Weird Range Calculations

[ebrandsd]

My husband and I just got back from a couple day road trip in my Mach E. We were noticing the strangest thing and I thought I'd post here to see if anyone else was experiencing this.

We would charge at Level 3 Fast Charger (happened both at Electrify America and Charge Point) and get to some desired mileage. As soon as we pulled away, sometimes not even out the parking lot, our mileage would drop 20 to 40 miles.

We ended up having to charge a lot more frequently than when we mapped out our trip. I drive my Mach E every day and have never seen this happen.

This also didn't happen that last road trip using Fast Chargers. However, that probably was many months ago.

Had anyone else experienced this?

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[Jgg181]

I recently home-charged my MME Ext Range to 100% for the first time at about 4800 miles on the Odometer. Up to this point, I only charged on my L2 home-charger to 80-85%, with no problems or concerns.

Within 5 miles of leaving my home, after the 100% charge, I lost approximately 45 miles of range and it never returned to it’s comparable and appropriate range that day.

The next day, after a 180 mile trip the day before and , I successful home-charge to 85%, I drove from the house about 30 miles in 1 hour, and the range never seemed to be out of the normal range expected.

The only variable I could speculate that caused my sudden ‘large’ drop is that the high ambient temp(92 degrees) outside my garage caused the vehicle AC to drive a higher demand on the battery, but not sure of this.

Btw, I did not ‘pre-condition’ my car for the ambient temp heat.

 

[hybrid2bev]

My husband and I just got back from a couple day road trip in my Mach E. We were noticing the strangest thing and I thought I'd post here to see if anyone else was experiencing this.

We would charge at Level 3 Fast Charger (happened both at Electrify America and Charge Point) and get to some desired mileage. As soon as we pulled away, sometimes not even out the parking lot, our mileage would drop 20 to 40 miles.

We ended up having to charge a lot more frequently than when we mapped out our trip. I drive my Mach E every day and have never seen this happen.

This also didn't happen that last road trip using Fast Chargers. However, that probably was many months ago.

Had anyone else experienced this?

That’s by design. It’s called intelligent range. The onboard navigation system will adjust your range based on weather, terrain, speed limits on your route. It should have displayed a message on the IPC.


https://www.ford.com/support/how-tos/electric-vehicles/ev-range/what-is-intelligent-range/

 

[Tnuctihs]

My husband and I just got back from a couple day road trip in my Mach E. We were noticing the strangest thing and I thought I'd post here to see if anyone else was experiencing this.

We would charge at Level 3 Fast Charger (happened both at Electrify America and Charge Point) and get to some desired mileage. As soon as we pulled away, sometimes not even out the parking lot, our mileage would drop 20 to 40 miles.

We ended up having to charge a lot more frequently than when we mapped out our trip. I drive my Mach E every day and have never seen this happen.

This also didn't happen that last road trip using Fast Chargers. However, that probably was many months ago.

Had anyone else experienced this?

I'm interested to find out if you had any OTA updates recently?

The latest update I had has changed the range displayed from something derived from the exterior temperature and my past driving habits, to a flat "optimum range" which bears no relation to reality, and over estimates my range by approx 30%.

May be totally unrelated, I'm just curious.

 

[Mach-Lee]

My husband and I just got back from a couple day road trip in my Mach E. We were noticing the strangest thing and I thought I'd post here to see if anyone else was experiencing this.

We would charge at Level 3 Fast Charger (happened both at Electrify America and Charge Point) and get to some desired mileage. As soon as we pulled away, sometimes not even out the parking lot, our mileage would drop 20 to 40 miles.

We ended up having to charge a lot more frequently than when we mapped out our trip. I drive my Mach E every day and have never seen this happen.

This also didn't happen that last road trip using Fast Chargers. However, that probably was many months ago.

Had anyone else experienced this?

You should use percentage rather than miles to decide when to stop your charge.

Miles displayed varies depending on the anticipated route. You would need to have your next destination entered in the nav before leaving the charger if you want a more accurate range reading.

If you get on the freeway after charging, the range will initially drop since you are driving faster than your typical average speed, unless you have a nav destination entered to start. The feature is called intelligent range.

 

[Maquis]

There’s a reason we call it the “GOM.”

 

[AngryMan]

Yesterday as I started the car my battery % showed 85% and yet the range showed just 96 miles .
After about a minute it went up to 120ish then in about another minute it finally found its way up to the more realistic range .
Id never seen that before . Hope its not foreshadowing anything .
Anyone else ???

 

[ebrandsd]

You should use percentage rather than miles to decide when to stop your charge.

Miles displayed varies depending on the anticipated route. You would need to have your next destination entered in the nav before leaving the charger if you want a more accurate range reading.

If you get on the freeway after charging, the range will initially drop since you are driving faster than your typical average speed, unless you have a nav destination entered to start. The feature is called intelligent range.

Hmm so I did have the next charger and/or destination planned in Fords navigation before I drove away.

I wasn't paying nearly as close attention to the percentage. It's much harder to determine if I have enough charge to get where I'm going by looking at the percentage.

The crazy part was, we had the nav planned sometimes while we were charging. Waited until Fords navigation system said we had enough miles and then stopped charging to drive away. All of the sudden the navigation would say we no longer had enough miles to reach our destination (again before we even pulled out of the parking lot so it wasn't like we took off at an incredible speed)

 

[ebrandsd]

I'm interested to find out if you had any OTA updates recently?

The latest update I had has changed the range displayed from something derived from the exterior temperature and my past driving habits, to a flat "optimum range" which bears no relation to reality, and over estimates my range by approx 30%.

May be totally unrelated, I'm just curious.

I did actually, but it was 24-PU0301-BLM-PE which was an update for the entry system, so I didn't think it had anything to do with my sudden loss in range. I got the OTA updates on May 7th. So maybe it did do something wonky?

 

[ebrandsd]

That’s by design. It’s called intelligent range. The onboard navigation system will adjust your range based on weather, terrain, speed limits on your route. It should have displayed a message on the IPC.


https://www.ford.com/support/how-tos/electric-vehicles/ev-range/what-is-intelligent-range/

So it seems kinda strange that the "intelligent range" can't accurately tell me how much energy I need for the next leg of my road trip. It just makes it super hard to plan when the next charger is 120 miles away so I make sure I have 160 miles of range before I pull away, only for it to drop to 100 before we leave the parking lot. We got lucky that we weren't completely screwed and that there was a closer charge than the one we planned for because otherwise I'm not sure what we would have done.

One time, we actually turned around and charged more at the Fast Charger, only for it to happen again.

Is there a better way to plan a road trip and the chargers we need to stop at? We used to use a Better Route Planner but now that's become grossly inaccurate. Fords internal navigation system doesn't seem to be any more accurate since we literally charged where it told us to for how long/how many miles needed only for it to be completely wrong and needed to add more chargers to our route

 

[ebrandsd]

There’s a reason we call it the “GOM.”

I have no idea what GOM means?

 

[Mach-Lee]

Hmm so I did have the next charger and/or destination planned in Fords navigation before I drove away.

I wasn't paying nearly as close attention to the percentage. It's much harder to determine if I have enough charge to get where I'm going by looking at the percentage.

The crazy part was, we had the nav planned sometimes while we were charging. Waited until Fords navigation system said we had enough miles and then stopped charging to drive away. All of the sudden the navigation would say we no longer had enough miles to reach our destination (again before we even pulled out of the parking lot so it wasn't like we took off at an incredible speed)

Not sure what's up, but maybe the navigation "got stuck" or something. If you cancel and re-enter your destination that should force an update. Perhaps it switched routes on you due to traffic or something?

The GOM is known to be inaccurate, so going by percentage is a better bet, it does require more calculation however. For example, if I'm getting 3.2 mi/kWh and I need to go 120 miles, 120/3.2 = 38 kWh needed. Divide that by the total battery capacity 38/86 = 44% battery needed. Add your buffer (e.g. 15%) and I need to charge to 59%. That's how I do it. The curve on the Mach-E is pretty flat, so if you aren't sure you can follow the advice to always charge to 80% and go.

Is there a better way to plan a road trip and the chargers we need to stop at? We used to use a Better Route Planner but now that's become grossly inaccurate. Fords internal navigation system doesn't seem to be any more accurate since we literally charged where it told us to for how long/how many miles needed only for it to be completely wrong and needed to add more chargers to our route

ABRP is the most accurate route planning available. You need to input all the parameters including headwind correctly, or subscribe to premium and use an OBD device so the parameters are calibrated automatically. If you got bad results before, it was because of bad inputs. Garbage in, garbage out as they say.

 

[Jgg181]

I have no idea what GOM means?

”Guess-O-Meter’!?

 

[Tampamike]

The GOM is known to be inaccurate, so going by percentage is a better bet, it does require more calculation however. For example, if I'm getting 3.2 mi/kWh and I need to go 120 miles, 120/3.2 = 38 kWh needed. Divide that by the total battery capacity 38/86 = 44% battery needed.

Isn’t the correct capacity now 91kw? Wasn’t it raised a long while back due to some software improvement via OTA?

 

[Mach-Lee]

Isn’t the correct capacity now 91kw? Wasn’t it raised a long while back due to some software improvement via OTA?

When it's brand new, but you have to factor in aging and lower capacity with temperature. 85 kWh is a good conservative guess.

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