Trip Report: 1,200-mile round trip from Central NJ to Charlotte, NC in a CA Route 1

billy_at

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We just got back last night from the first road trip we took in our Mach-E. Prior to this trip, the longest we'd driven the car in a single day was 200 miles.

We took the car to visit family in North Carolina for the July 4th weekend. Overall, I would say the trip went very well and exceeded my expectations of what an EV road trip would be like. Charging was not much more of an issue than fueling up was when we used to take this trip in our gas VW. I can't recommend BlueCruise enough for long, monotonous driving (see below). Though the forum had me a bit worried about the Stop Safely Now error, I had no problems, despite lots of DCFC charging and 70-mph speed limits.

Our car for this trip was The Gentle Giant, our MME California Route 1 (so named because it's too kind to humiliate those who attempt to race it). We got a California Route 1 specifically so we could take long road trips like this without needing to keep a gas car. The EPA range on the car is 305, but in the summer we generally see a max range between 320 and 350 at a full charge. On occasion, we've even seen 390 miles. I assume this is a result of how we drive and very warm temperatures. To me, 300 miles of range is the minimum for comfortable road trips, so I'm very happy Ford offers this trim level.

In case it's helpful to others, here's what we did to prepare:

1. Went to the dealer to get the 21P22 customer satisfcation update. This added high-speed DC charging from 80% SOC to 90% SOC, which was very helpful for this trip.
2. Had the dealer check everything on the car out out, including the low-voltage battery.
3. Got the BlueCruise OTA update - this car is a mid-2021 model which didn't have it when purchased
3. Got the 22S41 software recall applied. This is the high-voltage contactor issue. I was worried about having to road trip without this fix, but luckily my dealer was able to fit me in for the upgrade in the two days between the announcement of the update and when I left for the trip
4. Just in case, printed out the tow instructions and stuck them in the glove compartment
5. Got the EA+ membership with 25% discount and learned how to get the discount without Ford Charging Network taking over
5. Spent a lot of time looking at EA charger maps and comparing routes using Apple Maps EV Routing and A Better Route Planner

As you can see from all the links to other forum posts above, information from other forum members helped a lot with figuring out an EV road trip. On the other hand, they also made me somewhat terrified about the HVBJB issue. The Mach-E Forum giveth, and the Mach-E Forum taketh away....

From Central NJ to Charlotte (just under 600 miles) (Saturday, July 2):

This was the first trip we've ever taken that required a charge before returning home. We've done DCFC many times before - both "just to be safe" when far from home and while waiting for our home charger to arrive and get installed. But we never totally depended on it.

As a result, we were pretty cautious here and planned four stops between central NJ and our destination. To me, the most worrying part was a 120-mile gap between the Richmond, VA, and Henderson, NC, Electrify America stops. There were not only no DCFC chargers in this gap, there were no Level 2 chargers either, unless you wanted to venture many miles off I-85. To be fair, some of this is a pretty rural area, and its remoteness affects gas trips too - we only saw signs for one gas station in this entire gap between Petersburg and Henderson.

But because of this 120-mile charger desert, and because we weren't sure if the stations would be jam-packed from Fourth of July travel, we planned a lot of stops on the way out. We never arrived at a charger with less than 153 miles of range (or less than 47% SOC). So, pretty cautious.

Overall, this trip went well. The best stop was Alexandria, VA, where we parked the car at an EA charger, took a stroll through Old Town Alexandria, got croissants and coffee for breakfast and came back to a charged car. It took a little more time to drive into the city than it would to just stop at a charger on the interstate, but it was more than worth it. It's much more efficient to be able to take a quick walk to get food and use the restrooms while the car is charging. Plus, it's a nice relaxing break from the monotony.

We never had to wait for a charger on the entire trip, even though it was the Fourth of July weekend. And we tried to multitask while charging - we used the charge stops to eat meals in the car, or take a walk to stretch our legs. Every charger we used was at a Wal-Mart except for the Alexandria, VA, charger (this was in a tiny parking lot behind a Bank of America) but all of the Wal-Mart locations had fast food restaurants nearby.

Here are the legs of our trip out:

Central NJ:
Departed with 100% (326 miles) after an overnight charge on home Level 2 charger

Central NJ to Alexandria, VA EA charger (185 miles):
Arrived with 47% (173 miles)
Departed with 94% (321 miles)

(This charge was faster than expected, so by the time we got back from our walk, it had charged all the way up to 94%)

Alexandria, VA to Richmond, VA EA charger (94 miles):
Arrived with 64% (216 miles)
Departed with 90% (298 miles)

A massive eight-charger station, where we spotted three other MME's, including a fellow New Jerseyan.

Richmond, VA to Henderson, NC EA charger (119 miles):
Arrived with 51% (137 miles)
Departed with 89% (288 miles)

This is the "charger desert." It went smoothly despite pre-trip worries.

Henderson, VA to Greensboro, NC EA charger (89 miles):
Arrived with 60% (192 miles)
Departed with 80% (256 miles)

Arrived in Charlotte (103 miles of driving) with 48% (153 miles)

Total travel distance of 589 miles, total charging cost $36.08 (using the EA+ discount)

Driving in Charlotte:

We were tired so we didn't stop at the EA charger in north Charlotte at the end of our trip to top off the battery, as we'd planned. The next morning, we tried an EVgo fast charger near where we were staying but it was out of order. Based on PlugShare research, the EA charger on the north side of Charlotte appeared to be the only definitely working DCFC charger in the city.

So, instead of driving to the opposite side of the city, we charged twice while visiting family:

ChargePoint Level 2 charger (free charger at a grocery store): 19% SOC added (59 miles) in 3 hours, 4 minutes
Mobile charger plugged in at my father-in-law's garage: 44% SOC added (141 miles) in 35 hours, 26 minutes (120V outlets are slow)

From Charlotte to Central NJ (Thursday, July 5):

We realized we definitely made too many stops on the way out. When we first left, we were unsure how much we could rely on the mileage estimate in the car and were worried about overcrowded chargers. The drive to Charlotte convinced us that the mileage estimates were pretty good and that we didn't need to worry much about lines at chargers.

So on the way back we trimmed our four stops down to just 2. This was a good idea. We never went lower than 96 miles (29%) of range when arriving at a charger, which is still an enormous buffer. Charger availability was even better as this was just a normal Tuesday, not the Saturday of a holiday weekend.

Charlotte
Departed with 96% (307 miles)

Charlotte to Henderson, NC EA charger (190 miles)
Arrived with 41% (131 miles)
Departed with 90% (297 miles)

Henderson, NC to Alexandria, VA EA chargers (224 miles):
Arrived with 29% (97 miles)
Departed with 80% (343 miles)

Arrived at home charger (187 miles of driving) with 29% (96 miles)

Total travel distance of 601 miles (we added a stop at the grocery store before coming home), total charging cost $27.59 (using the EA+ discount)

We weren't as worried about the Henderson-RIchmond gap on the way up, since we knew there were lots of chargers (both DCFC and Level 2) at Richmond and points north.

Comparison to Gas

So the total cost of this 1,200 mile trip was $63.67. At current gas prices, if we still had our 2016 VW and used it for this trip, we would've paid something like $225. A savings of 70%!

BlueCruise

I've always been a BlueCruise skeptic. I have zero interest in taking my hands off the wheel, and I think autonomous driving has been totally oversold as a technology.

But while I still disagree with technologies that try to steer cars through busy areas with traffic lights, pedestrians, etc., I've come around on the value of having the car handle a lot of work for you on controlled-access freeways.

We tried BlueCruise out on local highways a bit before we left, but it really paid off for hours and hours of interstate driving. Though neither my wife nor I felt like taking our hands completely off the wheel, it was reassuring to see the blue background on the dashboard and know that the car could drive without our input.

I think Ford has found a good middle ground here: handling the boring and predictable driving you encounter on a freeway, but making sure you're watching the road and can grab the wheel when needed. I also think it's good that they don't try to promise "full self-driving." I'm a software engineer - the idea of cars trying to navigate themselves around local roads, shopping centers and downtowns without a driver seems like a disaster in the making.

But BlueCruise on highways was great for the roadtrip. The experience is kind of like your car being on tracks or rails - it just follows the lanes and keeps an appropriate distance from the car in front of you. Now that I've done it, I really can't imagine taking a long trip like this again without something like BlueCruise. We hit tons and tons of traffic on I-95 in Virginia, and the car handled the constant slowing, acceleration and braking much more smoothly than we could have. Sometimes it felt like it didn't leave enough braking distance between us and the car in front of us. It's possible that's just an illusion, because the car should be able to do the calculations better than we can, especially since it has the benefit of radar. But we often applied the brake pedal in traffic to make absolutely sure we stopped in time.

One nice benefit of radar is that when we found ourselves behind a car with dead brake lights, BlueCruise braked before we even realized the car in front of us was stopping - it was able to detect the reduction in speed on its own.

Problems

I was surprised at how few problems we had. With the high range of the CA Route 1, this trip was not much different from a gas trip. We had fewer alternatives in case an entire charging station was somehow unavailable, but that was pretty much it. And fortunately, that didn't happen.

The Alexandria, VA, charger was my favorite because there was tons of stuff to do right around it - but it also had the only two problems we experienced: when we arrived there on our outbound trip, one spot was already ICE'd. The other three were free though, so we got a spot and took a walk. When we returned, an Ioniq and an ICE Mazda had taken the other two spots. So 50% of the charger spots were ICE'd! It wasn't a problem for us because of our arrival timing, but it could have been. I sent feedback to EA to mark the spots more prominently.

The other problem we had was on our return trip, at the same station. After plugging the car in and locking it, we went to pick up a very late lunch. Just as we we were ordering, we got a FordPass alert that there was a charging station fault. We got our lunch and hurried back. It's unclear if the station just had a problem, or if our new neighbor (a Nissan Leaf using CHAdeMO) had unplugged our CCS cable for some reason and then reconnected it. We simply restarted the charging session on the same charger and it then completed successfully. But we did lose some time because we were counting on charging happening while we were away from the vehicle.

Range

The average max range on the battery during the trip was 326 miles (I calculated this at each of our stops by dividing the range mileage by the SOC to get an implied 100% charge capacity). This was a really good number, and it way exceeded the EPA estimate of 305.

We didn't do anything special to maximize range. It was hot out, approaching 100 degrees, so we blasted the A/C to keep comfortable. We used BlueCruise for pretty much the entire trip and we set our target speed to the speed limit.

One trick we did is to plug our phones into the car only while at DCFC stations, so we weren't drawing from the battery while driving. I don't think that had much of an effect on range, but it made me feel like I was being ultra efficient, so I'll continue to do it.

Another (positive) oddity is that on the final leg of our trip (from Alexandria to home), my wife was on driving duty and somehow maintained a 4.4 mi / kWh average over that whole 187 miles. We're still trying to figure out how that happened, but that was insane, and implies 387 miles of range at a full charge on our 88 kWh battery. Photo included at the bottom as proof.

Our average efficiency over the whole trip was 3.9 mi / kWh.

Routing

We pre-selected our chargers before leaving and used Apple Maps in the car to route us to the next waypoint instead of letting it handle the whole trip from start to finish - we wanted to choose the chargers and make sure each leg was short enough for our comfort. And I wanted all the features of Apple Maps (3D lane diagrams, Apple Watch alerts, etc), so I didn't feel comfortable using a third-party EV route planner on the actual drive.

The new EV routing feature in Apple Maps was very helpful. We used it alongside ABRP to plan our general charging stops. It also has a cool feature: if you're sitting in the car at the charger, enter your next destination in Apple Maps and let it show you the route preview in CarPlay. Don't hit "Go" yet. As you charge, it will update in real-time and change your route. So, for fun, I would enter our next waypoint as a destination in Apple Maps once we'd plugged in and then watch as the number of charge stops dropped. Then the number of stops would reach one, and then the number of minutes needed at that stop would drop, until eventually it agreed that we could make the whole trip with no stops. It even tells you the SOC at your arrival.

Also, the Electrify America iOS app has a companion CarPlay app. This is convenient, because you can bring up the app in CarPlay while driving and see the nearest EA chargers at any point on your trip.

Improvements for the Future

I would love to see DCFC chargers spaced out more regularly along interstates. The distances aren't too bad, but that one 120-mile gap caused me a lot of stress in planning. I think there was some discussion about EV charger funding in the infrastructure bill that would guarantee no more than a 50-mile gap between chargers on interstate highways. That kind of rule of thumb would be great. If you always know you've got another option in 50 miles, you don't need to do as much planning or stressing.

Conclusion

This was a great trip. BlueCruise made interstate driving easier and safer. Planning our stops upfront rather than letting a mapping app route on the go was a good idea. No HVBJB issues.

When you can, try to find spots like the Alexandria charger where there's good stuff to do around you. If you're going to take a mandatory 20 or 40-minute driving break, it's great when you can enjoy yourself while doing so.

Photos

Ford Mustang Mach-E Trip Report: 1,200-mile round trip from Central NJ to Charlotte, NC in a CA Route 1 ICED

Alexandria, VA charger behind a Bank of America (the cars on either end are ICE cars in EV spots)

Ford Mustang Mach-E Trip Report: 1,200-mile round trip from Central NJ to Charlotte, NC in a CA Route 1 mach-e meetup in richmond

Richmond, VA - unofficial Mach-E meetup (four Mach-E's - plus, spot the Rivian pickup truck)

Ford Mustang Mach-E Trip Report: 1,200-mile round trip from Central NJ to Charlotte, NC in a CA Route 1 Mobile Charging in the Gara

Charging in the garage


Ford Mustang Mach-E Trip Report: 1,200-mile round trip from Central NJ to Charlotte, NC in a CA Route 1 Random Wal-Mart Charger

Random EA charger at a Wal-Mart


Ford Mustang Mach-E Trip Report: 1,200-mile round trip from Central NJ to Charlotte, NC in a CA Route 1 Mileage Record

The insane 4.4 mi/kWH my wife achieved on our last leg of the trip
 
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2FlyMache

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Nice write up. I feel pretty comfortable in my Premium AWD extended range of going at least 175 miles between charging in summer. Probably could do 200. Winter would make 150 a little more of a stretch
 

Peaceowl

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Congrats on your successful trip. Well done. And thanks for the useful write-up.
 

MustThee?

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We just got back last night from the first road trip we took in our Mach-E. Prior to this trip, the longest we'd driven the car in a single day was 200 miles.

We took the car to visit family in North Carolina for the July 4th weekend. Overall, I would say the trip went very well and exceeded my expectations of what an EV road trip would be like. Charging was not much more of an issue than fueling up was when we used to take this trip in our gas VW. I can't recommend BlueCruise enough for long, monotonous driving (see below). Though the forum had me a bit worried about the Stop Safely Now error, I had no problems, despite lots of DCFC charging and 70-mph speed limits.

Our car for this trip was The Gentle Giant, our MME California Route 1 (so named because it's too kind to humiliate those who attempt to race it). We got a California Route 1 specifically so we could take long road trips like this without needing to keep a gas car. The EPA range on the car is 305, but in the summer we generally see a max range between 320 and 350 at a full charge. On occasion, we've even seen 390 miles. I assume this is a result of how we drive and very warm temperatures. To me, 300 miles of range is the minimum for comfortable road trips, so I'm very happy Ford offers this trim level.

In case it's helpful to others, here's what we did to prepare:

1. Went to the dealer to get the 21P22 customer satisfcation update. This added high-speed DC charging from 80% SOC to 90% SOC, which was very helpful for this trip.
2. Had the dealer check everything on the car out out, including the low-voltage battery.
3. Got the BlueCruise OTA update - this car is a mid-2021 model which didn't have it when purchased
3. Got the 22S41 software recall applied. This is the high-voltage contactor issue. I was worried about having to road trip without this fix, but luckily my dealer was able to fit me in for the upgrade in the two days between the announcement of the update and when I left for the trip
4. Just in case, printed out the tow instructions and stuck them in the glove compartment
5. Got the EA+ membership with 25% discount and learned how to get the discount without Ford Charging Network taking over
5. Spent a lot of time looking at EA charger maps and comparing routes using Apple Maps EV Routing and A Better Route Planner

As you can see from all the links to other forum posts above, information from other forum members helped a lot with figuring out an EV road trip. On the other hand, they also made me somewhat terrified about the HVBJB issue. The Mach-E Forum giveth, and the Mach-E Forum taketh away....

From Central NJ to Charlotte (just under 600 miles) (Saturday, July 2):

This was the first trip we've ever taken that required a charge before returning home. We've done DCFC many times before - both "just to be safe" when far from home and while waiting for our home charger to arrive and get installed. But we never totally depended on it.

As a result, we were pretty cautious here and planned four stops between central NJ and our destination. To me, the most worrying part was a 120-mile gap between the Richmond, VA, and Henderson, NC, Electrify America stops. There were not only no DCFC chargers in this gap, there were no Level 2 chargers either, unless you wanted to venture many miles off I-85. To be fair, some of this is a pretty rural area, and its remoteness affects gas trips too - we only saw signs for one gas station in this entire gap between Petersburg and Henderson.

But because of this 120-mile charger desert, and because we weren't sure if the stations would be jam-packed from Fourth of July travel, we planned a lot of stops on the way out. We never arrived at a charger with less than 153 miles of range (or less than 47% SOC). So, pretty cautious.

Overall, this trip went well. The best stop was Alexandria, VA, where we parked the car at an EA charger, took a stroll through Old Town Alexandria, got croissants and coffee for breakfast and came back to a charged car. It took a little more time to drive into the city than it would to just stop at a charger on the interstate, but it was more than worth it. It's much more efficient to be able to take a quick walk to get food and use the restrooms while the car is charging. Plus, it's a nice relaxing break from the monotony.

We never had to wait for a charger on the entire trip, even though it was the Fourth of July weekend. And we tried to multitask while charging - we used the charge stops to eat meals in the car, or take a walk to stretch our legs. Every charger we used was at a Wal-Mart except for the Alexandria, VA, charger (this was in a tiny parking lot behind a Bank of America) but all of the Wal-Mart locations had fast food restaurants nearby.

Here are the legs of our trip out:

Central NJ:
Departed with 100% (326 miles) after an overnight charge on home Level 2 charger

Central NJ to Alexandria, VA EA charger (185 miles):
Arrived with 47% (173 miles)
Departed with 94% (321 miles)

(This charge was faster than expected, so by the time we got back from our walk, it had charged all the way up to 94%)

Alexandria, VA to Richmond, VA EA charger (94 miles):
Arrived with 64% (216 miles)
Departed with 90% (298 miles)

A massive eight-charger station, where we spotted three other MME's, including a fellow New Jerseyan.

Richmond, VA to Henderson, NC EA charger (119 miles):
Arrived with 51% (137 miles)
Departed with 89% (288 miles)

This is the "charger desert." It went smoothly despite pre-trip worries.

Henderson, VA to Greensboro, NC EA charger (89 miles):
Arrived with 60% (192 miles)
Departed with 80% (256 miles)

Arrived in Charlotte (103 miles of driving) with 48% (153 miles)

Total travel distance of 589 miles, total charging cost $36.08 (using the EA+ discount)

Driving in Charlotte:

We were tired so we didn't stop at the EA charger in north Charlotte at the end of our trip to top off the battery, as we'd planned. The next morning, we tried an EVgo fast charger near where we were staying but it was out of order. Based on PlugShare research, the EA charger on the north side of Charlotte appeared to be the only definitely working DCFC charger in the city.

So, instead of driving to the opposite side of the city, we charged twice while visiting family:

ChargePoint Level 2 charger (free charger at a grocery store): 19% SOC added (59 miles) in 3 hours, 4 minutes
Mobile charger plugged in at my father-in-law's garage: 44% SOC added (141 miles) in 35 hours, 26 minutes (120V outlets are slow)

From Charlotte to Central NJ (Thursday, July 5):

We realized we definitely made too many stops on the way out. When we first left, we were unsure how much we could rely on the mileage estimate in the car and were worried about overcrowded chargers. The drive to Charlotte convinced us that the mileage estimates were pretty good and that we didn't need to worry much about lines at chargers.

So on the way back we trimmed our four stops down to just 2. This was a good idea. We never went lower than 96 miles (29%) of range when arriving at a charger, which is still an enormous buffer. Charger availability was even better as this was just a normal Tuesday, not the Saturday of a holiday weekend.

Charlotte
Departed with 96% (307 miles)

Charlotte to Henderson, NC EA charger (190 miles)
Arrived with 41% (131 miles)
Departed with 90% (297 miles)

Henderson, NC to Alexandria, VA EA chargers (224 miles):
Arrived with 29% (97 miles)
Departed with 80% (343 miles)

Arrived at home charger (187 miles of driving) with 29% (96 miles)

Total travel distance of 601 miles (we added a stop at the grocery store before coming home), total charging cost $27.59 (using the EA+ discount)

We weren't as worried about the Henderson-RIchmond gap on the way up, since we knew there were lots of chargers (both DCFC and Level 2) at Richmond and points north.

Comparison to Gas

So the total cost of this 1,200 mile trip was $63.67. At current gas prices, if we still had our 2016 VW and used it for this trip, we would've paid something like $225. A savings of 70%!

BlueCruise

I've always been a BlueCruise skeptic. I have zero interest in taking my hands off the wheel, and I think autonomous driving has been totally oversold as a technology.

But while I still disagree with technologies that try to steer cars through busy areas with traffic lights, pedestrians, etc., I've come around on the value of having the car handle a lot of work for you on controlled-access freeways.

We tried BlueCruise out on local highways a bit before we left, but it really paid off for hours and hours of interstate driving. Though neither my wife nor I felt like taking our hands completely off the wheel, it was reassuring to see the blue background on the dashboard and know that the car could drive without our input.

I think Ford has found a good middle ground here: handling the boring and predictable driving you encounter on a freeway, but making sure you're watching the road and can grab the wheel when needed. I also think it's good that they don't try to promise "full self-driving." I'm a software engineer - the idea of cars trying to navigate themselves around local roads, shopping centers and downtowns without a driver seems like a disaster in the making.

But BlueCruise on highways was great for the roadtrip. The experience is kind of like your car being on tracks or rails - it just follows the lanes and keeps an appropriate distance from the car in front of you. Now that I've done it, I really can't imagine taking a long trip like this again without something like BlueCruise. We hit tons and tons of traffic on I-95 in Virginia, and the car handled the constant slowing, acceleration and braking much more smoothly than we could have. Sometimes it felt like it didn't leave enough braking distance between us and the car in front of us. It's possible that's just an illusion, because the car should be able to do the calculations better than we can, especially since it has the benefit of radar. But we often applied the brake pedal in traffic to make absolutely sure we stopped in time.

One nice benefit of radar is that when we found ourselves behind a car with dead brake lights, BlueCruise braked before we even realized the car in front of us was stopping - it was able to detect the reduction in speed on its own.

Problems

I was surprised at how few problems we had. With the high range of the CA Route 1, this trip was not much different from a gas trip. We had fewer alternatives in case an entire charging station was somehow unavailable, but that was pretty much it. And fortunately, that didn't happen.

The Alexandria, VA, charger was my favorite because there was tons of stuff to do right around it - but it also had the only two problems we experienced: when we arrived there on our outbound trip, one spot was already ICE'd. The other three were free though, so we got a spot and took a walk. When we returned, an Ioniq and an ICE Mazda had taken the other two spots. So 50% of the charger spots were ICE'd! It wasn't a problem for us because of our arrival timing, but it could have been. I sent feedback to EA to mark the spots more prominently.

The other problem we had was on our return trip, at the same station. After plugging the car in and locking it, we went to pick up a very late lunch. Just as we we were ordering, we got a FordPass alert that there was a charging station fault. We got our lunch and hurried back. It's unclear if the station just had a problem, or if our new neighbor (a Nissan Leaf using CHAdeMO) had unplugged our CCS cable for some reason and then reconnected it. We simply restarted the charging session on the same charger and it then completed successfully. But we did lose some time because we were counting on charging happening while we were away from the vehicle.

Range

The average max range on the battery during the trip was 326 miles (I calculated this at each of our stops by dividing the range mileage by the SOC to get an implied 100% charge capacity). This was a really good number, and it way exceeded the EPA estimate of 305.

We didn't do anything special to maximize range. It was hot out, approaching 100 degrees, so we blasted the A/C to keep comfortable. We used BlueCruise for pretty much the entire trip and we set our target speed to the speed limit.

One trick we did is to plug our phones into the car only while at DCFC stations, so we weren't drawing from the battery while driving. I don't think that had much of an effect on range, but it made me feel like I was being ultra efficient, so I'll continue to do it.

Another (positive) oddity is that on the final leg of our trip (from Alexandria to home), my wife was on driving duty and somehow maintained a 4.4 mi / kWh average over that whole 187 miles. We're still trying to figure out how that happened, but that was insane, and implies 387 miles of range at a full charge on our 88 kWh battery. Photo included at the bottom as proof.

Our average efficiency over the whole trip was 3.9 mi / kWh.

Routing

We pre-selected our chargers before leaving and used Apple Maps in the car to route us to the next waypoint instead of letting it handle the whole trip from start to finish - we wanted to choose the chargers and make sure each leg was short enough for our comfort. And I wanted all the features of Apple Maps (3D lane diagrams, Apple Watch alerts, etc), so I didn't feel comfortable using a third-party EV route planner on the actual drive.

The new EV routing feature in Apple Maps was very helpful. We used it alongside ABRP to plan our general charging stops. It also has a cool feature: if you're sitting in the car at the charger, enter your next destination in Apple Maps and let it show you the route preview in CarPlay. Don't hit "Go" yet. As you charge, it will update in real-time and change your route. So, for fun, I would enter our next waypoint as a destination in Apple Maps once we'd plugged in and then watch as the number of charge stops dropped. Then the number of stops would reach one, and then the number of minutes needed at that stop would drop, until eventually it agreed that we could make the whole trip with no stops. It even tells you the SOC at your arrival.

Also, the Electrify America iOS app has a companion CarPlay app. This is convenient, because you can bring up the app in CarPlay while driving and see the nearest EA chargers at any point on your trip.

Improvements for the Future

I would love to see DCFC chargers spaced out more regularly along interstates. The distances aren't too bad, but that one 120-mile gap caused me a lot of stress in planning. I think there was some discussion about EV charger funding in the infrastructure bill that would guarantee no more than a 50-mile gap between chargers on interstate highways. That kind of rule of thumb would be great. If you always know you've got another option in 50 miles, you don't need to do as much planning or stressing.

Conclusion

This was a great trip. BlueCruise made interstate driving easier and safer. Planning our stops upfront rather than letting a mapping app route on the go was a good idea. No HVBJB issues.

When you can, try to find spots like the Alexandria charger where there's good stuff to do around you. If you're going to take a mandatory 20 or 40-minute driving break, it's great when you can enjoy yourself while doing so.

Photos

Ford Mustang Mach-E Trip Report: 1,200-mile round trip from Central NJ to Charlotte, NC in a CA Route 1 Mileage Record

Alexandria, VA charger behind a Bank of America (the cars on either end are ICE cars in EV spots)

Ford Mustang Mach-E Trip Report: 1,200-mile round trip from Central NJ to Charlotte, NC in a CA Route 1 Mileage Record

Richmond, VA - unofficial Mach-E meetup (four Mach-E's - plus, spot the Rivian pickup truck)

Ford Mustang Mach-E Trip Report: 1,200-mile round trip from Central NJ to Charlotte, NC in a CA Route 1 Mileage Record

Charging in the garage


Ford Mustang Mach-E Trip Report: 1,200-mile round trip from Central NJ to Charlotte, NC in a CA Route 1 Mileage Record

Random EA charger at a Wal-Mart


Ford Mustang Mach-E Trip Report: 1,200-mile round trip from Central NJ to Charlotte, NC in a CA Route 1 Mileage Record

The insane 4.4 mi/kWH my wife achieved on our last leg of the trip
Great write-up. Would be helpful as I will need to go this route from Charlotte once I am ready to trust that I can go that long distance without getting stuck.
You mentioned ”the Electrify America iOS app has a companion CarPlay app”, which app is that exactly?
 
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billy_at

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You mentioned ”the Electrify America iOS app has a companion CarPlay app”, which app is that exactly?
If you download the Electrify America app on your iPhone (store link) and then pair that phone with CarPlay, you'll see an Electrify America app icon in your MME's CarPlay interface. The app lets you see nearby chargers, get availability information, navigate to particular chargers and save favorites. The favorites feature didn't work for me, but maybe that's just me. It was really helpful to have the EA app on the CarPlay console while driving.

There's also a PlugShare CarPlay app, but I haven't used it yet.
 


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5. Got the EA+ membership with 25% discount and learned how to get the discount without Ford Charging Network taking over.

If you don't mind, how did you get the EA discounted rate w/o the Ford Charging Network taking over?
 
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5. Got the EA+ membership with 25% discount and learned how to get the discount without Ford Charging Network taking over.

If you don't mind, how did you get the EA discounted rate w/o the Ford Charging Network taking over?
Oops, I used the wrong URL for that link. I updated it in the post, but you can find the post here.
 

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If you download the Electrify America app on your iPhone (store link) and then pair that phone with CarPlay, you'll see an Electrify America app icon in your MME's CarPlay interface. The app lets you see nearby chargers, get availability information, navigate to particular chargers and save favorites. The favorites feature didn't work for me, but maybe that's just me. It was really helpful to have the EA app on the CarPlay console while driving.

There's also a PlugShare CarPlay app, but I haven't used it yet.
Ok, I think it’s the same app that you download to your phone. CarPlay is just making some of the apps available via the connection. You can choose which apps (from the ones on your phone) are used by CarPlay and the order they are shown in.
 
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Ok, I think it’s the same app that you download to your phone. CarPlay is just making some of the apps available via the connection. You can choose which apps (from the ones on your phone) are used by CarPlay and the order they are shown in.
exactly.
 

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If you download the Electrify America app on your iPhone (store link) and then pair that phone with CarPlay, you'll see an Electrify America app icon in your MME's CarPlay interface. The app lets you see nearby chargers, get availability information, navigate to particular chargers and save favorites. The favorites feature didn't work for me, but maybe that's just me. It was really helpful to have the EA app on the CarPlay console while driving.

There's also a PlugShare CarPlay app, but I haven't used it yet.
This is good to know. I used the ABRP app and subscribed to the premium plan so I could use it with carplay and I was very disappointed. The carplay interface is not good at all - very buggy. I canceled the subscription. Now I use it to help plan trips but I enter the waypoints into Apple maps.
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