The GOM is terrible, We need a Budget Gauge

[Maquis]

Yep. A simple % of battery left along with the expected range. Time to stop treating us EV owners like children. We get the range varies, we get it's based on a lot of factors. Shouldn't need a dongle or an app to see true battery percent. Watching the GOM tell me the battery is 100% until it decides to update is BS.

The GOM is the range display, not the % battery. I’ve never had reason to believe the battery % displayed isn’t accurate.

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[sglewiswl]

The GOM is the range display, not the % battery. I’ve never had reason to believe the battery % displayed isn’t accurate.

Are you talking about the displayed % number under the range? It's never accurate. Or at least it's no more accurate then the GOM. It looks to be a calculated % based on original capacity of the battery and current SoH, but still changes wildly and not based on the capacity available in Car Scanner.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

looks to be a calculated % based on original capacity of the battery and current SoH, but still changes wildly

No, The high voltage battery gauge displays the cars state of charge. If it varies wildly on our car it’s because you’re driving and it’s decreasing, like it should. SOH has nothing to do with it.

 

[sglewiswl]

No, The high voltage battery gauge displays the cars state of charge. If it varies wildly on our car it’s because you’re driving and it’s decreasing, like it should. SOH has nothing to do with it.

Nothing in what you just posted changes anything I said. Who uses destinations to drive around town? A true % would shrink from the moment the car starts rolling and keep an accurate measure of how full the battery is based on the current kWh of the battery. They don't do this because you would notice how the capacity of your battery shrinks with time, but we see this anyway because our maximum range is shrinking. Maybe most people don't want this, but nothing on the dash is an accurate measure of the true state of the battery.

 

[mrblanc]

But I do think the Mach-E needs a real-time efficiency gauge or graph. As in shows live mi/kWh over the 5-15 minutes compared to the average or what the GOM is using for the range computation. A single average for the whole drive isn't enough detail to accurately track efficiency trends during the drive.

Kind of gobsmacked we don't have this ability already. I could get my 2014 Cruze to show my live km/L on my dash.

 

[E90alex]

Nothing in what you just posted changes anything I said. Who uses destinations to drive around town? A true % would shrink from the moment the car starts rolling and keep an accurate measure of how full the battery is based on the current kWh of the battery. They don't do this because you would notice how the capacity of your battery shrinks with time, but we see this anyway because our maximum range is shrinking. Maybe most people don't want this, but nothing on the dash is an accurate measure of the true state of the battery.

First of all, there is never a way to get an accurate measure of the “true” state of the battery. Measuring battery charge level is not a finite exact science like measuring volume of a liquid. There are complex algorithms to determine what the SOC is based on the data available to the BMS. Even what you get with an OBD reader is what the battery BMS is estimating, and it can be off from the theoretical “true” number if the BMS is out of calibration.

Second, the dash display is rounded to whole numbers. Do you expect it to drop down to 99% even when it’s 99.9999999%?

 

[sglewiswl]

First of all, there is never a way to get an accurate measure of the “true” state of the battery. Measuring battery charge level is not a finite exact science like measuring volume of a liquid. There are complex algorithms to determine what the SOC is based on the data available to the BMS. Even what you get with an OBD reader is what the battery BMS is estimating, and it can be off from the theoretical “true” number if the BMS is out of calibration.

Second, the dash display is rounded to whole numbers. Do you expect it to drop down to 99% even when it’s 99.9999999%?
[/QUOT
It's a calculation or observation of state. The dash ain't telling us that. It's showing a marketing distillation of the actual values.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

Nothing in what you just posted changes anything I said. Who uses destinations to drive around town? A true % would shrink from the moment the car starts rolling and keep an accurate measure of how full the battery is based on the current kWh of the battery. They don't do this because you would notice how the capacity of your battery shrinks with time, but we see this anyway because our maximum range is shrinking. Maybe most people don't want this, but nothing on the dash is an accurate measure of the true state of the battery.

Either have a very different interface or we’re talking about different thugs. My car shows the state of charge 100% of the time from the time I turn it on till I turn it off. It’s very accurate and matches Car Scanner numbers (when I’m using it) The HVB soc display is not reliant on having a destination. It’s literally always there.

 

[MyTH]

Yes, battery usage prediction is somewhat more accurate with a nav destination set, but you know what's night-and-day more accurate than that? Android Auto navigation! In both the Mach-E and the Lightning, Android Auto can sense the current SOC and usage rate and then uses its knowledge of upcoming terrain, traffic, and temperature to deliver a reliable prediction. It's about as good as Tesla Nav, actually, which the native Ford one decidedly is not.

 

[dtbaker61]

I shouldn’t have to constantly be doing math in my head, calculating the difference between my approaching destination vs how quickly the GOM is dropping.

I use the CarScanner app on my phone which reads data from a ODB2 reader, with a custom "dashboard" on days I am concerned with range to show me real-time consumption and energy remaining. There are a number of threads on this you can search for..... here's one

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...r-output-regen-charging-and-other-data.33211/

I find this custom dashboard very helpful on trips, and snow/ice driving to keep an eye on power output/regen to maintain traction

It basically confirms what we already know.... speed, cold, and elevation change can affect range significantly. If you don't want to worry, plan recharging on trips every 150 miles.

 

[MadMatt]

What you’re describing is fine, but it’s honestly not any more nor less accurate than the GOM.

Only you know how you are going to drive in the future, the GOM is just guessing based on the past and current data.

The current iteration of the Mach e GOM actually does a decent job of guessing based on the data it has.

If anything it’s typically conservative with its estimates.

Ok, so im back home now. i've read through this thread and decided to take some advice and try relying on the built in Nav this time. What a failure..

First off, it is true the built in Nav does a better total range estimate. Which also bugs the crap out of me. Every drive i've done over the last 2 months has included highway driving at -10c or more. There is no world the LFP MachE will get well over 300kms range in these conditions. Why is the GOM so stupid? This first image is charging back to 100% and getting the car warmed up to drive home. The last time the vehicle was touched was the original 400+km drive. If some of what you all are saying about the GOM being based on previous drives it shouldn't be anywhere need 330km. it should say something like 260km at best

If you put your destination in the nav, the GOM will adjust and basically do the budgeting.

Tried that, disaster. The built in Nav set me up to stop too early in my drive home and wanted me to sit at a charging station for 1 hour and 45min getting the battery back to 90% before continuing.. ahh no! I used my built in brain algorithm, found another fast charge station further into the first leg of my journey (that didn't exists in the Ford Nav btw). I was able to arrive with about 9% left, charged back to 79% (which took less than 40min) and arrived home with 7% to spare. Had i listened to the Ford Nav it would of added over an hour to my voyage.

In cold weather, I find it much more accurate when you use the nav. Without a destination entered, you end up in a situation as described by the OP.

This is oddly true, which pisses me off even more. Look at the following 2 images, the first is me driving away with almost a full battery in -13c weather

And then as soon as i program the NAV

So yes i understand now that the vehicle has a better idea of what is ahead its able to make a better estimate. But why is the original estimate so bloody bad?? its taking zero reference of previous drives, providing a widely inaccurate number and then secretly adjusting as you go essential hiding the reduced efficiency from the driver. this is my major issue with this system. The previous drive history is there. use it.

Battery temperature drops as you drive in the cold winter weather. As it drops, the Guess o meter range drops. It helps to have third party hardware/apps to read various vehicle data including battery temperature to understand what is going on.

This is actually wrong, the opposite as a matter of fact. I cant speak for NMC packs however but for LFP even in the dead of winter the vehicle will go into Eq mode and stabilize the battery pack to about 20c. I often leave the house with a pack temp of 12c (garage temp) and by the end of my drive it is up to 18-19c. This applies to any month or temp of the year from -30 to +30c.

First image is just before leaving on my drive home, HvbT 13c (i left a little earlier than planned and didn't give the battery warming enough time)

And now this is me arriving at my self-selected charging station and plugging in seconds before taking this screen shot

The pack temp was up to 18c even though i was driving on the highway for almost 2 hours at -13c. At this point I had given up on the built in nav so no on-the-fly conditioning was done however arriving at 18c didn't really hinder my speed, it was up at 110kw pretty quickly.

I don't need that.

I just glance at the fuel gauge occasionally. Same as every other car I've driven in the last 50 years.

Yes thank you for this. obviously 99.9999999999 percent of my drives I don't worry about it. I know that the MachE can easily do around 250km in the coldest temps and that more than meets my day-to-day needs. In fact i always keep the battery at 80% because i know its enough for my daily needs. The point of this thread isn't me saying i spend my days stressing out over the range. Its about planning stops for long trips in the winter where a fast charger is needed.

Long drives you should always use navigation because it can more accurately predict your energy usage and charge at destination. It doesn’t matter if you already know where you’re going. The GOM has no information about what your future route will be. Only the historical consumption. There is no need to constantly be trying to do mental math.

For local driving, just learn to stop obsessing about the range. If you can make it home without public charging then the range and consumption doesn’t really matter.

answered above. Clearly the GOM is ignoring previous drives or my initial estimation would of been much lower. I also never said i obsess about rang on a daily basis. this thread is specifically about a long winter drive.

To sum up, the closest thing I have found to a Budget gauge is the current Trip efficiency app. After 20-30km are done it starts to provide a pretty accurate reading, in my case about 3.7km/Kwh. I'm then able to use my car scanner app and see the remaining energy in Kwh and do the math. This is how i planned my drive home and avoided that extra hour of charging. I was even able to get it up to 3.9km/khw by slowing my highway speed from 110kph to about 103kph. Anything faster than that really eats up your energy. What would be even more helpfull is if this gauge had a "previous 10min or 10km mode" as mentioned already in this thread. This is great for me since i have a bluetooth obd scanner i leave plugged in at all times however does nothing for the average MachE owner. We shouldn't need to hunt for this data, Ford should be providing it.

 

[Mach1E]

The GOM is telling you your maximum range if you drive slow.

Plug in a destination and you get your estimated range on that route.

Why do you want the first number to be pessimistic? It doesn’t know you’re going to drive high speeds inefficiently on the highway, even if you did it 6 out of the last 7 days.

If the first number was lower (like you apparently want it to be), then everyone would just complain even more.

You did set a new record though. The FIRST person who complains the GOM is too HIGH the winter.

 

[MadMatt]

The GOM is telling you your maximum range if you drive slow.

Plug in a destination and you get your estimated range on that route.

Why do you want the first number to be pessimistic? It doesn’t know you’re going to drive high speeds inefficiently on the highway, even if you did it 6 out of the last 7 days.

If the first number was lower (like you apparently want it to be), then everyone would just complain even more.

You did set a new record though. The FIRST person who complains the GOM is too HIGH the winter.

I'm not asking it to be pessimistic. I'm asking it to do its job. As I've said. the last 10 out of 10 drives yielded that same 3.6 - 3.7km per Kwh. Why does the GOM ignore this fact and constantly start with a inaccurate number.

I'd understand if the previous history of my driving was netting 4+km/kwh and the system was now confused, but this just isn't the case.

 

[Mach1E]

I'm not asking it to be pessimistic. I'm asking it to do its job. As I've said. the last 10 out of 10 drives yielded that same 3.6 - 3.7km per Kwh. Why does the GOM ignore this fact and constantly start with a inaccurate number.

I'd understand if the previous history of my driving was netting 4+km/kwh and the system was now confused, but this just isn't the case.

It doesn’t ignore that number.

It uses that number to calculate your maximum range** if you drive slower.

It also uses battery temp and exterior temps. It’s all a part of the algorithm.

What it DOESNT do is assume that your next trip will be driven at the same speeds as your last ones……. Unless you plug it into the NAV.

It’s called a GOM for a reason. It has no clue where you are going next, unless you tell it.

You could do 110 mph on the highway for 10 days in a row….. then drive 40 in the city next. It doesn’t know and won’t guess what’s next until you tell it.

 

[MadMatt]

It doesn’t ignore that number.

It uses that number to calculate your maximum range** if you drive slower.

It also uses battery temp and exterior temps. It’s all a part of the algorithm.

What it DOESNT do is assume that your next trip will be driven at the same speeds as your last ones……. Unless you plug it into the NAV.

It’s called a GOM for a reason. It has no clue where you are going next, unless you tell it.

You could do 110 mph on the highway for 10 days in a row….. then drive 40 in the city next. It doesn’t know and won’t guess what’s next until you tell it.

by your logic its assuming im going to be driving differently in a different enviroment.

see the problem?

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