Well, Ford, the new "Distance To Empty" algorithm doesn't work . . .

[DevSecOps]

I thought I was the only one who didn't know what GOM stood for - - - is it Really Guess-o-meter ? Makes as much sense as anything else

Yes it is...

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[Arsenic17]

I like this idea and made one for my 2022 GT (91 kWh usable battery capacity). I decided though that I didn't need to four decimal places for the estimated miles ?

This is fine, but keep in mind your usable battery will get nuked by the battery management system as temperatures decline. Even if Sync is showing 3.0 mi/kWh at 30°, your usable battery pack size may have decreased from 91 to 75 kWh. This adds another dimension to the table, and really is what GOM should be accounting for...

 

[hybrid2bev]

Just out of curiosity do you know the following:

1. Your average speed?
2. Ambient temperature?
3. Were there any headwinds?
4. Were you alone or did you have passengers and/or payload?
5. Did you increase your elevation at all?

I ask those questions only because there is no possible way for the algorithm to know any of that before you started your trip. It is my understanding that the range estimate adjusts as you drive.

The car does know the battery's SOC and how many miles/kW you are averaging. You can do the rough math to get a better range estimate using that info. Best of luck.

I agree that the car doesn't know.... but it should!

If I plug in route into the onboard navigation it *should* have most of that data. It's sad that the onboard route planner doesn't integrate it.

1. Use speed limit or allow the user to set a +/- tolerance of the known speed limits
2. Connected navigation should have weather data both for the current location and destination
3. Same as #2
4. Unknown, but the car can tell how many passengers are onboard and make estimates (seatbelt alerts demonstrate that it knows that butts are in seats)
5. Should be known data from any good map, it's not secret LOL.

 

[azerik]

Check out this real world distance test. I'd be pleasantly happy to see my car go further than I budgeted for. Much moreso than some of the drastically off ratings and reality.
https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/
tl;dr is they tested at 70 mph in a non stop loop. The CR rt1 didn't fair great but the MME ER's did.

 

[Guss-E 2021]

I agree that the car doesn't know.... but it should!

Now hold on a minute, are you saying our cars should be able to tell the......future!? I say hell yes to that! That way I can just type in "winning lottery number" and pay her off ? . I am of course just being a smartass.

Honestly, I think all of this just goes to show just how new Ford is to all of this smart electric car stuff. Both the FordPass app and the car's UI is missing all kinds of EV specific stuff that would be really useful to owners. I mean instead of, oh I don't know, putting something like battery temp or locked/unlocked under the Status drop down, they give us only....tire pressure ?.

I'm sure the computer in the MME is chock full of data and we have this massive center display as well as secondary line-of-site screen. Talk about a wasted opportunity. People have complained about this sort of thing already to be sure. But it worth mentioning again. I mean at least show the efficiency reading along with the mph and odometer. Would be nice if the trip meter was there too instead of a tile that now hides trip miles traveled while the map is up. Ugh, see what you did? You got me ranting again ?

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

We’re the outliers here. I’ve found the updated range calculations to be far superior than they were previously. Under the factory new calculations our AWD ER GOM would max out at 208 miles during the summer and 190 during the winter. Now it’s 280 to 290 during the summer and 260 - 270 during the winter. The new numbers are far closer to accurate.

We live in ann area that requires a steep climb regardless of the direction you’re coming from. The previous algorithm placed far too much emphasis on the climb. New one is more realistic for us. YMMV.

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

This is fine, but keep in mind your usable battery will get nuked by the battery management system as temperatures decline. Even if Sync is showing 3.0 mi/kWh at 30°, your usable battery pack size may have decreased from 91 to 75 kWh. This adds another dimension to the table, and really is what GOM should be accounting for...

I absolutely agree. Honestly when on a road trip I a) plan ahead and know where my charge stops will be and b) look much more at the battery percentage than at the range estimate. But I'm retired and have the luxury of time that others don't necessarily have, so I can drive the car with a larger number of planned stops than some might.

 

[benk016]

I agree that the car doesn't know.... but it should!

If I plug in route into the onboard navigation it *should* have most of that data. It's sad that the onboard route planner doesn't integrate it.

1. Use speed limit or allow the user to set a +/- tolerance of the known speed limits
2. Connected navigation should have weather data both for the current location and destination
3. Same as #2
4. Unknown, but the car can tell how many passengers are onboard and make estimates (seatbelt alerts demonstrate that it knows that butts are in seats)
5. Should be known data from any good map, it's not secret LOL.

A lot of this is what intelligent range was supposed to do. Temp was about the only thing that ever triggered it though. We'll see if it ever comes back.

 

[Thunderanger]

I absolutely agree. Honestly when on a road trip I a) plan ahead and know where my charge stops will be and b) look much more at the battery percentage than at the range estimate. But I'm retired and have the luxury of time that others don't necessarily have, so I can drive the car with a larger number of planned stops than some might.

I'm retired too. I get the "time" theory.

However just yesterday, and into the WEE hours of this AM, the inaccuracy of the GOM caused issues for me. On my 400 mile round trip, it started wildly over estimating my range. Then got better.

I charged at my first stop, no issues with the charger and subsequent range. Charged at the 2nd stop and got wildly inflated range again, topped off at the same charger as #2 on the way home, no issues.

Got to #4, same charger as #1 with 70 miles of range and 66 miles to go (as determined by the FP trip planner). So I needed to add some miles to be SURE I'd make it home and could actually drive more than 55mph, and use the heater. Not trusting the GOM made it tricky. How much did I REALLY need to add? How long should I charge?

Well.....the damn Shell Recharge charger (the exact same one I used earlier in the day) would not activate, no matter how I tried it, from the FP app, to the Shell App, to the Shell card, etc. Plus I spent about an hour on the phone with Shell during which the operator tried multiple times to restart the charger, etc. Nada.

So in order to get home, I ended up at a nearby L2 @ a ford dealership until about 1:30AM charging to add 35 miles. I got home at around 2:30AM, with about 20 miles to spare, and that's after not using climate control 98% of the time and going 55mph all but about 10 miles when I went 65.

SO......the uncertainty regarding the GOM lead me to spend more time charging than necessary, by a bit. BUT, when I figured percentage of battery X usable battery, x miles per kw at 2.5 (I actually average 2.8) it showed me with about 115 miles of range from the ford dealer home.

So basically, it's all a fricking crap shoot and it's a pain in the butt.

 

[Phil-Springs]

I've been on the new algorithm now for a couple weeks. I've basically decided the big GOM displayed on the screen is just to be ignored. The Ford Nav predicted % at Destination so far for me as have within 2%, pretty accurate with no buffer.

 

[Just Lurking]

Amazing Ford could not have a 'reset sync' icon instead of an arcane physical button sequence. Almost like they wanted to increase the difficulty level.

A "reboot Sync" menu option might be helpful, but in theory it should almost never need to be used, so I can understand the initial decision to exclude it.

The reason for the physical button sequence is because it's possible the Sync system could freeze up and never allow a user to tap the menu option to initiate the reboot. Almost all electronic devices (phones, etc.) have a feature like this, which requires no intelligence at all - just a very basic controller listening for the appropriate physical button sequence and then turning off the power for a couple of seconds and then restoring power.

 

[imstriker]

A "reboot Sync" menu option might be helpful, but in theory it should almost never need to be used, so I can understand the initial decision to exclude it.

The reason for the physical button sequence is because it's possible the Sync system could freeze up and never allow a user to tap the menu option to initiate the reboot. Almost all electronic devices (phones, etc.) have a feature like this, which requires no intelligence at all - just a very basic controller listening for the appropriate physical button sequence and then turning off the power for a couple of seconds and then restoring power.

You are definitely right in theory. Unfortunately I have to use mine about twice a week lately. Profiles in sync have become a disaster, especially if you make the mistake of using remote start. It gets stuck in guest and refuses to leave.

Back to the topic at hand, I would agree that the new algorithm is bad and is far from "intelligent". At this point, I think my 2013 Leaf was far more accurate about range calculations. Since my car has had a while to adjust back to my driving after the update, it seems pretty clear to me that this new version is just much worse then the old one.

 

[Pitts2112]

On a tangent here but has anyone ever had the GoM go into negative numbers? ?

On a more serious note how does it respond when you get down to really low numbers, say 11 miles left and the algorithm wasn’t totally accurate? Does it keep recalculating for the fumes left in the battery and adding miles or does it just hold onto 11 for as long as it takes to match up again?

By the way, I know this is a purely academic and meaningless question, but the engineer in me can’t help but ask.

 

[Toy_collector]

Why can't they just tell us the estimated KwH remaining in the battery and our current KW usage while driving? We could then calculate what our current real world range is. They could even put that calculation next to the other two numbers for those that don't want to do the math. Giving us a percentage of an ever changing battery size (based on temperature) is basically worthless. Tesla has the same usable battery capacity in all weather conditions (likely because it warms the battery while driving) and I can see my current usage rate so I always know in that car how far I can go and I can adjust my driving accordingly if it starts to get tight.

 

[kkgg]

Blaming something is pretty easy,
you got to come up with your idea of estimate(how you think it should be) before saying its not right

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