guinn
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Guinn
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2021
- Threads
- 13
- Messages
- 47
- Reaction score
- 69
- Location
- SW Colorado
- Vehicles
- 2021 AWD Select Standard Range; 2023 AWD Premium
- Occupation
- Retired
- Thread starter
- #1
About three weeks ago I took a trip from Southwest Colorado to San Antonio, TX and back. My FE is standard battery and AWD. I never intended to take this kind of trip in the ME, and always planned to take my wife's ICE car on a long trip. But after taking a few trips around the area I decided "what the heck, let's give it a try"! I'm not going to into a great deal of detail, but I will hit the hi-lights.
The Ford navigation took me on a wide detour through northern NM for no apparent reason. After a couple of things like this I stopped using it. Instead I used Google Maps on my phone.
My route to San Antonio went to Amarillo and then south, rather than following the Interstates. The only big potential issue was Lubbock. There is only one "fast" charger in Lubbock, and I use the term "fast" quite loosely. It's an apparently old charger that's limited to 20kW. It also has a very small dot matrix type display which was incredibly hard to see in the sunlight. So I spent about 2.5 hours in Lubbock getting the charge I needed for the next leg. About an hour was spent eating lunch at Joe's Crab Shack, so it wasn't all that bad. The charger is located at Wild West Harley Davidson, and they were having a motorcycle training session, so I watched that for a while. I figured the worst that could happen in Lubbock was that I would have to find a Level 2 charger and spend 6 hours or so charging. Fortunately, I did not have any deadline for reaching San Antonio. Anyway, big thanks to Wild West for having that charger!
Since I have the standard battery, there were some times going through West Texas where I had to slow down below the speed limit in order to get the range I needed. I figured out that 65 MPH was sort of the "sweet spot" for range. At that speed, I typically got the range that the GOM showed. If I drove faster it was clear that the projected range was going down faster than the miles I was travelling. Of course, at slower speeds I could get better range.
On the way back I decided to stick to the Interstates. I drove north on I-35 to Oklahoma City, then turned west on I-40, turned north to Santa Fe and then home. It's definitely a longer route, but with so many chargers available I felt a lot more comfortable. And I could drive faster. The only issue I ran into was when I was supposed to stop at a charger just off of I-40 where the address was just a road without a number. I turned onto the road where it started, and it went west paralleling I-40. But I was out in the country with nothing around. I went 7 or 8 miles and decided to stop and try to figure out what was going on. It turned out that the charger was at the far end of that road, about 15 miles from where I got off I-40.
I was mostly using EA chargers, and I think I only found one that wasn't working. They are typically located, at least in that part of the country, in Walmart parking lots and Love's Truck Stops. For some reason, it seemed like the 350kw chargers charged my car faster than the 150kw chargers, even though the charge rate never exceed 110kw on either. Strange.
.
I would definitely say that taking a road trip would be MUCH easier with the extended range battery, but you can definitely get where you need to go with the standard battery. The ME is so comfortable and easy to drive that I really enjoyed the trip.
The Ford navigation took me on a wide detour through northern NM for no apparent reason. After a couple of things like this I stopped using it. Instead I used Google Maps on my phone.
My route to San Antonio went to Amarillo and then south, rather than following the Interstates. The only big potential issue was Lubbock. There is only one "fast" charger in Lubbock, and I use the term "fast" quite loosely. It's an apparently old charger that's limited to 20kW. It also has a very small dot matrix type display which was incredibly hard to see in the sunlight. So I spent about 2.5 hours in Lubbock getting the charge I needed for the next leg. About an hour was spent eating lunch at Joe's Crab Shack, so it wasn't all that bad. The charger is located at Wild West Harley Davidson, and they were having a motorcycle training session, so I watched that for a while. I figured the worst that could happen in Lubbock was that I would have to find a Level 2 charger and spend 6 hours or so charging. Fortunately, I did not have any deadline for reaching San Antonio. Anyway, big thanks to Wild West for having that charger!
Since I have the standard battery, there were some times going through West Texas where I had to slow down below the speed limit in order to get the range I needed. I figured out that 65 MPH was sort of the "sweet spot" for range. At that speed, I typically got the range that the GOM showed. If I drove faster it was clear that the projected range was going down faster than the miles I was travelling. Of course, at slower speeds I could get better range.
On the way back I decided to stick to the Interstates. I drove north on I-35 to Oklahoma City, then turned west on I-40, turned north to Santa Fe and then home. It's definitely a longer route, but with so many chargers available I felt a lot more comfortable. And I could drive faster. The only issue I ran into was when I was supposed to stop at a charger just off of I-40 where the address was just a road without a number. I turned onto the road where it started, and it went west paralleling I-40. But I was out in the country with nothing around. I went 7 or 8 miles and decided to stop and try to figure out what was going on. It turned out that the charger was at the far end of that road, about 15 miles from where I got off I-40.
I was mostly using EA chargers, and I think I only found one that wasn't working. They are typically located, at least in that part of the country, in Walmart parking lots and Love's Truck Stops. For some reason, it seemed like the 350kw chargers charged my car faster than the 150kw chargers, even though the charge rate never exceed 110kw on either. Strange.
I would definitely say that taking a road trip would be MUCH easier with the extended range battery, but you can definitely get where you need to go with the standard battery. The ME is so comfortable and easy to drive that I really enjoyed the trip.
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