybe 500 (but then trim at least 25% for safety margin and high speed loss). But even those numbers aren't likely very soon in the styles and sizes and AWD we covet.

It would have the advantage of not being as much of a slave to routes with fast chargers though. You get more freedom that way to go more places. So perhaps you're right -- being able to skip many charges altogether probably means more than faster charges.

 

[MattG]

Yeah, if batteries even got to the point of being able to do 800 miles at high speed, then that would clearly be best since we'd never have to do charging stops at all, only overnight ones. 800 miles is pretty much the upper limit for a day for all but the most extreme cannonballers.

800 would be great, but would you want to pay for it? I suspect the market just isn’t there...that people would rather opt for a 300-400 mile range and save a lot of money instead.

 

[dbsb3233]

800 would be great, but would you want to pay for it? I suspect the market just isn’t there...that people would rather opt for a 300-400 mile range and save a lot of money instead.

Yep, that's all part of it. Just as weight is. Unless they dramatically improve energy density, 800 miles of range (250 kWh?) would be so heavy that it reaches a point of diminishing return (for a regular passenger vehicle anyway). It then takes extra battery power just to carry the batteries.

A 250 kWh battery would have to come waaaay down in cost and weight to be viable in a vehicle like the MME. And that's quantum leap technology, not just incremental improvement.

 

[JamieGeek]

800 miles is great if you want to stay at your hotel for 2 overnights to charge back up: 250kWh charging at 10kW is 25 hours+....

Need faster Level-2's in that case (or the 50kW CCS).

 

[dbsb3233]

800 miles is great if you want to stay at your hotel for 2 overnights to charge back up: 250kWh charging at 10kW is 25 hours+....

Need faster Level-2's in that case (or the 50kW CCS).

Yeah, if battery packs ever got that big, it likely wouldn't even be something hotels would try to completely accommodate. That's more like a 2 hour babysit at the EA station across the street. (Although hopefully we'd be up to at least 350 kW by then though to shorten that to an hour.)

I've thought about that with Rivian's biggest battery (180 kWh). That sucker would take a full day to fill on a 32A home charger. Probably costs 80 bucks or something to fill up at EA too.

It's gonna be hard enough getting millions of 32A L2 chargers spread across the country at apartments, workplaces, hotels, and attractions. We better keep battery packs within reason for those to be able to charge in a single night. Or live with half charges.

 

[silverelan]

Or how's LG's battery compare to Tesla? Density, degradation etc, is there any detail info available?

LG's batteries so far seem excellent in the Bolt EV. Here's a degradation study of something like 6000 EVs. You can use the comparison tool to see how different EVs stack up to each other including the Bolt EV vs. Models 3 and S/X.

https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/

 

[EVer]

I thought Tesla was making efforts to do unique battery technologies that aren't commodity? Isn't that what the whole "battery day" thing is about?

It’s all speculation at this point. Nobody on the outside knows. Maybe it’s some zinc air thing. Maybe it’s cobalt free. Maybe it’s fairy dust ?

I’m caution to not expect it’s something game changing to EV buyers, else why wait for a dog and pony show to announce it? Feels to me more like something which is aimed at investors. Maybe substantially lower production costs.

time will tell

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