Seeking Feedback: NJ -> Ontario, CA

[COACH CHRIS]

We've been invited to a wedding in Toronto and while we have flights booked, I figured it'd be way more fun to take the Mach-E out for a bit of a trip. ABRP shows it's a haul, but we're down for that. Was wondering, however, if anyone has been to any of the charging stations on I-90W, and if the Electrify America chargers are reliable. Hoping to avoid being stranded 5 hours (or more) away from home. Thoughts on this roadtrip?

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[lukew]

Well I would say that the first charge it has listed for you is obviously ridiculous. Just charge to 100% that night and run ABRP again assuming a 100% start charge. Other than that, no source of info is going to be more reliable than Plugshare.

Edit: Also, it has you arriving with a 10% charge. I would either manually edit your last stop to charge to 80%, or set a higher arrival percentage so that it will add another stop. I doubt you want to arrive with only 10%.

 

[COACH CHRIS]

Duly noted on both points! Agreed the 100% charge is an easy win. Moved too fast when creating this map in the first place.

 

[silverelan]

Ha! I read Ontario, CA as the city in SoCal. Took me a second to get over my confusion of why the route mapped to Toronto in Ontario, Canada.

 

[Tampamike]

We've been invited to a wedding in Toronto and while we have flights booked, I figured it'd be way more fun to take the Mach-E out for a bit of a trip. ABRP shows it's a haul, but we're down for that. Was wondering, however, if anyone has been to any of the charging stations on I-90W, and if the Electrify America chargers are reliable. Hoping to avoid being stranded 5 hours (or more) away from home. Thoughts on this roadtrip?

I’ve been through there last year in the fall. The EA in Binghamton is fairly new and at a truck stop right by the freeway. The bonus there is that you get to enjoy the aroma of fresh potato chips from the Lay’s factory across the street. The outlet mall location is a little out of the way. It’s near the freeway but kind of between exits so you have to head down the road a ways paralleling the interstate. There are lots of options in Canada but, weirdly, Electrify Canada doesn‘t work with EA - you need both apps. It’s not the cheapest either but I used it anyway because I figured I j ew what I was dealing with. A lot of the EC locations are at Canadian Tire stores which are like a cross between Home Depot and Autozone. It’s interesting.

 

[MachEUser]

I would do it. NY has the Evolve NY network which is quite good and Canada is very EV friendly. You may not need to take much of the thruway if coming from NJ.

Just make sure you have cell service in Canada as you may need to download or activate charging in an app.

I believe Ontario also has FLO network. There’s also petrocanada and others so don’t need to rely on electrify Canada. Like others said, plug share is your friend.

Start your trip at 100% and charge at fast chargers on the way even before getting to 10-20% in case there is a charger issues so you don’t get stuck though the networks along the way are pretty reliable ones, just for peace of mind.

 

[AllenXS]

PetroCanada is usually much cheaper than EC. Check where their EV chargers are as only a few stations have them.

 

[billy_at]

I've also been considering driving from NJ to Canada. Do the Electrify Canada chargers work automatically with Ford Plug & Charge (aka Blue Oval Charge Network), even if the car was purchased in the US? Is it the same network?

 

[AllenXS]

I've also been considering driving from NJ to Canada. Do the Electrify Canada chargers work automatically with Ford Plug & Charge (aka Blue Oval Charge Network), even if the car was purchased in the US? Is it the same network?

EC has PnC but I’ve always used my own account with them as it’s quicker and easier.
Anyone else used it successfully in Canada?

 

[Tampamike]

I don’t know if EC has P+C. I used their app. It works the same as the EA app but they don’t work on each other’s network - go figure.

 

[timbop]

I highly recommend locating alternate chargers to account for the possibility of a station being down/unavailable for whatever reason. In my tutorial I include a technique for finding alternate chargers that will be within your range:
https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...ning-with-abrp-abetterrouteplanner-com.12504/

 

[MachEUser]

Electrify Canada is a separate company so it doesn’t work with plug and charge. Using the oval network section of the FordPass app, there are no plug and charge in Canada but it does seem you can activate from app. I think it’s best to also have the network apps and cell service on phone just in case when traveling in Canada.

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