Scarlett the road warrior - with scars to prove it

timbop

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tl;dr version/highlights:
  • Drove 1580 miles from NJ -> Atlanta -> Port Canaveral -> Sanford FL (train to Lorton VA) -> NJ, with overall efficiency of 3.3 mi/kwh. The reason for the trip was to hit the georgia aquarium to swim with the whale sharks and to catch a cruise out of port canaveral. We wimped out coming home and took the autotrain back.
  • It was "orange barrel season" on the east coast (lots of construction to slow us down), so it was hard to gauge "true" efficiency since we could not maintain 65+ MPH (occasionally we were crawling along at 5 to 20 mph)
  • Adaptive cruise control and auto lane centering performed very well (along with stopping every couple of hours) so fatigue was kept to a minimum - it was one of the more pleasant drives I've done in a long time
  • The Mrs actually remarked that "charging was no big deal", and she didn't mind it - the 2 non-mealtime stops per day were only 15-20 minutes and a nice break, particularly for older bladders.
  • I did notice that cars cutting in front of us at a higher speed caused adaptive cruise control to maintain speed, but a car at the same speed or slower cutting in front of use meant the ACC slowed down abruptly. I ended up reducing the ACC distance to 1 to cut down on the number of cars cutting in front of me
  • We split up the majority of the drive down over 3 days with a max 7 hours driving each day, stopping to charge for half an hour or so at lunch and dinner and 2 short 15 to 20 minute stops per day. 2 other days (from Atlanta to Cordele, and Lorton to NJ) were 3 hours of driving with no charging stops.
  • Of 11 EA charging stops 8 were flawless, but 3 stops required switching chargers and 2 incurred charge faults mid-charge. Plug-n-charge worked every time, which was a pleasant surprise
  • At almost every stop, the car was done charging before we were done eating or taking advantage of the bio break. In fact, several times we stopped to talk with other BEV owners and didn't even realize charging was done. In Buford I didn't bother to unplug after 80% because I was enjoying dinner with my wife and didn't want to have to run out to move the car - the 80% cliff is actually handy for that case
  • ABRP was very accurate after tweaking to 350 extra pounds and 3.5 mi/kwh base efficiency (see spreadsheet below)
  • Managed to charge to 100% for free in Atlanta (at the aquarium) and Cordele, although the charger in Cordele was at the exit from the hotel so someone scratched my fender with a suitcase.
  • At the aquarium a pair of Tesla's took 2 J1772 charging spots without plugging in - apparently Tesla owners are endowed with the right to block a charger without charging. Luckily there are a dozen chargers at the aquarium so I was able to charge anyway
  • At the hotel in Cordele GA several cars/trucks blocked the chargers, but I managed to plug into one of the J1772's. This particular hotel had 7 chargers (5 tesla and 2 J1772), but beware at hotels with fewer of them as you might get ICEd out of being able to charge
Overall Scarlett was awesome; I hate driving long highway distances but didn't mind this trip due to the comfort and driver assist features. We were able to fit 2 weeks' worth of clothes, water, snacks, and extra stuff to keep ourselves entertained: 1 large suitcase, 1 medium suitcase, 2 small suitcases, a suit bag, 2 backpacks, 1 full sized CPAP, 1 gallon of distilled water, and several grocery-sized bags full of goodies and electronics. Unfortunately she took a hit to the fender from a suitcase in Cordele GA (the rubber smear came off but the scratch is in the paint):
Ford Mustang Mach-E Scarlett the road warrior - with scars to prove it scratch



I used ABRP and plugshare to map out my trip (see tutorial here), tweaking the charging stops and percentages along the way to come up with the "main" plan and then added alternate stops if any of my primary stops were unavailable. To figure out if I could reach the next/alternate charger I tweaked the "charge to" percentage to 1% at the primary site. I also played with departure times and "charge to" percentages to map out meal times and overnight charging to come up with the "best" plan. Since the driving time from NJ to Atlanta was 13+ hours I knew it was better not to try to make the trip in one day, so I split it into 2 days to make it a more leisurely drive with extra time in case things went haywire. I initially tried to work in hotels with J1772 chargers, but it became apparent that most hotels only have 1 or 2, and if I wasn't able to charge at them it would have been an issue since no DCFC were nearby. After mapping it out in ABRP I then put the stops into a spreadsheet that I put on my google drive and printed it out to take with me. Using a printout made it easier to put waypoints into Waze over Android Auto. For those that are interested, here is a copy of the spreadsheet with the alternate stops hidden to make it easier to see the interesting statistics (note that construction and traffic threw off the times):
Ford Mustang Mach-E Scarlett the road warrior - with scars to prove it Screen Shot 2021-10-13 at 6.23.08 PM



Here's an extract of the full sheet with the alternate stops as well:
Ford Mustang Mach-E Scarlett the road warrior - with scars to prove it Screen Shot 2021-10-13 at 8.02.54 PM



And finally, the reason for the excursion to Atlanta was so I could swim with the Whale Sharks - a bucket list item of mine. I highly recommend it (that's me spread-eagle over the shark):
Ford Mustang Mach-E Scarlett the road warrior - with scars to prove it mewhaleshark
 
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UsernameChecksOut

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Thanks for sharing your experience!

Perhaps this is the optimist in me but it vaguely sounds like Plug-n-charge is gradually improving? (This is purely an anecdotal observation compared against earlier posts by others.)
 

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Great report! Thanks for trending, logging and sharing.
 

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Lots of great detail here! Thanks for keeping logs and for your information on potential pitfalls. Doing an Asheville leaf and waterfall trip soon and this is good info. BTW - in addition to swimming tours the GA Aquarium has a scuba diving tour as well (must be certified and the fee is around $350.) 6000 fish and a 6 million gallon tank.
 
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timbop

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Great report! Thanks for trending, logging and sharing.
Unfortunately I didn't think to track arrival/departure times at each stop until I got home, so I only have them for the charging stops (from the fordpass charging logs). It would have been interesting to compute average MPH on each leg to better correlate speed to mi/kwh.
oh well.

Lots of great detail here! Thanks for keeping logs and for your information on potential pitfalls. Doing an Asheville leaf and waterfall trip soon and this is good info. BTW - in addition to swimming tours the GA Aquarium has a scuba diving tour as well (must be certified and the fee is around $350.) 6000 fish and a 6 million gallon tank.
I'm asthmatic so had to settle for the snorkling route, which was still pretty awesome. At one point one of them swam so close to me he rubbed his back across my torso, which was pretty amazing. They really are gentle giants
 


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Once you use up your free charging kWh, you need to think about the cost of continuing to charge past 80% at an EA charger, when you're getting a paltry 14kW. In many states, EA charges by the minute vs by the kWh. At that slow rate, you're going to pay a small fortune if you go from 80 to 100%.
 

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This was a really interesting write-up. Thank you for posting it.

the weirdness at the charging stops is disappointing but not surprising, at least not in October, 2021. More evidence things need to improve there. But you were able to charge at each location eventually, so that's a plus.

for the benefit of others (I know you know this, Tim), there are J-1772 extension cables that work well. I used one on a recent trip to get around a charger that a Tesla driver ICE'd. It's unfortunate but Tesla drivers can be just as bad as ICE drivers in that way, so having equipment to work around it can be helpful, if you're able to find a space close enough for your 20' or 40' or whatever cable to reach. (It is a bit of a heavy thing to carry around [mine is in my frunk]), so it might be a "have it in the garage unless you're road tripping" kind of thing.
 

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tl;dr version/highlights:
  • Drove 1580 miles from NJ -> Atlanta -> Port Canaveral -> Sanford FL (train to Lorton VA) -> NJ, with overall efficiency of 3.3 mi/kwh. The reason for the trip was to hit the georgia aquarium to swim with the whale sharks and to catch a cruise out of port canaveral. We wimped out coming home and took the autotrain back.
  • It was "orange barrel season" on the east coast (lots of construction to slow us down), so it was hard to gauge "true" efficiency since we could not maintain 65+ MPH (often we were crawling along at 5 to 20 mph)
  • Adaptive cruise control and auto lane centering performed very well (along with stopping every couple of hours) so fatigue was kept to a minimum - it was one of the more pleasant drives I've done in a long time
  • The Mrs actually remarked that "charging was no big deal", and she didn't mind it - the 2 non-mealtime stops per day were only 15-20 minutes and a nice break, particularly for older bladders.
  • I did notice that cars cutting in front of us at a higher speed caused adaptive cruise control to maintain speed, but a car at the same speed or slower cutting in front of use meant the ACC slowed down abruptly. I ended up reducing the ACC distance to 1 to cut down on the number of cars cutting in front of me
  • We split up the majority of the drive down over 3 days with a max 7 hours driving each day, stopping to charge for half an hour or so at lunch and dinner and 2 short 15 to 20 minute stops per day. 2 other days (from Atlanta to Orlando and Lorton to NJ) were 3 hours of driving with no charging stops.
  • Of 11 EA charging stops 8 were flawless, but 3 stops required switching chargers and 2 incurred charge faults mid-charge. Plug-n-charge worked every time, which was a pleasant surprise
  • At almost every stop, the car was done charging before we were done eating or taking advantage of the bio break. In fact, several times we stopped to talk with other BEV owners and didn't even realize charging was done. In Buford I didn't bother to unplug after 80% because I was enjoying dinner with my wife and didn't want to have to run out to move the car - the 80% cliff is actually handy for that case
  • ABRP was very accurate after tweaking to 350 extra pounds and 3.5 mi/kwh base efficiency (see spreadsheet below)
  • Managed to charge to 100% for free in Atlanta (at the aquarium) and Cordele, although the charger in Cordele was at the exit from the hotel so someone scratched my fender with a suitcase.
  • At the aquarium a pair of Tesla's took 2 J1772 charging spots without plugging in - apparently Tesla owners are endowed with the right to block a charger without charging. Luckily there are a dozen chargers at the aquarium so I was able to charge anyway
  • At the hotel in Cordele GA several cars/trucks blocked the chargers, but I managed to plug into one of the J1772's. This particular hotel had 7 chargers (5 tesla and 2 J1772), but beware at hotels with fewer of them as you might get ICEd out of being able to charge
Overall Scarlett was awesome; I hate driving long highway distances but didn't mind this trip due to the comfort and driver assist features. We were able to fit 2 weeks' worth of clothes, water, snacks, and extra stuff to keep ourselves entertained: 1 large suitcase, 1 medium suitcase, 2 small suitcases, a suit bag, 2 backpacks, 1 full sized CPAP, 1 gallon of distilled water, and several grocery-sized bags full of goodies and electronics. Unfortunately she took a hit to the fender from a suitcase in Cordele GA (the rubber smear came off but the scratch is in the paint):
Ford Mustang Mach-E Scarlett the road warrior - with scars to prove it mewhaleshark



I used ABRP and plugshare to map out my trip, tweaking the charging stops and percentages along the way to come up with the "main" plan and then added alternate stops if any of my primary stops were unavailable. To figure out if I could reach the next/alternate charger I tweaked the "charge to" percentage to 1% at the primary site. I also played with departure times and "charge to" percentages to map out meal times and overnight charging to come up with the "best" plan. Since the driving time from NJ to Atlanta was 13+ hours I knew it was impractical to try to make the trip in one day, so I split it into 2 days to make it a more leisurely drive with extra time in case things went haywire. I initially tried to work in hotels with J1772 chargers, but it became apparent that most hotels only have 1 or 2, and if I wasn't able to charge at them it would have been an issue since no DCFC were nearby. After mapping it out in ABRP I then put the stops into a spreadsheet that I put on my google drive and printed it out to take with me. Using a printout made it easier to put waypoints into Waze over Android Auto. For those that are interested, here is a copy of the spreadsheet with the alternate stops hidden to make it easier to see the interesting statistics (note that construction and traffic threw off the times):
Ford Mustang Mach-E Scarlett the road warrior - with scars to prove it mewhaleshark



Here's an extract of the full sheet with the alternate stops as well:
Ford Mustang Mach-E Scarlett the road warrior - with scars to prove it mewhaleshark



And finally, the reason for the excursion to Atlanta was so I could swim with the Whale Sharks - a bucket list item of mine. I highly recommend it (that's me spread-eagle over the shark):
Ford Mustang Mach-E Scarlett the road warrior - with scars to prove it mewhaleshark
Nice whale shark pic. Definitely worth the trip!

Nice to know ABRP works so well with those adjustments.

Let us know when and how you get that scratch out.
 

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Thanks for sharing your experience!

Perhaps this is the optimist in me but it vaguely sounds like Plug-n-charge is gradually improving? (This is purely an anecdotal observation compared against earlier posts by others.)
Not that this is scientific evidence or anything, but I tried plug and charge for the first time on Monday and it worked great. No retries necessary.
 
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timbop

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Once you use up your free charging kWh, you need to think about the cost of continuing to charge past 80% at an EA charger, when you're getting a paltry 14kW. In many states, EA charges by the minute vs by the kWh. At that slow rate, you're going to pay a small fortune if you go from 80 to 100%.
Yes, that is definitely true. The good news is that most of the states near me are per-kw, but realistically I don't drive that far on a regular basis anyway. Up until this trip I only DCFC'd to try it out; I could have made all prior drives without charging on the road.

for the benefit of others (I know you know this, Tim), there are J-1772 extension cables that work well. I used one on a recent trip to get around a charger that a Tesla driver ICE'd. It's unfortunate but Tesla drivers can be just as bad as ICE drivers in that way, so having equipment to work around it can be helpful, if you're able to find a space close enough for your 20' or 40' or whatever cable to reach. (It is a bit of a heavy thing to carry around [mine is in my frunk]), so it might be a "have it in the garage unless you're road tripping" kind of thing.
Yes I know those are available, but I'm a little worried about the gauge of wire used in the EVSE and the extension cord. As you mentioned for it to work there has to be an adjacent spot available, which might not be the case. While it is nice to get free charging to 100% it wasn't really that critical for my trip, and had I known I would have gotten a scratch I would have just DCFC'd at the nearby Walmart.

Nice whale shark pic. Definitely worth the trip!

Nice to know ABRP works so well with those adjustments.

Let us know when and how you get that scratch out.
Thanks, and yes the drive was worth it. I was actually hoping to get some recommendations on getting the scratch out, but my guess is that I'm going to have to pay somebody to touch up the paint so I don't make it worse
 

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What was it like going from Sanford, Fl up to Virginia on the Auto Train? Is that as far as you can go up north on the Train? We are thinking about doing this next year on our way up to New Hampshire.
 

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Once you use up your free charging kWh, you need to think about the cost of continuing to charge past 80% at an EA charger, when you're getting a paltry 14kW. In many states, EA charges by the minute vs by the kWh. At that slow rate, you're going to pay a small fortune if you go from 80 to 100%.
Here's a (slightly dated) map (I noticed it doesn't have locations of chargers added in the last year). But the blue states have pricing by kiloWatt hour and the white states are per-minute.

My understanding is this is a regulatory problem in that these are states where only a regulated electric utility can sell power by the kiloWatt-hour. In those states, charging vendors have to charger for the "service" of using their charger ... regardless of how much energy is delivered.

So yeah ... when an EA station is delivering at least 100kW per hour and you hit the 80% mark and it drops to 10 kW per hour... it's like the cost of energy went up by nearly a factor of 10x. You would DEFINITELY want to stop that charge and move the car.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Scarlett the road warrior - with scars to prove it 1636750677716
 
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timbop

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What was it like going from Sanford, Fl up to Virginia on the Auto Train? Is that as far as you can go up north on the Train? We are thinking about doing this next year on our way up to New Hampshire.
We booked a bedroom which has 2 foldout beds and a bathroom in it. It's not very big (my wife is claustrophobic and she was OK with the size), but the beds were comfortable enough for a good night's sleep. They used to have sit-down dinners in the dining car if you booked a sleeper car, but due to covid they bring it to you in your room in plastic containers. I think we paid around $850, but the rates fluctuate depending upon the season. In the fall the snowbirds are headed south so the rates are higher southbound vs northbound, and of course the opposite is true in the spring. Since my wife's claustrophobia precludes us from flying anything but first class the train was not too expensive and it was easier/faster than driving. Back in 2018 we took the auto train both ways for a weeklong disney trip and it was great having our car for the week. It was a little more expensive than taking the regular train and renting a car, but having her SUV was a lot more handy when our kids flew down separately - they stuffed their luggage in the SUV so they didn't get robbed on luggage fees by the airline.

Here's a (slightly dated) map (I noticed it doesn't have locations of chargers added in the last year). But the blue states have pricing by kiloWatt hour and the white states are per-minute.

My understanding is this is a regulatory problem in that these are states where only a regulated electric utility can sell power by the kiloWatt-hour. In those states, charging vendors have to charger for the "service" of using their charger ... regardless of how much energy is delivered.

So yeah ... when an EA station is delivering at least 100kW per hour and you hit the 80% mark and it drops to 10 kW per hour... it's like the cost of energy went up by nearly a factor of 10x. You would DEFINITELY want to stop that charge and move the car.

Ford Mustang Mach-E Scarlett the road warrior - with scars to prove it 1636750677716
There are a lot more states doing kwh pricing now - I know Virginia and Florida now have it also
 

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Simply use this page and pick a state - https://www.electrifyamerica.com/pricing/

Per minute states as of 11/12/21 include - Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.
 

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We booked a bedroom which has 2 foldout beds and a bathroom in it. It's not very big (my wife is claustrophobic and she was OK with the size), but the beds were comfortable enough for a good night's sleep.
I booked the same compartment size. I liked the in-room bath so I don't have to wander down the hall or downstairs to use a bathroom in the middle of the night. I'm a little worried about the length of the beds. I'm 6'4" and my partner is 6'6".
They used to have sit-down dinners in the dining car if you booked a sleeper car, but due to covid they bring it to you in your room in plastic containers.
I was watching reviews and was under the impression that you *could* go to the dining car ... but with COVID they offer to bring it your compartment as an option. I thought one of the reviews showed the dining car and every other table was blocked to reduce the number of people in the dining car and increase space between them.
There are a lot more states doing kwh pricing now - I know Virginia and Florida now have it also
That's good news. Careful inspection of my route ... looks like the only place that I'll encounter charging by the minute is two different charge stops in Pennsylvania.
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