21st Century Pony
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Martin
- Joined
- May 21, 2022
- Threads
- 36
- Messages
- 1,961
- Reaction score
- 2,190
- Location
- Arlington, Virginia
- Vehicles
- formerly Ford Mustang Mach E 2022 Premium AWD ER, now a li'l bit of Lightning ER
- Thread starter
- #1
Folks, my teen nephew and I just completed a five-week 7,200+ mile road trip from New York City to California.
No we didn't kill each other. Yes, our extended range Mach E performed flawlessly, even during four 113-MPH runs at the Bonneville Salt Flats
Yes my European nephew now understands that "lassos really are still used today by cowboys" thanks to the annual rodeo at Cody Wyoming.
The attached hand-drawn map, last updated in Point Mugu California, is missing the final SoCal - San Francisco coastal stretch.
And I confirm that "RV lot charging" works well as a backstop charging method, including while camping in State Parks, in selected Federal National Forest campgrounds and in military base RV parks.
Finally, our REI-sourced cooler bags worked very well to keep food and liquids cool and safe in the frunk throughout the trip both for camping and for general feeding stops. This included the large Nutella jar
I'll happily answer questions for interested parties.
UPDATE 8/21/23
So this is the short final update: my best bud and I flew to San Francisco and drove the Mach E all the way back to Virginia in six days... total Mach E mileage = 10,515 miles in six weeks on the road.
And oh BTW: two drivers is so much better crossing the USA than one driver! I mean, "d'uh" right? ;-)
So my overall EV-related observations are:
Yeah, long Atlantic - Pacific - Atlantic road trips are perfectly reasonable in the Mach E. Just a li'l bit of planning, and everything pretty much falls into place.
Key to our peace of mind during the long six weeks on the road: a reliable (not/not the OEM Ford) portable EVSE with multiple 240V and 120V adapters. I have a 60 amp TeslaTap which we used at least twice to fill up overnight for free. I also used the NEMA 14-50 adapter to fill up seven nights at a national forest, a hotel, a state park, a military base RV beach and even a nice farmer's field (with RV hookups for itinerant farm workers' campers) RV hookups, again pretty much for free or close to it. I also used the NEMA 10-50P adapter to fill up for the night at a buddy's garage welding receptacle in Minnesota, and once used the 120V household receptacle dogbone adapter to add a few miles while we slept... more on this later. The peace of mind comes from understanding that electricity is everywhere, all around us... we just have to remember this and it's Hakuna Matata time
DC charging: we used six different DC charging networks during this trip. Our total DC charging cost was $820.70 for the 10,515 miles.
ElectrifyAmerica was the most "national" of the networks, for a total of $450.07 in charges. NOTE: I got onto the EA's $4/month plan before the trip, and made sure I never/ever just plugged in, which would have defaulted us to the FordPass plug-n-play price. We got a discount of 25% using this $4/month EA plan. The trick was to select the charging location and the charger, and swipe to "start charging" right before plugging in. I figure this $4/month reduced price plan saved me about $150 on this trip. I cancelled the $4/month plan the week after I got back home.
ChargePoint was the next most prevalent network. We charged a total of $257.56 at ChargePoint. I have to say, the ChargePoint app and the ChargePoint tele-service are the best in the crowd for consumer-focused support.
EVGo, EVConnect and EVGateway are the other networks we used, along with a forgettable hyper-local network somewhere in the MidWest we used only once, via credit card reader. The EVGo app seems the most bombastic, in the "we-know-what's-best-for-you" style grrr...
DC Fast Charging station crowding: yes, but only in two urban areas: in Las Vegas, and also all over the Los Angeles basin. Nowhere else did we run into a charging crowd across this fair land... not in Chicago, not in New York City, not in Yellowstone National Park, not in the San Francisco Bay area, and so now I understand the kvetching I sometimes read on this forum amongst Southern Californian Mach E owners.
Broken DC Fast Charge station which actually caused us a problem: yes, only once... in Murdo South Dakota. Yet another tiny hyperlocal DC Fast Charge network I never saw elsewhere... one charging station, completely broken. The phone help was nice, but... there we were. The irony was that in Murdo there also lives a six-station Tesla SuperCharger bank. Oh how I wish it had been 2025... IMHO the "design fault" of this well-meaning hyper-local DC network is in installing only one (1) station per town, so when something goes BLOOOOEY, there is no recourse. We Level-1 charged for free at the local inn while we slept, and the next morning, there was this local farmer the hotel staff clued us into, and... we were on the road by noon after RV-charging in his worker field for a bit.
The Mach E performed flawlessly, in the mountains, on the high prairies and in the desert. This car is packable, even with a messy 14-year old passenger. It is also eminently RV-style campable.
And yes, the Bonneville Salt Flats racecourse did get driven by a very pleased 14-year old European teen... his grin just about split his face as he came in for landing next to the unnamed cameraman who was filming things while standing on the salt. We chose to let the boy's parents know after the fact, he hee... two of his four thunder runs did hit 113 mph.
Hope this is useful info for others.
No we didn't kill each other. Yes, our extended range Mach E performed flawlessly, even during four 113-MPH runs at the Bonneville Salt Flats
Yes my European nephew now understands that "lassos really are still used today by cowboys" thanks to the annual rodeo at Cody Wyoming.
The attached hand-drawn map, last updated in Point Mugu California, is missing the final SoCal - San Francisco coastal stretch.
And I confirm that "RV lot charging" works well as a backstop charging method, including while camping in State Parks, in selected Federal National Forest campgrounds and in military base RV parks.
Finally, our REI-sourced cooler bags worked very well to keep food and liquids cool and safe in the frunk throughout the trip both for camping and for general feeding stops. This included the large Nutella jar
I'll happily answer questions for interested parties.
UPDATE 8/21/23
So this is the short final update: my best bud and I flew to San Francisco and drove the Mach E all the way back to Virginia in six days... total Mach E mileage = 10,515 miles in six weeks on the road.
And oh BTW: two drivers is so much better crossing the USA than one driver! I mean, "d'uh" right? ;-)
So my overall EV-related observations are:
Yeah, long Atlantic - Pacific - Atlantic road trips are perfectly reasonable in the Mach E. Just a li'l bit of planning, and everything pretty much falls into place.
Key to our peace of mind during the long six weeks on the road: a reliable (not/not the OEM Ford) portable EVSE with multiple 240V and 120V adapters. I have a 60 amp TeslaTap which we used at least twice to fill up overnight for free. I also used the NEMA 14-50 adapter to fill up seven nights at a national forest, a hotel, a state park, a military base RV beach and even a nice farmer's field (with RV hookups for itinerant farm workers' campers) RV hookups, again pretty much for free or close to it. I also used the NEMA 10-50P adapter to fill up for the night at a buddy's garage welding receptacle in Minnesota, and once used the 120V household receptacle dogbone adapter to add a few miles while we slept... more on this later. The peace of mind comes from understanding that electricity is everywhere, all around us... we just have to remember this and it's Hakuna Matata time
DC charging: we used six different DC charging networks during this trip. Our total DC charging cost was $820.70 for the 10,515 miles.
ElectrifyAmerica was the most "national" of the networks, for a total of $450.07 in charges. NOTE: I got onto the EA's $4/month plan before the trip, and made sure I never/ever just plugged in, which would have defaulted us to the FordPass plug-n-play price. We got a discount of 25% using this $4/month EA plan. The trick was to select the charging location and the charger, and swipe to "start charging" right before plugging in. I figure this $4/month reduced price plan saved me about $150 on this trip. I cancelled the $4/month plan the week after I got back home.
ChargePoint was the next most prevalent network. We charged a total of $257.56 at ChargePoint. I have to say, the ChargePoint app and the ChargePoint tele-service are the best in the crowd for consumer-focused support.
EVGo, EVConnect and EVGateway are the other networks we used, along with a forgettable hyper-local network somewhere in the MidWest we used only once, via credit card reader. The EVGo app seems the most bombastic, in the "we-know-what's-best-for-you" style grrr...
DC Fast Charging station crowding: yes, but only in two urban areas: in Las Vegas, and also all over the Los Angeles basin. Nowhere else did we run into a charging crowd across this fair land... not in Chicago, not in New York City, not in Yellowstone National Park, not in the San Francisco Bay area, and so now I understand the kvetching I sometimes read on this forum amongst Southern Californian Mach E owners.
Broken DC Fast Charge station which actually caused us a problem: yes, only once... in Murdo South Dakota. Yet another tiny hyperlocal DC Fast Charge network I never saw elsewhere... one charging station, completely broken. The phone help was nice, but... there we were. The irony was that in Murdo there also lives a six-station Tesla SuperCharger bank. Oh how I wish it had been 2025... IMHO the "design fault" of this well-meaning hyper-local DC network is in installing only one (1) station per town, so when something goes BLOOOOEY, there is no recourse. We Level-1 charged for free at the local inn while we slept, and the next morning, there was this local farmer the hotel staff clued us into, and... we were on the road by noon after RV-charging in his worker field for a bit.
The Mach E performed flawlessly, in the mountains, on the high prairies and in the desert. This car is packable, even with a messy 14-year old passenger. It is also eminently RV-style campable.
And yes, the Bonneville Salt Flats racecourse did get driven by a very pleased 14-year old European teen... his grin just about split his face as he came in for landing next to the unnamed cameraman who was filming things while standing on the salt. We chose to let the boy's parents know after the fact, he hee... two of his four thunder runs did hit 113 mph.
Hope this is useful info for others.
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