No more road trips with our Mach-E. A 2 hour drive to Joshua Tree turns into a 3 hour drive.

[kkgg]

Apart from Tesla, other ev cars are not recommended for long road trips. It's just not reliable.

FWIW,
Major Ford dealers have at least 2 charge points. And they mostly offer it for free. They only do 32-50 amps. Try that

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[GreaseMonkey]

A courageous move would have been Ford installing the chargers and not forcing it on the dealers to make the investment. Net overall effect though will be more DCFC available.

Ford has power over their suppliers and they used it to solve a problem. I understand your position. You don’t think it’s courageous to do so. But remember that Ford has a pretty weak balance sheet and shouldn’t use their own capital to finance infrastructure, at a time when they need it to redesign and retool. Also, Ford was public about their opinion of their dealers being too high cost relative to Tesla. Why not gamble and squeeze them for a bit more value? Compare that to GM that’s been busy buying them out.

 

[ckt]

I'm very hesitant going on road trips during the holidays, theres just not enough charges.

But for me I wouldn't ditch the Mach-E, another option is get a car gas rental for holiday road trips. Even Tesla has availability issues during the holidays.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

I enjoy my Mach-E on trips. But I’m also at a place in life where I’m no longer in a hurry to do much of anything. Charging stops are a chance to stop and smell the roses as it were. Even then preplanning and checking PlugShare before I ever leave my house saves a ton of frustration.

 

[Logal727]

I don’t see them contributing anything meaningful towards improving the availability of charging infrastructure.

This couldn’t be further from the truth:

Ford implement charging angels a while back, but I haven’t seen them mentioned in a while, they would check chargers are report broken ones to be expedited and repaired.

Ford having dealers install DCFC

Ford is doing more than any other auto manufacturer besides Tesla so far. We are in a transition! There’s gonna be pain!

 

[Logal727]

I enjoy my Mach-E on trips. But I’m also at a place in life where I’m no longer in a hurry to do much of anything. Charging stops are a chance to stop and smell the roses as it were. Even then preplanning and checking PlugShare before I ever leave my house saves a ton of frustration.

Honestly love stopping for a charge and letting the kids walk around a Target or a Walmart and then hopefully grabbing food nearby. Usually we only take 20-30 mins.

 

[Gene Bank]

Bought my 2022 MME GT 10 months ago. We are retired. Love the car, not one thing has gone wrong...but...like I said we are retired so our trips are less than 200 miles round trip at most. There are no superchargers other than Tesla ones within 60 miles of my location in NH. The state has a plan to build a few superchargers in 2025.

The only good infrasture around here is Tesla but there are few EV's so they are usually sitting empty. Tesla is slashing prices so they are having trouble selling cars. The one thing that Musk has mastered is the charging infrastructure. He knows how to build it out. Why does he not capitalize on that, charging all non-Tesla's a surcharge for usage? Then using this extra income to build more. He has a valuable commodity that no one else has.

A year ago I told all my friends EV is the way to go. Now I am not sure. The general public is not going to deal with all this crap in charging. It seems a mess and getting worse as more EV's come out. Sorry for the rant but the charging nightmare has to change or the masses are going to reject EV's. Sorry for the rant

 

[Logal727]

Bought my 2022 MME GT 10 months ago. We are retired. Love the car, not one thing has gone wrong...but...like I said we are retired so our trips are less than 200 miles round trip at most. There are no superchargers other than Tesla ones within 60 miles of my location in NH. The state has a plan to build a few superchargers in 2025.

The only good infrasture around here is Tesla but there are few EV's so they are usually sitting empty. Tesla is slashing prices so they are having trouble selling cars. The one thing that Musk has mastered is the charging infrastructure. He knows how to build it out. Why does he not capitalize on that, charging all non-Tesla's a surcharge for usage? Then using this extra income to build more. He has a valuable commodity that no one else has.

A year ago I told all my friends EV is the way to go. Now I am not sure. The general public is not going to deal with all this crap in charging. It seems a mess and getting worse as more EV's come out. Sorry for the rant but the charging nightmare has to change or the masses are going to reject EV's. Sorry for the rant

He said he was going to do that and open up to CCS. But we know how good his word is….

 

[GreaseMonkey]

When the EA spot opened only one other car was waiting. We were charging on the broken EV GO station. And for some reason, that other car left just as my wife got out of the car. So we didn’t jump the line. It was simply to make sure someone else that comes along doesn’t take spot while I unplug and move the car.

I see nothing wrong with that. Calling dibs on parking is a winter sport some practice religiously here on busy, snow-filled city streets (see below, and yes these are frozen jeans ). After all, you don’t want to risk getting shot.

 

[Tampamike]

We absolutely won’t ever do any long trips in the Mach-E. We knew this prior to purchase. The hope was that it would at least do local day trips. Nope. No more.

A good debate point for getting the extended range battery. 220 miles round trip is no problem. For me, personally, I never considered not getting the extended range - the more range, the better.

 

[astronut325]

A good debate point for getting the extended range battery. 220 miles round trip is no problem. For me, personally, I never considered not getting the extended range - the more range, the better.

I have an extended range Premium. Full charge showed 270ish miles. As the temperature dropped heading into Joshua Tree, the range dropped significantly. Since there are very chargers in Joshua Tree my thought was that I should charge up before heading in to be safe.

 

[EasyPass]

It's sort of like Apple vs. Android.

The Apple eco-sytem is a walled garden where you are either in or you're out. Not much in the way of user choice to mix and match products and services.
The Android world provides for interoperability and multiple products from various vendors and suppliers. This can provide for deep and broad user choice experience.

There advantages and disadvantages in either case.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

Another thing that feeds into the “not being in a hurry” benefits of EV’s. Slowing down is better. You mention heading to Joshua Tree in a hurry. I know those desert highways tend to be FAST. If you’re worried about range, you can slow down. The difference between 80MPH and 65 MPH over the course of 220 miles is about 45 minutes. It may feel like you are wasting time, but if it means you don’t need to charge, you’re actually saving time by slowing down.

 

[DYohn]

Bottom line to this story: EVs are not for everyone. The OP can probably get a good deal on a used Escape in trade.

 

[Blue highway]

Thank you for this reply.

• Not set up with plug and charge. That is absolutely my mistake.
• I did check in the EA app as I was pulling in to the parking lot. It said one spot was available. When I got there it was full.
• I didn’t think it was worth the risk after already dealing with a broken EV GO charger where we were.
• When the EA spot opened only one other car was waiting. We were charging on the broken EV GO station. And for some reason, that other car left just as my wife got out of the car. So we didn’t jump the line. It was simply to make sure someone else that comes along doesn’t take spot while I unplug and move the car.
• I’m on 4.1.2.
• I do not agree that this isn’t Ford’s fault. I don’t see them contributing anything meaningful towards improving the availability of charging infrastructure. This never would be a point of discussion in a Tesla. This is what the rest of the manufacturers should be striving for. My buddy road tripped from CA to Florida in his Tesla. Not one broken charger in his entire trip and never had to check any apps, or make any help calls. Just set the route and go.
• This is a good point. I do acknowledge that we were hitting a peak period and that charging on the way home would have potentially been better. However, we passed the Tesla Supercharger when entering the Cabazon outlet. 16 charging stations. EA had 4 and EV Go had 1. The Tesla Supercharger looked like it was at about half capacity.

I do realize that I was hitting peak demand, but it wasn’t an issue for the Tesla Supercharger in the same location. I will set up plug and charge. However, both my wife and I agreed and we won’t be doing anymore 100+ trips in the Mach-E. I did check the apps throughout the journey to monitor availability and it just didn’t pan out. Not connecting when plugged in was a much bigger issue.

You may want to google lines at Tesla super chargers... they happen there too.

EA really does need to do better with station maintenance, but I haven't had a lot of charge station drama... more stress than actual impact. The MME does require you to plan.

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