Mach-E First Edition - First Impressions on 300 mile road trip.

[hybrid2bev]

When I arrived at the charging station I was down to 14% battery charge and had about 12 miles of range left. Once I started charging I was only getting 32kw per hour. Since the temps were cold, I calculated I would need to get to 65% or 130 miles to leave me a good buffer to make it home. This took a whopping 96 minutes to accomplish. Had the system provided the "up to" 150kw that it should have, I should have been back on the road within 30 minutes. The sticker on the charger at the station stated it could provide up to 350kw charging rate. I know this has been an ongoing issue with Electrify America with other EV's and users. So, if anyone has a trick to get the charging rates faster, I'm all ears.

This is about the same speed (~30 kW) I got at 2 different EA sites in Michigan @ 15 degrees F outside.

On a different day when the temp was a bit warmer but still just below freezing I got from 10% to 80% in 45 minutes. I drove the car hard for about 20 minutes, hard accelerations, hard full regen and cranked up the heater to yo-yo the battery energy to hopefully warm it up.

Hoping the OTA update comes soon to pre-condition the battery when a charger destination is set in the nav.

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[dbsb3233]

I wonder if EA is purposefully throttling charging rates.

I seriously doubt that.

There might be an issue with EA and the Mach-E interfacing properly that needs to be straightened out, but it would make no sense that it would be "purposeful". Especially since EA prices by the kWh in most states now (including WA where the OP is located). If anything, EA wants customers in and out as fast as possible to open up the charger so they can sell electricity to the next customer.

 

[1pt21Gigawatts]

Good Morning everyone,

I picked up my Mach E FE yesterday. I purchased it from a dealer since the one I ordered would not be built until May 31st. (I received an email telling me this, this morning. But, I already had a good idea that would be the timeline.) The drive home was 290 miles and the temp at starting point was a balmy 21 F. (Tongue planted firmly in cheek) When I left the dealership, the car was fully charged and had a range of 200 miles. I did perform a reset of the driving history before I left.

I noticed a little vibration rattle up near the drivers sun shade. I'll have to track that down or have the dealership do it.

The cars handling was quite good. Steering is very responsive no matter what driving mode you are in. Roads were mostly bare and wet but some places in the pass still had ice patches. For the trip home, I kept it mostly in Whisper mode to get as much range with it as I could. I passed one car on the first leg of the trip. When I started the pass I was doing 50mph. I pushed the accelerator down about 3/4 and it kinda took me off guard. Even not all the way down it literally pinned me back into my seat.

Low beam headlights were not as illuminating as I thought they should be. Brights were more than enough to do the job. Auto light sensing for brights and dim worked very well.

Climate control was easy to understand and manage. While turning off climate control and using the heated seats and steering wheel would have given me some more range but since I knew I had enough to get to my charging station I did not turn climate control off.

Switching back and forth between Sync Navigation and Carplay for music was seamless and I had no issues at all.

I used the Mach E SYNC 4 navigation system on the way home instead of Carplay Apps. It brought up the charger locations I would need since I would not have enough range to make it home on a single charge. The choice was easy as there was only 1 charging station on my route.

And now a few words about charging. I stopped at the Electrify America station as planned. Temp at this location was 28 F. I plugged the charger into the car and it was ready to charge. However, it did not recognize my Ford Wallet so I had to pay with my CC. And now about time to charge.

When I arrived at the charging station I was down to 14% battery charge and had about 12 miles of range left. Once I started charging I was only getting 32kw per hour. Since the temps were cold, I calculated I would need to get to 65% or 130 miles to leave me a good buffer to make it home. This took a whopping 96 minutes to accomplish. Had the system provided the "up to" 150kw that it should have, I should have been back on the road within 30 minutes. The sticker on the charger at the station stated it could provide up to 350kw charging rate. I know this has been an ongoing issue with Electrify America with other EV's and users. So, if anyone has a trick to get the charging rates faster, I'm all ears.

Once home I plugged the car into my wall charger and it started charging right away. I did this at 9:45 last night and it finished to a full charge at 9:21 this morning. So the estimate of about 12 hours was spot on. I arrived at home with about 18% charge left.

I did have one person at the charging station, which was co-located at a Taco Bell ask me what kinda car I was driving as he had not seen anything like it.

Overall, my first impressions are good. The car performed exactly as I thought it would, range was what I expected at the temps I was in. And, the ride was comfortable and performance was superb. The only shortcoming was the time to charge, which absolutely needs to improve.

Do you have what your overall consumption (mi/kWh) and average speed for that trip? Sounds like a great test at 21F!

 

[NotSoJon]

I seriously doubt that.

There might be an issue with EA and the Mach-E interfacing properly that needs to be straightened out, but it would make no sense that it would be "purposeful". Especially since EA prices by the kWh in most states now (including WA where the OP is located). If anything, EA wants customers in and out as fast as possible to open up the charger so they can sell electricity to the next customer.

However, it is really strange that ford pumped up their relationship with EA and can't fully utilize it. This is something that needs to be high on their priority list to figure out. I am not very concerned right now, but will be down the road when there are more EVs on the road. Happy that the OP was even able to charge at all, which says something about my expectations for charging right now.

 

[rafpug]

I think you have to activate fast charging from your ford account. I got an email about activating it and I think there is a sticky on this forum on how to activate it.

From my email today:

Rafpug, UNLEASH YOUR MUSTANG MACH‑E​ WITH FAST CHARGING​

Activate FordPass™ Connect now via the FordPass App to unlock access to Electrify America fast charging networks.*​

 

[ChasingCoral]

I think you have to activate fast charging from your ford account. I got an email about activating it and I think there is a sticky on this forum on how to activate it.

From my email today:

​

​ Rafpug, UNLEASH YOUR MUSTANG MACH‑E​ WITH FAST CHARGING​

​ Activate FordPass™ Connect now via the FordPass App to unlock access to Electrify America fast charging networks.*​

That's to activate the Plug & Charge capability and the free 250 kWh.

 

[JoseLuisDeLaCruz]

The car never "died". I had 200 miles of range when I started the trip and when I got to a charger I had about 12 miles of range left. That leg of the trip was 178 miles so it was spot on estimated range.

Not bad!

 

[sockmeister]

Not bad!

Agreed - that's decent for 270mi EPA range, but <20 F temperature and all highway driving.

 

[TheSteelRider]

I know it is very important to do this in order to get a more accurate figure. Could you please tell me how to do this? Thank you so much.

You need to reset the Driver History Settings

Please see: https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/ssm-49491-reset-the-driver-history-settings.3007

 

[timbop]

My wife is Mexican and won't let me comment on Taco Bell food. :-D

I was going to point out he forgot to put quotes around taco bell "food"

 

[timbop]

When I arrived at the charging station I was down to 14% battery charge and had about 12 miles of range left. Once I started charging I was only getting 32kw per hour. Since the temps were cold, I calculated I would need to get to 65% or 130 miles to leave me a good buffer to make it home. This took a whopping 96 minutes to accomplish. Had the system provided the "up to" 150kw that it should have, I should have been back on the road within 30 minutes. The sticker on the charger at the station stated it could provide up to 350kw charging rate. I know this has been an ongoing issue with Electrify America with other EV's and users. So, if anyone has a trick to get the charging rates faster, I'm all ears.

Let me preface this by saying I think the Mach E is probably overcompensating for the temperature and not ramping up the charge rate to protect a cold battery. With that said: out of curiosity can you look at the charging station in plugshare.com to read the reviews? It would be interesting to see what others have experienced at that location.

 

[memcm_expert]

Let me preface this by saying I think the Mach E is probably overcompensating for the temperature and not ramping up the charge rate to protect a cold battery. With that said: out of curiosity can you look at the charging station in plugshare.com to read the reviews? It would be interesting to see what others have experienced at that location.

It has a 9.3 rating.

 

[supertramp]

It has a 9.3 rating.

I have a charging station (only 50kWh) near my house with 9.4 rating and bunch of negative comments - I wonder how it happened...

 

[Mopey]

....I know this has been an ongoing issue with Electrify America with other EV's and users. So, if anyone has a trick to get the charging rates faster, I'm all ears.

Ford.com has this tip about improving DC fast charging times in cold weather. I'm guessing this may just be referring to those staying in the car during charging:

"When using a DC fast charger in colder weather, the charge rate can be maximized by turning the vehicle climate system off for the first 10 minutes of charging to allow the battery to warm up and to help improve energy transfer. "

 

[BlueMach]

I have a charging station (only 50kWh) near my house with 9.4 rating and bunch of negative comments - I wonder how it happened...

The Plugshare rating is based on the ratio of "charge completed" vs "error" I believe - if you were negative but still logged a completed charge, the text doesn't matter, the score goes up.