Over the mountains and through the woods, from NC to OH and back we go!

ElectrifyCLT

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After doing a short 200 mile round trip drive to the Boone/Blowing Rock area, we plunged in and took our Mach E GT from Charlotte all the way to Cincinnati, OH and back for New Years.

The trip was my wife and I and a moderate amount of stuff. A pretty normal load for this type of 4 day trip. It's nearly exactly 500 miles door to door, and in my wife's GLI we can make the trip in 1 gas stop + 1 rest area bathroom break. Doing so in the GLI means we can make the trip in ~6 1/2 hours. Fast, I know. We prefer the southern route (I-85 to US-74 to I-40 to I-75) to avoid inclement weather and more major trucking routes.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Over the mountains and through the woods, from NC to OH and back we go! Screen Shot 2022-01-03 at 3.33.10 PM


For the Mach E, the southern route is the only reasonable route with a plethora of DCFC. This was immediately yellow flag #1 for this trip. A road closure or major diversion would mean we'd be stuck in no mans land.

Yellow flag no. 2 was how many charging stops ABRP was recommending.

Using ABRP, we identified that we could comfortably make the trip with four charging stops:
1: EA- Asheville, NC
2: EA- Kodak, TN
3: EA- Williamsburg, KY
4: EA- Georgetown, KY

The shortest charger to charger segment was ~85 miles, longest about 120. Stop 1 at Electrify America Asheville was borderline unnecessary. Based on my Christmas trip into the NC mountains I thought I could do better than ABRP if I moderated speeds a bit and get straight on to Kodak, TN if need be. That said, with four stops ABRP was saying the trip would take a total of just over 9 hours, ~1.5 hours of charging each way + 7.5 hours of driving.

Aside from adventure, we also figured this would be an ideal trip to take the Mach E GT since the weather was mild. Mostly in the 50s and 60s meant we could use little heat and not have that added layer of range/comfort anxiety that would come from more typical chilly weather.

All highway driving was done at 77MPH minimum with the exception of some of the most twisty bits of I-40 through the mountain pass at the TN/NC border. For those that have never been on I-75 in Kentucky, that highway is the American Autobahn. Doing 77 will get you run over in the right lane. Many stretches of I-75 were taken at speeds comfortably north of 80MPH. Under 80MPH, Bluecruise was predominantly used.

The drive and efficiency results:

Overall trip efficiency was 2.58 mi/kWh roundtrip, and remarkably similar on the outbound and inbound segments. We made each of the 8 recommended charging stops, and played it a bit conservatively with how much charge we took at each location.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Over the mountains and through the woods, from NC to OH and back we go! Screen Shot 2022-01-03 at 3.50.24 PM


Overall impressions of the car are overwhelmingly positive. The ride is more than comfortable for this type of a trip. Firm enough to feel fun when blasting through the mountains on I-40 but supple enough on long straight highways that it doesn't wear you down. Seat and steering wheel heaters were a crowd pleaser.

BlueCruise is really fantastic when conditions are favorable. Cloudy days with no precipitation were when it performed the best. We found it very natural to acclimate to it's disengagement and re-engagement when changing lanes and/or coming up on too twisty of a section of road for it to run truly hands free. When it got rainy or dark the system started to struggle, especially when we were in sections of road where the pavement lines were worn.

When consistently traveling at extra-legal speeds north of 80MPH, the power limiting bars become quite noticeable. It was never so much that it hindered our ability to get to speed or make reasonably quick overtakes, but at those speeds the car is clearly more gradual in its acceleration.

We used CarPlay and Waze exclusively for this trip, we had three occasions where the main screen needed a hard reboot. Luckily you can do this while on the road. It seemed to lock up at points where my phone had limited/no cell service and was trying to pull additional mapping data. It's unclear to me if the screen was the main issue or if the root issue actually lies with my iPhone 13 Pro Max throwing bad data to the car that it can't handle.

Charging:

Ford Mustang Mach-E Over the mountains and through the woods, from NC to OH and back we go! Screen Shot 2022-01-03 at 4.04.48 PM


EA was running free charging during the duration of the trip, so we didn't pay for a cent of energy! Each charge worked on the first try (there were 2 stations that had at least 1 stall broken). Of interesting note is we noticed the charge curve behave differently on 350kWh units opposed to the more common 150kWh units. I don't understand this. On every 350kWh charger we saw a spike to 164kw before a gradual taper to ~100kw until a regression to the low 80s above 60% SOC. I'd expect the 150kWh units to perform similarly, with a slightly smaller initial peak. On the 150kw units, we never saw above ~115, before taper. This bore out in the data, where the top 3 average charge rates all occurred on 350kw.

While visiting family. I tried to charge at a 50kw EVGo location and had no success. I tried multiple times myself as well as with their support rep and continued to get a "vehicle_jinsignal_removed" error immediately after hearing the contractors thunk in the EVSE. To date, I have not gotten my Mach E GT to ever charge at EVGo locations, and am at a loss on what to do about it.


Conclusion

Outbound: 10 hours. There was about an hour delay due to I-40 being closed. We were also a bit conservative by overcharging on many occasions (Note how high some of the SOC start values are).

Coming home: 9 hours 15 minutes. This was just about as fast as we could do it. We should shave ~20 minutes off by being more aggressive with our charging (Or lack thereof).

Car is good for road trips, but not great. Highway range and a fine but not great charge curve means if we're in a rush, a gas powered vehicle is still a better option for me.

Thoughts, questions? Happy to answer them.
 
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RickMachE

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With the new ability to charge to 90%, you could easily skip a stop.

I charge to 80% at every stop.
 

2FlyMache

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After doing a short 200 mile round trip drive to the Boone/Blowing Rock area, we plunged in and took our Mach E GT from Charlotte all the way to Cincinnati, OH and back for New Years.

The trip was my wife and I and a moderate amount of stuff. A pretty normal load for this type of 4 day trip. It's nearly exactly 500 miles door to door, and in my wife's GLI we can make the trip in 1 gas stop + 1 rest area bathroom break. Doing so in the GLI means we can make the trip in ~6 1/2 hours. Fast, I know. We prefer the southern route (I-85 to US-74 to I-40 to I-75) to avoid inclement weather and more major trucking routes.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Over the mountains and through the woods, from NC to OH and back we go! Screen Shot 2022-01-03 at 4.04.48 PM


For the Mach E, the southern route is the only reasonable route with a plethora of DCFC. This was immediately yellow flag #1 for this trip. A road closure or major diversion would mean we'd be stuck in no mans land.

Yellow flag no. 2 was how many charging stops ABRP was recommending.

Using ABRP, we identified that we could comfortably make the trip with four charging stops:
1: EA- Asheville, NC
2: EA- Kodak, TN
3: EA- Williamsburg, KY
4: EA- Georgetown, KY

The shortest charger to charger segment was ~85 miles, longest about 120. Stop 1 at Electrify America Asheville was borderline unnecessary. Based on my Christmas trip into the NC mountains I thought I could do better than ABRP if I moderated speeds a bit and get straight on to Kodak, TN if need be. That said, with four stops ABRP was saying the trip would take a total of just over 9 hours, ~1.5 hours of charging each way + 7.5 hours of driving.

Aside from adventure, we also figured this would be an ideal trip to take the Mach E GT since the weather was mild. Mostly in the 50s and 60s meant we could use little heat and not have that added layer of range/comfort anxiety that would come from more typical chilly weather.

All highway driving was done at 77MPH minimum with the exception of some of the most twisty bits of I-40 through the mountain pass at the TN/NC border. For those that have never been on I-75 in Kentucky, that highway is the American Autobahn. Doing 77 will get you run over in the right lane. Many stretches of I-75 were taken at speeds comfortably north of 80MPH. Under 80MPH, Bluecruise was predominantly used.

The drive and efficiency results:

Overall trip efficiency was 2.58 mi/kWh roundtrip, and remarkably similar on the outbound and inbound segments. We made each of the 8 recommended charging stops, and played it a bit conservatively with how much charge we took at each location.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Over the mountains and through the woods, from NC to OH and back we go! Screen Shot 2022-01-03 at 4.04.48 PM


Overall impressions of the car are overwhelmingly positive. The ride is more than comfortable for this type of a trip. Firm enough to feel fun when blasting through the mountains on I-40 but supple enough on long straight highways that it doesn't wear you down. Seat and steering wheel heaters were a crowd pleaser.

BlueCruise is really fantastic when conditions are favorable. Cloudy days with no precipitation were when it performed the best. We found it very natural to acclimate to it's disengagement and re-engagement when changing lanes and/or coming up on too twisty of a section of road for it to run truly hands free. When it got rainy or dark the system started to struggle, especially when we were in sections of road where the pavement lines were worn.

When consistently traveling at extra-legal speeds north of 80MPH, the power limiting bars become quite noticeable. It was never so much that it hindered our ability to get to speed or make reasonably quick overtakes, but at those speeds the car is clearly more gradual in its acceleration.

We used CarPlay and Waze exclusively for this trip, we had three occasions where the main screen needed a hard reboot. Luckily you can do this while on the road. It seemed to lock up at points where my phone had limited/no cell service and was trying to pull additional mapping data. It's unclear to me if the screen was the main issue or if the root issue actually lies with my iPhone 13 Pro Max throwing bad data to the car that it can't handle.

Charging:

Ford Mustang Mach-E Over the mountains and through the woods, from NC to OH and back we go! Screen Shot 2022-01-03 at 4.04.48 PM


EA was running free charging during the duration of the trip, so we didn't pay for a cent of energy! Each charge worked on the first try (there were 2 stations that had at least 1 stall broken). Of interesting note is we noticed the charge curve behave differently on 350kWh units opposed to the more common 150kWh units. I don't understand this. On every 350kWh charger we saw a spike to 164kw before a gradual taper to ~100kw until a regression to the low 80s above 60% SOC. I'd expect the 150kWh units to perform similarly, with a slightly smaller initial peak. On the 150kw units, we never saw above ~115, before taper. This bore out in the data, where the top 3 average charge rates all occurred on 350kw.

While visiting family. I tried to charge at a 50kw EVGo location and had no success. I tried multiple times myself as well as with their support rep and continued to get a "vehicle_jinsignal_removed" error immediately after hearing the contractors thunk in the EVSE. To date, I have not gotten my Mach E GT to ever charge at EVGo locations, and am at a loss on what to do about it.


Conclusion

Car is good for road trips, but not great. Highway range and a fine but not great charge curve means if we're in a rush, a gas powered vehicle is still a better option for me.

Thoughts, questions? Happy to answer them.
How long did trip actually take? You think you could have extended drive and reduced charger stops?
 
OP
OP
ElectrifyCLT

ElectrifyCLT

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With the new ability to charge to 90%, you could easily skip a stop.

I charge to 80% at every stop.
I could easily skip the first stop out of Charlotte next time when I’m charged to 100%. I took the first Asheville stop to be safe, lesson learned there.

While the update improved DCFC above 80%, that’s not actually going to make the trip any faster. My understanding is that with the update it pulls less than 50kWh above 80%, which is a little more than half of the average rate of charge I saw below 80%

How long did trip actually take? You think you could have extended drive and reduced charger stops?
Oops, I’ll amend the OP. The outbound route took 10 hours (there was 1 hour of traffic due to a closure on I-40).

Coming home took 9 hours 15 minutes. We had a 15 minute extra wait for food while charging at one location. In this sense, ABRP was spot on.

If I were to do it again, I think I could shave about 20 minutes off the total charging time each way by only charging enough to arrive with less than 10% battery at the next charger. As I get more comfortable with the car, I’ll be better equipped to Push the limit a bit.

Regardless, it’s still over an hour of charging each way. The better improvement for road trips would be sustaining the peak charging rate for longer so you can get to 50-60% more quickly.
 

MustThee?

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I could easily skip the first stop out of Charlotte next time when I’m charged to 100%. I took the first Asheville stop to be safe, lesson learned there.

While the update improved DCFC above 80%, that’s not actually going to make the trip any faster. My understanding is that with the update it pulls less than 50kWh above 80%, which is a little more than half of the average rate of charge I saw below 80%



Oops, I’ll amend the OP. The outbound route took 10 hours (there was 1 hour of traffic due to a closure on I-40).

Coming home took 9 hours 15 minutes. We had a 15 minute extra wait for food while charging at one location. In this sense, ABRP was spot on.

If I were to do it again, I think I could shave about 20 minutes off the total charging time each way by only charging enough to arrive with less than 10% battery at the next charger. As I get more comfortable with the car, I’ll be better equipped to Push the limit a bit.

Regardless, it’s still over an hour of charging each way. The better improvement for road trips would be sustaining the peak charging rate for longer so you can get to 50-60% more quickly.
Thanks for sharing. I might be doing the same route soon but will stick to the gas vehicle for now unless an overnight stop in-between is part of the plan.
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