Terrible Highway mileage!

[TGIF]

I'm saying the the starting range is inaccurate. I'm simply asking for tips on highway driving not smart a$$ remarks. This was my first trip. I thought the Forum would be helpful? ?

There is a learning curve with this car. It will take some experience to see how speed, rapidity of acceleration, air temp, heat and A/C use, and wind speeds will affect your range. I typically watch my This Trip information to see how things are going on a drive to see if an additional (sooner) charge stop might be necessary. Usually I can just adjust cabin temp to get better range. I also recommend that you plan your trips with alternative stops located in case of unpleasant surprises. The GOM is based on previous drives, not the one you are going on, so there can be large discrepancies between anticipated and actual range. You will get used to it.

Sponsored

 

[1969Camaro]

The Mach-E has terrible highway mileage! I was in Quartzite,AZ heading to Glendale,AZ which is about 120 miles. I charged up with 220 miles of range but when I got home I ended up with 30 instead of 100 left and from Palm Springs,CA to Quartzite,CA was the same way, Ialmost ran out of charge! I should of got to Quartzite with 15 miles of range left but had to U-turn and goto a Hampton to charge up enough to get ust to Quartzite. What is the driving logic on the highway?

Your lucky Quartzite was working. I got stranded there last summer

 

[Fremont Kid]

I saw this thread earlier while I was on a break and didn’t have a chance to reply. You’ve probably quit reading by now but just in case it helps, I wanted to let you know how I play the range game.
You’ve undoubtedly realized that speeds in excess of 55 MPH or so will not get you EPA standard guesses. You’ve also realized that highway speeds won’t yield range equal to the GOM (unless you ALWAYS drive 80MPH everywhere you go).
My driving is widely varied. Making my GOM completely worthless. What I resort to doing is setting my destination in my navigation app of choice. This morning my destination was 202 miles away. The GOM showed 253 miles of range. In a perfect world I should have 51 miles remaining when I get to my destination. So I check every once in a while. Is the difference going down? And how fast? Especially when getting close to a fast charger. When I passed one fast charger, I had driven 50 miles. Distance to destination is down to 150 miles. Range is showing 195 miles. My difference is down to 45 miles. So I’m using battery a little faster than the GOM predicted originally. But I’m pretty confident because over another 150 miles (3 times the distance already traveled) that would leave me using another 15 miles off my excess. So probably arrive home with 30 miles range left. It’s not the 51 miles excess I was originally quoted, but it’s enough.
Next charger I come to is 60 miles from my destination. GOM shows 87 miles. Again, battery is going down a little quicker than GOM predicted but I’m showing 27 miles of excess range. And I’ve only used up 24 miles of excess range in the last 140 miles.
I just play a game where I don’t really care about the charge. I do t really care about the GOM. I care about the delta between my waypoint and my GOM. If the delta is getting smaller, I can slow down or alter my charging plan as needed.

Your example is what I've also done, except that I have not planned trips using the navigation system. Which brings up an intriguing question. Does the navigation system calculate trip energy use and display as miles/kWh? If so, drivers would not need to play the game, but would know if the actual miles/kWh is more or less than the calculated energy consumption. This would be quite useful.

 

[Raambo55]

Just curious. What is considered a good mi/kWH, and is there an easy way to calculate some sort of MPG. Trying to compare it to my old ICE car haha

 

[jeffMachE]

Just curious. What is considered a good mi/kWH, and is there an easy way to calculate some sort of MPG. Trying to compare it to my old ICE car haha

To make it "sensible" in an MPG format, just multiply mi/kWh by 10. if you are getting 2.4 mi/kWh - that makes 24 mpg, while 3.4 mi/kWh makes 34 mpg. I know that's not an accurate conversion, its a proxy to understand consumption in terms that you are used to.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Just curious. What is considered a good mi/kWH, and is there an easy way to calculate some sort of MPG. Trying to compare it to my old ICE car haha

There are approximately 33 kWh of energy in a gallon of gasoline. If you multiply you miles/kWh by 33, you'll get an estimate of your mpge.

 

[MacherAWD]

To make it "sensible" in an MPG format, just multiply mi/kWh by 10. if you are getting 2.4 mi/kWh - that makes 24 mpg, while 3.4 mi/kWh makes 34 mpg. I know that's not an accurate conversion, its a proxy to understand consumption in terms that you are used to.

How have I not heard of this in my 8 years of EV living, so simple! Its like going from km/hr to miles/hr, I learned from my HS French teacher "just divide by 2 and add a little"

 

[RickMachE]

Hi
So I have been reading through the thread and I think I might have a point of view.

So speed is bad on a road trip… and yet it is called a Mustang. Sure Ok.
A good majority of us are first time ev owners and look at a display giving you a range that is nowhere near what the sticker said, and try to explain physics to our significant others about why the car isn’t going to come close.

We are comming from ICE cars that have a supporting infrastructure to refuel every 5 feet, and a refuel time of 5 minute. While possibly live in a changing desert as I do in Northeast PA with a refuel time of an hour, and not to full.

So we ordered a car that supposedly went up to 247 miles and you have to try to arrive at a charger with 10 to 20 miles left just in case the charger is broke / full or whatever. When we fill it on the trip you only go to 80% or you should have walked to your destination. So best case on a good day if the planets aligned you get to drive 150 miles in between hour charging stops. Again this is Mustang?
So was Ford trying to perfect the old Fails on race day joke With the don’t go fast and your going to have a terrible pit time Mustang.

I am not even going to discuss all the talk about HVAC. Your brain has an id10t error if you think driving a car without hvac in the winter is acceptable to make your destination. Please I want to be the fly on the wall as you tell you wife, or children you can’t run the heat or defrost because you might not make it home. What is this the Mustang horse and buggy with the smallpox blanket ride in Central Park… Common Man They have to do better.

We all spent upwards of 50k for this car, we should expect more.

Now I love ,my Mach e. I think it is cool and fun.
I did one 265 mile road trip. From Pa to Princeton NJ. I charged to 75% in Philadelphia on the way back. Car said it had 172 miles and the rest of them trip was 121. At the Highway exit I got the you might not make your destination message no chargers near by. (Made it home but not fun having the wife think she’s walking down the highway to a service station)

Back and forth in town to work and errands ok, It maybe a Mustang but it is definitely not a road trip car.
Vacation time is too valuable to waste charging.

Yes I know I should have bought a bigger battery car, but PA to Flordia 7 stops of 30 to 40 min.. that’s nuts.

Finally the GOM.
Here is my problem. When I first got my car, it wasn’t charged at the dealer and the first drive home was range anxiety. After charging it to 100% at home the GOM said 196. In my warm garage. I have never seen the 247 number there that my select advertised.

I get all the reasons, but seriously a car that can do all this cool stuff CAN WE JUST GET SOME OF WHAT SHOULD BE SIMPLER AND CALMING A LITTLE MORE ACCURATE. I not asking a lot just a descent realistic fuel guage.

Mach e owners are going to hold standup comedy acts about their cars.

The reality is, whether you like it or not, that regardless of the brand, driving on the highway from PA to Florida is going to involve multiple stops of 30 - 40 minutes. And that's assuming you're on major highways with Electrify America available, battery warm, chargers not too cold, ... It wouldn't matter what the car was called.

We are planning a trip that might go through a dozen states. If we take the Mach-E, over a period of less than 2 weeks, we would need to fuel up about 25 times. The total driving would be roughly 43 hours, and we'd need to spend 9+ additional hours charging over that period. Sounds crazy - but if you're doing this is increments, with each leg of the trip involving 3 - 4 charges, it's not too bad. Our dilemma is a charging desert in one state IF we go near it depending on whether a relative is up for a visit or not.

Did you complain when your ICE vehicles didn't get the EPA mileage on the highway? Or, when your DTE based on your local driving was so different than your highway driving?

You should have insisted the dealer 100% charge before taking the car, they are required to, just like a full tank of gas is required - you paid for it.

In the winter, you will never see a high range.

Highway driving is between 20 and 80% for most people, using 60% of the battery. I go to 10%, using 70%. That's 63kW or 189 miles between stops in the summer, 150 between stops in the winter. My bladder can barely make the 150 miles.

We have driven thousands of highway miles, including from Michigan to Florida (9 charging stops over 2 days, including free one at hotel). If you don't want to waste valuable vacation time charging, there's no EV made that you should buy. But that was all known, if you looked, prior to you buying the car.

A good rule of thumb is to take the GoogleMaps route, see it's time, and add 20% for charging, which includes nights in hotels with free charging. If you then lay out the trip and can't do it for that overhead, don't take the EV. And if driving 1,000 miles in a day is important to you, forgetaboutit.

Much of range anxiety can be eliminated by learning about the car. Problem is, many don't want to learn, and many learn but their spouses don't learn, and then they have anxiety. My wife would never plan a trip in detail, ICE or EV, she has me do it. She doesn't get range anxiety because she knows I know what I'm doing.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

Your example is what I've also done, except that I have not planned trips using the navigation system. Which brings up an intriguing question. Does the navigation system calculate trip energy use and display as miles/kWh? If so, drivers would not need to play the game, but would know if the actual miles/kWh is more or less than the calculated energy consumption. This would be quite useful.

I don’t use ford navigation either. I’m on google and just using it as a distance to go versus distance to empty.

 

[drg1012]

The energy required to push through the air increases with the square of velocity. So, to travel twice as fast, you need four time as much energy - or the difference between 60 and 72 mph is 20% and requires 44% more energy. This is no different with an ICE, however, a gas engine itself works more efficiently at higher throttle settings so the difference is not as pronounced - you need more energy but the engine is more efficient. Even the efficiency of an ICE vehicle peaks at about 55-70 mph depending on the engine displacement and aerodynamics of the vehicle (smaller engines in boxier vehicles will have a peak efficiency at a slower speed). And while the decrease in efficiency in an EV is much more noticeable, it is still operating more efficiently than an ICE at all speeds - as other posters have noted, at the lousy efficiency of 1 mi/kwh you're still getting the equivalent of 33 mpg... I put together a spreadsheet to calculate predicted range and efficiency based on driving profile, vehicle, altitude change, outside temperature, etc. Still refinining it, but the screen shots below give you an idea of the efficiency of my MME at a constant 65 mph speed (3.2 mi/kwh) versus 80 mph (2.1 mi/kwh).

 

[dtbaker61]

The Mach-E has terrible highway mileage! I was in Quartzite,AZ heading to Glendale,AZ which is about 120 miles. I charged up with 220 miles of range but when I got home I ended up with 30 instead of 100 left and from Palm Springs,CA to Quartzite,CA was the same way, Ialmost ran out of charge! I should of got to Quartzite with 15 miles of range left but had to U-turn and goto a Hampton to charge up enough to get ust to Quartzite. What is the driving logic on the highway?

Highway efficiency will ALWAYS be worse than 'around town average' all other conditions being the same because:
- higher average speed
- much less braking regen without stop-n-go

your only 'adjustable' improvements are:
- smooth wheel covers, narrower/harder tires with lower rolling resistance
- lower average speed

 

[Thunderanger]

holy crap, the only way for our Select to manage 3.4 mile/KWh is to drive 65. At 75 it’s down to 2.5.

On a GOOD day.

 

[dbsb3233]

You do know...that when you decide to post anything regarding mi/kwh or GOM mileage estimate discrepencies that this is going to be the response. You have been a member of the forum for almost a year. No one is intentionally trying to troll you; but having said that, you can literally see a post about this topic almost daily/weekly and A LOT during the winter.

People are just explaining that having an EV like this, you have to always take speed, temperature/weather, HVAC settings, terrain etc into account to explain the observations youre seeing.

Or people that get tired of seeing the range threads could just ignore them instead of being snarky jerks.

 

[mkhuffman]

Or people that get tired of seeing the range threads could just ignore them instead of being snarky jerks.

Yep. But it is tiring....

 

[dbsb3233]

Yep. But it is tiring....

Perhaps, but it's no excuse for people to be jerks. Much better to just ignore the thread. But invariably a few people have to jump in with snarky comments belittling the one posting about surprisingly poor range and efficiency.

It's so unhelpful and bad form for an otherwise great forum.

Sponsored