Not getting expected rang on a 100% charge

[HuntingPudel]

I don’t understand why there is so much back and forth on how to measure battery degradation. Just use car scanner already to get the value. Done.

While a scan tool is more accurate than trying to measure the volume of two different containers on different days with different temperatures and different fluids, it’s also not perfect since it relies on the measurements of cell voltages and extrapolations of those voltages to come up with a number. Don’t forget that the scan tool can give you two different results back to back after an HV battery management retrain. ??

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[roamtheworld]

The reasons that this topic gets so much attention are that a) charging stations still are nowhere near as plentiful and convenient as gas stations and b) it takes 1/2 hour or more to recharge your car when you need to. And modern ICE cars maintained to even a minimal level won’t suffer from appreciable range decrease until they get well past 100k miles. But with every passing year, EVs lose some range which only exacerbates the problem, especially if you think your car might be losing range faster than expected. In another ten years EVs won’t have these issues either but right now, they are what keeps us from using our Mach-E for longer trips. And it might be what keeps me from staying with the Mach-E in 2027 when my lease expires.

Point A- EVERYONE can charge at home even with a 110 outlet. Those living in condo/apartment still have a challenge. Plug your EV in at night just like a mobile phone thats the great part of EV ownership.
Point b- charging with DCFC from about 10% to 80% in a Mach e takes about 15-20 mins in my experience, so just long enough to use the restroom and grab a snack/food. Both my kids have new ICE vehicles (2021 Subaru Impreza & 2024 Ford Bronco Sport) and very RARELY see EPA ranges if ever. Both get over 20 mpg in normal daily use, but just like EVs, mileage changes dramatically based on conditions. I was recently surprised to find out that Subaru recommends fuel injector cleanings at each service interval, and I have never seen that in any other ICE car I've owned in the past 30+ years, so some range loss must be in play even for a car with 30K miles.
Your final point is not taking your Mach E on long road trips. We bought our 2022 Remium extended range AWD in May of 2022 and just (May) traded it in for a 2025 Rally and it had just under 41K miles and used it on multiple long road trips. We charged it to 90% several times a week for daily use and went below 3% multiple times on road trips and never gave it a second thought. We got down to 0% a week before we traded it in due to an error on my part, thinking we had L2 at our AirBnB.
We just used our Mach E as a car, driving it normally, and never looked back. We have leased our new Rally and we have 40K miles and plan on using it the same way we did our 2022 Premium.

 

[Doobster6]

Yes. But in this case the margin of error would be more like 10-20% using that method and basically meaningless.

The good news is that you can get an exact number of battery degradation from a scan. No need for complicated testing and math.

If it’s a determining factor when you decide to keep the car, it’d be worth getting a scan done. It’s literally a table value percentage in a scan. People post theirs here all the time.

Can you recommend a specific scanner and OBDII dongle?

 

[Doobster6]

Point A- EVERYONE can charge at home even with a 110 outlet. Those living in condo/apartment still have a challenge. Plug your EV in at night just like a mobile phone thats the great part of EV ownership.
Point b- charging with DCFC from about 10% to 80% in a Mach e takes about 15-20 mins in my experience, so just long enough to use the restroom and grab a snack/food. Both my kids have new ICE vehicles (2021 Subaru Impreza & 2024 Ford Bronco Sport) and very RARELY see EPA ranges if ever. Both get over 20 mpg in normal daily use, but just like EVs, mileage changes dramatically based on conditions. I was recently surprised to find out that Subaru recommends fuel injector cleanings at each service interval, and I have never seen that in any other ICE car I've owned in the past 30+ years, so some range loss must be in play even for a car with 30K miles.
Your final point is not taking your Mach E on long road trips. We bought our 2022 Remium extended range AWD in May of 2022 and just (May) traded it in for a 2025 Rally and it had just under 41K miles and used it on multiple long road trips. We charged it to 90% several times a week for daily use and went below 3% multiple times on road trips and never gave it a second thought. We got down to 0% a week before we traded it in due to an error on my part, thinking we had L2 at our AirBnB.
We just used our Mach E as a car, driving it normally, and never looked back. We have leased our new Rally and we have 40K miles and plan on using it the same way we did our 2022 Premium.

Charging from 10% to 80% in 15-20 minutes?……. First time I’ve ever heard of a Mach-E charging that quickly. I’m not sure that Teslas even charge that quickly, despite having a 250 KW upper limit (compared to the Mach-E’s 150). You clearly have an exceptional Mach-E; I’d be hanging on to that one!

 

[roamtheworld]

Charging from 10% to 80% in 15-20 minutes?……. First time I’ve ever heard of a Mach-E charging that quickly. I’m not sure that Teslas even charge that quickly, despite having a 250 KW upper limit (compared to the Mach-E’s 150). You clearly have an exceptional Mach-E; I’d be hanging on to that one!

I don't have my 2022 logs anymore since we traded it in for the 2025 Rally, but we had multiple stops to Dallas and back to Austin a few months ago, where we charged using Tesla SC at Buc-cee's, and it was pretty impressive. I got 171 kWh peak several times as well. The car was a charging monster that trip, and it was all Tesla Super Chargers. Less than 30 seconds to start charging to boot using plug n charge.
We later went from Austin to Port Aransas, TX, and it was a little slower using Tesla SC, but we had to use a new Flying J/EVgo charger and it was much slower, well under 150 kWh peak and we left without reaching our charging goal of 80% because we where in a hurry.

 

[Sikkun]

60-80 is ~14 min. 10-60 is going to be more than 1-6 minutes.

10-80 is going to be 30+min.

 

[roamtheworld]

60-80 is ~14 min. 10-60 is going to be more than 1-6 minutes.

10-80 is going to be 30+min.

I looked back at a post I made after the trip and my memory was overly optimistic
It looks like it was 10 minutes from around 60% to 80%
35 minutes from 10% to 80% at a very heavily used 12-stall Tesla SC location with all stalls full the whole time.
?‍ I guess I was wrong, but I remember the trip being super easy to charge and always being busy during charge times, and not feeling like I was wasting time looking at the clock. Very relaxed trip for an EV. It is what made me want to keep the Mach E.

 

[Sikkun]

I looked back at a post I made after the trip and my memory was overly optimistic
It looks like it was 10 minutes from around 60% to 80%
35 minutes from 10% to 80% at a very heavily used 12-stall Tesla SC location with all stalls full the whole time.
?‍ I guess I was wrong, but I remember the trip being super easy to charge and always being busy during charge times, and not feeling like I was wasting time looking at the clock. Very relaxed trip for an EV. It is what made me want to keep the Mach E.

I think people mostly underestimate the amount of time it takes to go in somewhere, go to the bathroom, and eat some food.

I did 18-91% yesterday and all I did was walk over to Chil-Fil-A go to bathroom and eat my lunch. No waiting in the car required.

Really any 2 charge trip that I can make line up with my two meals doesn’t add much time if any. Unless you just want to compare to the shot gun approach of driving 500 miles without stopping, only peeing, and eating food in the car. But my wife is glad I don’t attempt to do that anymore.

 

[Mach1E]

I think people mostly underestimate the amount of time it takes to go in somewhere, go to the bathroom, and eat some food.

I did 18-91% yesterday and all I did was walk over to Chil-Fil-A go to bathroom and eat my lunch. No waiting in the car required.

Really any 2 charge trip that I can make line up with my two meals doesn’t add much time of any. Unless you just want to compare to the shot gun approach of driving 500 miles without stopping, only peeing, and eating food in the car. But my wife is glad I don’t attempt to do that anymore.

Sure, but who eats a full meal every two hours?

I rarely have “extra time” when I have to drive far.

Heck, tomorrow I’m driving 3 hours each way to a work meeting. Zero chance I would take my Mach E.

Instead I’m driving my wife’s Lincoln and can make the round trip without stopping for gas.

It’ll already be a 12+ hour work day door to door. I’m not adding a lot of time worth of charge stops nor waking up 45 min earlier to charge on the way.

 

[Doobster6]

Sure, but who eats a full meal every two hours?

I rarely have “extra time” when I have to drive far.

Heck, tomorrow I’m driving 3 hours each way to a work meeting. Zero chance I would take my Mach E.

Instead I’m driving my wife’s Lincoln and can make the round trip without stopping for gas.

It’ll already be a 12+ hour work day door to door. I’m not adding a lot of time worth of charge stops nor waking up 45 min earlier to charge on the way.

Well said…..I’m definitely aligned with this thinking.

 

[roamtheworld]

Sure, but who eats a full meal every two hours?

I rarely have “extra time” when I have to drive far.

Heck, tomorrow I’m driving 3 hours each way to a work meeting. Zero chance I would take my Mach E.

Instead I’m driving my wife’s Lincoln and can make the round trip without stopping for gas.

It’ll already be a 12+ hour work day door to door. I’m not adding a lot of time worth of charge stops nor waking up 45 min earlier to charge on the way.

That stinks if you have to do that trip often.
If I drove everyday it would be at least 1 & half hours each way so 3 hours total it’s not the miles it’s the traffic. Luckily I only have to travel once a week.
If all office buildings had L2 it would be ideal. When I worked for a CA based company back in 2010s they had lots of Tesla and other branded L2 chargers and even had internal software to manage drivers to keep them from staying parked all day when fully charged. This would be perfect for an EV future but we are a long way off from that scenario today.
I guess I’m too old because even when we use our kids ICE cars for a few trips we still stop to take 10-15 min breaks even if we don’t need to fill up with gas. No more 3 + hours drives anymore.

 

[Sikkun]

Sure, but who eats a full meal every two hours?

Well I don’t stop every 2 hours, I stop every 4+. And I can eat a lunch at noon and a dinner at 4-5 without them being 2k calories each.

So me, I do.

Your 6 hour drive would be 1 charge stop around 20 min…assuming we are even talking 3 hours interstate driving kudos to you for not needing to pee at all. But it’s not a big deal.

I made a 533 mile 8.5 hour drive the other day off a single stop…some you seem to have a bigger problem with a lead foot than time needed to charge.

 

[devmach-e]

Whether an EV or ICE car, all modern cars seem to try to estimate remaining range based on how much ‘fuel’ they have in the tank and what it has calculated is your rate of using that fuel. My end goal here is not to validate the GOM but rather to try to gage how much of the battery’s original capacity has been lost over its first year. From what I understand, Tesla’s data for its cars manufactured within the last 8 or so years shows an initial (average drop) of around 2-3% in the first year followed by around 1-2z% each year thereafter, following a curve that kind of levels off around 85% after about 150k-200k miles. If my Mach-E is dropping faster than that, I want to know because it might influence what I do in July of 2027 when my lease is up.

Your decision point is in 2+ years. A lot can happen in that time. Some of it will have nothing to do with the battery. Stressing over something that far in the future just isn't worth it. And given that you have a lease, if the battery does suddenly start degrading quickly, at the end of the lease you get to walk away and not worry about it because it no longer is your problem. And if the battery's capacity suddenly starts plummeting because the battery is bad, there's this thing called a capacity warranty that will kick in to fix or replace it.

I get where you are coming from, trust me on this. I've been there. I eventually realized I should just trust in the car's engineering & the battery warranty. Mind you, this didn't stop me from plugging in a Bluetooth reader, and using Car Scanner to read the actual SOH. And the result of doing that just reinforced my decision to not worry about it because the reading was totally typical for a 3-year old car with 53K miles: 93.5%.

 

[Doobster6]

Your decision point is in 2+ years. A lot can happen in that time. Some of it will have nothing to do with the battery. Stressing over something that far in the future just isn't worth it. And given that you have a lease, if the battery does suddenly start degrading quickly, at the end of the lease you get to walk away and not worry about it because it no longer is your problem. And if the battery's capacity suddenly starts plummeting because the battery is bad, there's this thing called a capacity warranty that will kick in to fix or replace it.

I get where you are coming from, trust me on this. I've been there. I eventually realized I should just trust in the car's engineering & the battery warranty. Mind you, this didn't stop me from plugging in a Bluetooth reader, and using Car Scanner to read the actual SOH. And the result of doing that just reinforced my decision to not worry about it because the reading was totally typical for a 3-year old car with 53K miles: 93.5%.

You are right. A LOT can happen in the next 26 months. It’ll be months before we know if Ford’s idea of a heat pump was worth shrinking the frunk while adding maintenance and breakdown complexity. And in that time Ford and/or other manufacturers might switch to a faster charging battery chemistry that might make long trips viable for us in a newer model. I’m just trying to be informed so when that time comes I’ll know exactly what I have, what it’s worth, and whether I should move on.

 

[devmach-e]

You are right. A LOT can happen in the next 26 months. It’ll be months before we know if Ford’s idea of a heat pump was worth shrinking the frunk while adding maintenance and breakdown complexity. And in that time Ford and/or other manufacturers might switch to a faster charging battery chemistry that might make long trips viable for us in a newer model. I’m just trying to be informed so when that time comes I’ll know exactly what I have, what it’s worth, and whether I should move on.

Did you worry this much when new models of ICE-powered vehicles came out with totally new powertrains?

I've been following the EV industry for over a dozen years, including owning a PHEV, and 2 different EVs (2017 Bolt EV and now a 2022 Mach-E). In that time, I've seen a steady improvement in battery charging times and raw capacity, but nothing radical from year to year. Or even every few years. Only when looking back at changes over the last 10 or so years do things seem radically improved. I wouldn't expect a huge change in things in 2 years when your lease is up. At least with a lease, you can easily jump into a new EV that might have the battery improvements you seek. I bought my Mach-E, so whatever improvements there are in 2 to 5 years, they'll have to be really fantastic for me to want to trade in the car. We're talking at least a 40% improvement in range, capacity,and charging times. I don't see that happening in a few years. In 10, sure.

Certainly stay abreast of developments in this space over the next 2 years. But don't get obsessed by it. Enjoy the car you have now and don't worry about things will be like in 2 years. There's always something newer, faster, better, cheaper just around the corner.

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