Mach-N-Cheese takes a trip: or overcoming our fears of Blippi and charger failure

[scoopman]

Very helpful review. I wonder if you can post the charge curve for the 350kW EVgo and start/ end SoC for that session. Reason this is important is that EVgo still charges on a per minute basis in many parts of the country and the charge rate makes a big difference on the final per kW cost.

I recently charged on one of their new 100kW chargers in Chicago and got an average of ~65kW rate between 29% and 75% SoC (see below). At a price of $0.29/min, I ended up paying an equivalent of $0.27/kWh, which is way cheaper than EA at $0.43/kWh pay as you go.

Sorry but I don’t think I can get the charge curve display out of the app once the session is over. but I don’t think I can get the charge curve display out of the app once the session is over

 

[meinhard57]

On December 29th, the fam and I piled into Mach N Cheese and drove from Northern California down to Los Angeles. We’re planning to video our trip back up, but I thought I’d write up a quick trip report focusing on some of the efficiencies and infrastructure we encountered on our rainy, chilly trip to spend New Years with family.

FIRST LEG: SUNNYVALE TO FIREBAUGH, CA

We left our home at 8:30am and drove 115mi in rain (temperatures in the 50s F) down CA-85, CA-101, and CA-152 to make it South and East over to I-5, which you follow for the bulk of the trip down South. CA-152 has terrain that includes the Pacheco Pass. I decided on this trip to not be hobbled by reduced speed, and drove Mach-N-Cheese between 75-80mph keeping up with traffic in Whiisper mode.

One complaint I always have on road trips with the MME is the lack of a “custom” mode. It’s pretty lame that after all of this time, there’s no way for me to pick soft(er) ride in the suspension, but tight steering, throttle response, and high regen. Happy wife, happy life, so I optimize for the suspension setting at the expense of the other parameters being not to my liking.

Once merging onto I-5 South, it was another 36 miles to our first planned stop at Electrify America in Firebaugh, CA. We did so at 10:26am after driving 114.9 miles after using 53.2khw for an efficiency of 2.2mi/kwh.


EA FIREBAUGH: 3 FORD EVs, 3 OF 6 CHARGERS BROKEN

We arrived to this scene at the Firebaugh station: a MME extended-battery premium, and a 3-day-old Lightning were juicing up. We pulled into the only remaining working stall, and charged from 37% to 76% in 26 minutes. Charging performance was not terrific, and our peak kw delivered never broke 100 kw.

This was not a problem, as Bluey was available for pitstop entertainment (via my latest Android Chinese gadget), paired with a morning snack and bathroom breaks.

This was NOT a particularly heavy travel day over the holidays, yet EA had only 3 of 6 stalls working at this critical infrastructure point. Each one of the 3 broken stalls showed different symptoms:

• One stall showed “!” with “Charger unavailable,” but of course you only can see this on the screen when you’re up-close, already parked, and you tap the screen to get past the latest EA marketing promotion screen.
  
  
• The second stall had the screen completely off, but it still had the “green” lighting of EA which, if you ask most consumers, signifies to them that the charging stall is available and operational. I saw two cars during my charging session pull into the blank-screened one, and spend time trying to get it to work, despite the screen being off. I tried to help by telling both that I think it was out of order.
  
  
• The third stall was perhaps the worst. It had it’s screen on and appeared to be completely normal, until you plugged in and found that the charger was sending no juice to the car. Several cars had this experience as well.

Not only is Electrify America’s reliability unacceptable, but their user experience is ridiculously poor. How tough is it to have some indicator on the charger that it is offline? Everyone understands when there’s a red light over a register at the supermarket, that that line is closed. It is unrecognized how frustrating it is for EV drivers to not only have such poor reliability from EA, but also, that EA makes them pull in precisely to a stall, and get out of their cars – and sometimes, requires them to plug in first – before discovering that a charger does not work.

The short conversation I had with the owner of the Rapid Red Lightning is probably most telling. He just took delivery of the truck three days before his road trip, and he is already soured from taking it on any trips again, and on it as being as useful to him as a result. He told me he is only getting 1.4mi/kwh, and that he feels he has to try stopping at every EA station along I-5, because he never knows when they will be working, or dead when he arrives, and he does not think he can rely on EA enough to arrive at a station with a low SOC. It’s a real problem if a new car owner isn’t completely happy with their car only 3 days after taking delivery – due to the inept charging infrastructure from EA.

SECOND LEG: ONWARDS TO IN-N-OUT

Traditionally, we always stop at In-N-Out for lunch in Kettleman City, CA, which is basically halfway on the journey. Usually, our downtime is 30-45 min of ordering and eating, without any ability to charge.

This time, we drove the 60 miles from our last stop with the anticipation of trying the newest EA hardware in a station conveniently located next to In-N-Out. We drove 63.1 miles (including sitting in the drive-thru line) to this brand-new charging stop with an efficiency of 2.5mi/kwh.

EA KETTLEMAN CITY: GREAT CARS, NEW CHARGERS, SAME POOR EXPERIENCE

We rolled up to this scene, burgers in hand, at 12:21pm with a 45% SOC, and charged for 39 minutes until 91%. We stayed this long because little kids eat slowly, and Bluey was playing, and we were in no hurry.

The Great: look at this lineup of cars, with owners optimistic about their future with them. Front left to right: a Bolt (well, ok, this was the only really meh car), then an Ioniq 5, then a Cyber Orange Premium (only there for a little bit – read on below!), then Mr. Cheesester, then another Ioniq 5 in Shooting Star Matte Grey (with all light grey trim blacked out 🤌), followed by a Rivian R1T in Rivian Blue. Next was a CA Rt 1 in Rapid Red, followed by a Rivian R1S with manufacturer plates in Rescue Red. Finally, at the end you can see an EV6 in Yacht Blue, followed by a black-with-gold teeth trim special rapper edition of the BMW iX M60.

The New: These chargers were EA’s newest units, and the UI responsiveness on them was noticeably much faster. The chargers were all under an overhang, so you are more protected from the elements. They’re also all positioned logically at the end of each of the parking spots, instead of on the side, making it easier to position your car.

The Same and Poor: This new EA installation – with capacity for 10 cars charging at 350kw – still had 20% of the stalls not working. Both of the stalls had no indications they malfunctioned, yet neither stall delivered electricity to anyone who tried them. This includes the Cyber Orange MME next to me in the photo. They pulled in, tried the only-available stall, then tried calling EA to help them. They then drove off, frustrated.

Moreover, this is a new installation, yet it does not appear that EA has learned too much. The site itself is wedged in between a gas station and a 24-hour Mexican restaurant in a separate parking area with only one driveway to get in and out. Yet there is no signage guiding EV customers on which driveway to enter. Almost every EV turned into the gas station then had to exit the station to then find the EA entrance. (What does the Kettleman Tesla Supercharger installation have? a HUGE Tesla sign at the height of the gas station signs so you can find where it is...)

Aside from the overhang, the facility itself has no amenities. By amenities, I mean there still is no garbage pail, towels, window washer, or bathroom facilities. Both the gas station and the Mexican restaurant have signs saying that bathrooms are for customers only. The gas station did not enforce this policy, but the Mexican restaurant did, turning us away when we went in to use the restroom and then maybe patronize them. After that attitude from them, we didn't.

LEG THREE: CENTRAL VALLEY TO BAKERSFIELD

We then ran the car for a little over an hour and 56 miles to the Electrify America station in Bakersfield, CA, with an efficiency of 2.5mi/kwh. We decided to stop at Bakersfield, as we wanted a buffer of charge for the mountainous terrain ahead of us, and to forego needing a charge to get to our hotel in LA East of the downtown area.

EA BAKERSFIELD: A QUICK SPLASH

Bakersfield is the last EA stop when traveling Southward before hitting the Tehachapi Mountains. I’ve not had the best of histories when conquering the Tejon Pass, and we did not want to have to charge in Los Angeles before making it to our hotel, so we decided to do a quick 15% splash at this station.

Bakersfield has only four charging stalls, and, true to form, 50% of them were out of service. Luckily for us, a new EQB just finished charging as we pulled up, so we had one of the two working stalls for our quick charge. We charged from 64% to 79% in 12 minutes.

While Bakersfield does not have a large number of chargers, it does have a Taco Bell and Pizza Hut Express and some other food options.

SUMMITING TEJON WITH BLIPPI

From Bakersfield, we plowed on through driving rains over the mountain ranges to get into LA. What better sound track to this trek than the childrens’ favorite orange-bespeckled entertainer Blippi. With Apple Music playing a seemingly endless stream of his greatest hits, Mach-N-Cheese forged on and conquered the summit and kept regenerating electricity downhill past its nemesis of Castic, CA.

We had a huge amount of traffic in the unusual rains in LA, and, in the end, made it to our hotel with 19% SOC left after traveling 142.5 miles with 2.7mi/khw efficiency.

EPILOGUE

Our hotel was only 5 minutes away from a newly-upgraded EVgo station, so I decided to try that out for the first time. Before leaving for my trip, I set up plug-n-charge in EVgo’s app (and plugged in to authenticate my car). Plug-n-charge worked on my first try, and was reasonably fast to connect to my vehicle and account. I found that their new 350kw charger (which I believe delivers 500amps) delivered great performance (I peaked at 165kw), had a really nice and useful UI, which was mimicked on their app as I charged. The only bummer was the cost, extremely high at $0.53/kwh. The price was listed as “unknown” while charging, so this seemed a bit unfair. EVgo seems to have pricing based on time-of-day, and for the rest of our stay, I am only charging there from 9pm to 12 midnight, when their rates are lowest.

Great write-up!!! Have owned our 2023 Select RWD for only 6 days! We did a short 230-mile round trip to test out charging facilities and were very disappointed in what we encountered - EVgo non-functional charger (did not show that in Plugshare), Charepoint charger that was slow - finally used an EA charge in a Walmart parking lot that worked well. Hope things improve quickly....

 

[scoopman]

Great write-up!!! Have owned our 2023 Select RWD for only 6 days! We did a short 230-mile round trip to test out charging facilities and were very disappointed in what we encountered - EVgo non-functional charger (did not show that in Plugshare), Charepoint charger that was slow - finally used an EA charge in a Walmart parking lot that worked well. Hope things improve quickly....

Pro tip: you have to use the EVgo or EA app to actually check live charger availability status. No third party has up to date status like plug share or honestly ford's own nav

 

[GreaseMonkey]

Sorry but I don’t think I can get the charge curve display out of the app once the session is over. but I don’t think I can get the charge curve display out of the app once the session is over

Thanks. If you happen to charge again or come across the receipt, the total kWh and duration would be hugely helpful.

This is likely the cheapest charging option for most of the country, excluding California.

 

[EasyPass]

On December 29th, the fam and I piled into Mach N Cheese and drove from Northern California down to Los Angeles. We’re planning to video our trip back up, but I thought I’d write up a quick trip report focusing on some of the efficiencies and infrastructure we encountered on our rainy, chilly trip to spend New Years with family.

FIRST LEG: SUNNYVALE TO FIREBAUGH, CA

We left our home at 8:30am and drove 115mi in rain (temperatures in the 50s F) down CA-85, CA-101, and CA-152 to make it South and East over to I-5, which you follow for the bulk of the trip down South. CA-152 has terrain that includes the Pacheco Pass. I decided on this trip to not be hobbled by reduced speed, and drove Mach-N-Cheese between 75-80mph keeping up with traffic in Whiisper mode.

One complaint I always have on road trips with the MME is the lack of a “custom” mode. It’s pretty lame that after all of this time, there’s no way for me to pick soft(er) ride in the suspension, but tight steering, throttle response, and high regen. Happy wife, happy life, so I optimize for the suspension setting at the expense of the other parameters being not to my liking.

Once merging onto I-5 South, it was another 36 miles to our first planned stop at Electrify America in Firebaugh, CA. We did so at 10:26am after driving 114.9 miles after using 53.2khw for an efficiency of 2.2mi/kwh.


EA FIREBAUGH: 3 FORD EVs, 3 OF 6 CHARGERS BROKEN

We arrived to this scene at the Firebaugh station: a MME extended-battery premium, and a 3-day-old Lightning were juicing up. We pulled into the only remaining working stall, and charged from 37% to 76% in 26 minutes. Charging performance was not terrific, and our peak kw delivered never broke 100 kw.

This was not a problem, as Bluey was available for pitstop entertainment (via my latest Android Chinese gadget), paired with a morning snack and bathroom breaks.

This was NOT a particularly heavy travel day over the holidays, yet EA had only 3 of 6 stalls working at this critical infrastructure point. Each one of the 3 broken stalls showed different symptoms:

• One stall showed “!” with “Charger unavailable,” but of course you only can see this on the screen when you’re up-close, already parked, and you tap the screen to get past the latest EA marketing promotion screen.
  
  
• The second stall had the screen completely off, but it still had the “green” lighting of EA which, if you ask most consumers, signifies to them that the charging stall is available and operational. I saw two cars during my charging session pull into the blank-screened one, and spend time trying to get it to work, despite the screen being off. I tried to help by telling both that I think it was out of order.
  
  
• The third stall was perhaps the worst. It had it’s screen on and appeared to be completely normal, until you plugged in and found that the charger was sending no juice to the car. Several cars had this experience as well.

Not only is Electrify America’s reliability unacceptable, but their user experience is ridiculously poor. How tough is it to have some indicator on the charger that it is offline? Everyone understands when there’s a red light over a register at the supermarket, that that line is closed. It is unrecognized how frustrating it is for EV drivers to not only have such poor reliability from EA, but also, that EA makes them pull in precisely to a stall, and get out of their cars – and sometimes, requires them to plug in first – before discovering that a charger does not work.

The short conversation I had with the owner of the Rapid Red Lightning is probably most telling. He just took delivery of the truck three days before his road trip, and he is already soured from taking it on any trips again, and on it as being as useful to him as a result. He told me he is only getting 1.4mi/kwh, and that he feels he has to try stopping at every EA station along I-5, because he never knows when they will be working, or dead when he arrives, and he does not think he can rely on EA enough to arrive at a station with a low SOC. It’s a real problem if a new car owner isn’t completely happy with their car only 3 days after taking delivery – due to the inept charging infrastructure from EA.

SECOND LEG: ONWARDS TO IN-N-OUT

Traditionally, we always stop at In-N-Out for lunch in Kettleman City, CA, which is basically halfway on the journey. Usually, our downtime is 30-45 min of ordering and eating, without any ability to charge.

This time, we drove the 60 miles from our last stop with the anticipation of trying the newest EA hardware in a station conveniently located next to In-N-Out. We drove 63.1 miles (including sitting in the drive-thru line) to this brand-new charging stop with an efficiency of 2.5mi/kwh.

EA KETTLEMAN CITY: GREAT CARS, NEW CHARGERS, SAME POOR EXPERIENCE

We rolled up to this scene, burgers in hand, at 12:21pm with a 45% SOC, and charged for 39 minutes until 91%. We stayed this long because little kids eat slowly, and Bluey was playing, and we were in no hurry.

The Great: look at this lineup of cars, with owners optimistic about their future with them. Front left to right: a Bolt (well, ok, this was the only really meh car), then an Ioniq 5, then a Cyber Orange Premium (only there for a little bit – read on below!), then Mr. Cheesester, then another Ioniq 5 in Shooting Star Matte Grey (with all light grey trim blacked out 🤌), followed by a Rivian R1T in Rivian Blue. Next was a CA Rt 1 in Rapid Red, followed by a Rivian R1S with manufacturer plates in Rescue Red. Finally, at the end you can see an EV6 in Yacht Blue, followed by a black-with-gold teeth trim special rapper edition of the BMW iX M60.

The New: These chargers were EA’s newest units, and the UI responsiveness on them was noticeably much faster. The chargers were all under an overhang, so you are more protected from the elements. They’re also all positioned logically at the end of each of the parking spots, instead of on the side, making it easier to position your car.

The Same and Poor: This new EA installation – with capacity for 10 cars charging at 350kw – still had 20% of the stalls not working. Both of the stalls had no indications they malfunctioned, yet neither stall delivered electricity to anyone who tried them. This includes the Cyber Orange MME next to me in the photo. They pulled in, tried the only-available stall, then tried calling EA to help them. They then drove off, frustrated.

Moreover, this is a new installation, yet it does not appear that EA has learned too much. The site itself is wedged in between a gas station and a 24-hour Mexican restaurant in a separate parking area with only one driveway to get in and out. Yet there is no signage guiding EV customers on which driveway to enter. Almost every EV turned into the gas station then had to exit the station to then find the EA entrance. (What does the Kettleman Tesla Supercharger installation have? a HUGE Tesla sign at the height of the gas station signs so you can find where it is...)

Aside from the overhang, the facility itself has no amenities. By amenities, I mean there still is no garbage pail, towels, window washer, or bathroom facilities. Both the gas station and the Mexican restaurant have signs saying that bathrooms are for customers only. The gas station did not enforce this policy, but the Mexican restaurant did, turning us away when we went in to use the restroom and then maybe patronize them. After that attitude from them, we didn't.

LEG THREE: CENTRAL VALLEY TO BAKERSFIELD

We then ran the car for a little over an hour and 56 miles to the Electrify America station in Bakersfield, CA, with an efficiency of 2.5mi/kwh. We decided to stop at Bakersfield, as we wanted a buffer of charge for the mountainous terrain ahead of us, and to forego needing a charge to get to our hotel in LA East of the downtown area.

EA BAKERSFIELD: A QUICK SPLASH

Bakersfield is the last EA stop when traveling Southward before hitting the Tehachapi Mountains. I’ve not had the best of histories when conquering the Tejon Pass, and we did not want to have to charge in Los Angeles before making it to our hotel, so we decided to do a quick 15% splash at this station.

Bakersfield has only four charging stalls, and, true to form, 50% of them were out of service. Luckily for us, a new EQB just finished charging as we pulled up, so we had one of the two working stalls for our quick charge. We charged from 64% to 79% in 12 minutes.

While Bakersfield does not have a large number of chargers, it does have a Taco Bell and Pizza Hut Express and some other food options.

SUMMITING TEJON WITH BLIPPI

From Bakersfield, we plowed on through driving rains over the mountain ranges to get into LA. What better sound track to this trek than the childrens’ favorite orange-bespeckled entertainer Blippi. With Apple Music playing a seemingly endless stream of his greatest hits, Mach-N-Cheese forged on and conquered the summit and kept regenerating electricity downhill past its nemesis of Castic, CA.

We had a huge amount of traffic in the unusual rains in LA, and, in the end, made it to our hotel with 19% SOC left after traveling 142.5 miles with 2.7mi/khw efficiency.

EPILOGUE

Our hotel was only 5 minutes away from a newly-upgraded EVgo station, so I decided to try that out for the first time. Before leaving for my trip, I set up plug-n-charge in EVgo’s app (and plugged in to authenticate my car). Plug-n-charge worked on my first try, and was reasonably fast to connect to my vehicle and account. I found that their new 350kw charger (which I believe delivers 500amps) delivered great performance (I peaked at 165kw), had a really nice and useful UI, which was mimicked on their app as I charged. The only bummer was the cost, extremely high at $0.53/kwh. The price was listed as “unknown” while charging, so this seemed a bit unfair. EVgo seems to have pricing based on time-of-day, and for the rest of our stay, I am only charging there from 9pm to 12 midnight, when their rates are lowest.

" there’s no way for me to pick soft(er) ride in the suspension, ...."
Do any of the three standard ride modes actually modify the suspension behavior? I was under the impression that the GTPE with MagnaRide was the only MME that did any kind of dynamic or on-demand modification in this area.

 

[scoopman]

Thanks. If you happen to charge again or come across the receipt, the total kWh and duration would be hugely helpful.

This is likely the cheapest charging option for most of the country, excluding California.

Here ya go. An update, unfortunately those decent 350kw chargers were down after the first night, so I've been slumming it on 100kw chargers. They've been giving me a constant 70kw though until 80% SOC which I really cannot complain about. It throttles down to about 40kw when you hit 80% which is expected. I'm using this charging as my "me" time to watch TV in the car away from my family (shhh!)

Here's the records of my several charge sessions:

 

[GreaseMonkey]

Here's the records of my several charge sessions:

Much appreciated! Looks like the Dec 29th charging session above was on a 350kW charger and average charge rate was around 80 kW. If that’s the case, the implied cost per kWh is around $0.22, which is the cheapest I’ve ever come across.

It’s crazy that they charge $0.54/kWh in California.

Thanks again for sharing!

 

[scoopman]

Obligatory pic with @EV Pony when we met up in The OC this morning:

 

[T.D.]

Much appreciated! Looks like the Dec 29th charging session above was on a 350kW charger and average charge rate was around 80 kW. If that’s the case, the implied cost per kWh is around $0.22, which is the cheapest I’ve ever come across.

It’s crazy that they charge $0.54/kWh in California.

Thanks again for sharing!

Well at the peak, gas was hovering around $6.99/gal in California.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

Well at the peak, gas was hovering around $6.99/gal in California.

Averaged $6.60 here in Chicago for premium in June 2022. We are blessed too

 

[mkhuffman]

" there’s no way for me to pick soft(er) ride in the suspension, ...."
Do any of the three standard ride modes actually modify the suspension behavior? I was under the impression that the GTPE with MagnaRide was the only MME that did any kind of dynamic or on-demand modification in this area.

Scoop has a GTPE. And you are correct - his model is the only one with an adjustable suspension. But the only way to change suspension behavior is to change drive mode. He would like independent control over the suspension. Seems like a very reasonable request to me.

 

[Regulus7]

Like everyone here, I really like my MME and will always have a BEV going forward. But no way will it be my long distance car. I have never DCFC this car and my prior BEV a first edition ID4 that I sold i fast charged 4x and it was always a hassle and while I always had an EA charger that was handy and it was always free (3 yrs of free charging) the fact I had to drive like 30 mins off the hiway and then wait around in a desolated rear parking area in a beat up mall just was a bad experience all around.

overall as a purely local commuter car it’s great. Long trip? Fuggetaboutit

 

[scoopman]

Like everyone here, I really like my MME and will always have a BEV going forward. But no way will it be my long distance car. I have never DCFC this car and my prior BEV a first edition ID4 that I sold i fast charged 4x and it was always a hassle and while I always had an EA charger that was handy and it was always free (3 yrs of free charging) the fact I had to drive like 30 mins off the hiway and then wait around in a desolated rear parking area in a beat up mall just was a bad experience all around.

overall as a purely local commuter car it’s great. Long trip? Fuggetaboutit

We don't take that many long trips -- and when we do, taking our EV is a source of entertainment and curiousity for me. We also have an ID4, but I can't stand it's UI and HMI, so that's staying home.

 

[markboris]

Scoop has a GTPE. And you are correct - his model is the only one with an adjustable suspension. But the only way to change suspension behavior is to change drive mode. He would like independent control over the suspension. Seems like a very reasonable request to me.

It is a very reasonable request and one the puzzles me why Ford does have this on their other cars with adjustable suspension. On both my Focus RS and GT500 I can change the suspension (shocks), steering feel, throttle response and exhaust sound independently and have a custom mode for my personal configuration. Not sure why they all have to be lumped together in the drive modes. What bothers me in the Mach-E is I have to change them via the display where as the other cars have hard buttons for these settings on the steering wheel and stalks.

 

[scoopman]

It is a very reasonable request and one the puzzles me why Ford does have this on their other cars with adjustable suspension. On both my Focus RS and GT500 I can change the suspension (shocks) steering feel, throttle response and exhaust sound independently and have a custom mode for my personal configuration. Not sure why they all have to be lumped together in the drive modes. What bothers me in the Mach-E is I have to change them via the display where as the other cars have hard buttons for these settings on the steering wheel and stalks.

Putting aside the hard vs on screen button debate .... as a product manager / planner, I think I would prioritize doing this driving mode feature way before putting eng resources on a YouTube streaming implementation that is destined to suck because of the under-spec'd hardware. Just my 2 cents, less Sudoku games, more basic car stuff first please. I got my phone with me 24/7 for casual gaming and YouTube, and it's much faster and better.

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