What am I missing?

Major

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I am about to make my first out-of-town trip in my Mach-E. I am going to the Maifest in Brenham. I live in Houston. Although the round trip is 180 miles and should easily be able to be done without charging in Brenham, I wanted to check on availability and give it a try. So far I have never used a fastcharger (or any charger except at home.) Ford Pass will not show me places to charge - apparently because I don't actually need to charge to make the trip. What am I missing? Is there a way to get it to show charging stations before you are actually there? It shows stations near my home, but won't show anything in Brenham. Neither will the Chargepoint website - just what is near my home.
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dml105

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In Fordpass, you can change the assumption for how much charge the car will have when you start your trip. It defaults to the amount of charge that is currently in the car. One thing I like to do for trips that are below 270 one way but more than 270 round trip is do the search assuming a full battery first. Fordpass will tell you how much charge you'll be expected to arrive with. Then do the same search again using that remaining charge amount as the assumption. Fordpass then shows me the chargers it recommends on the way.

Another option is to try ABRP (A better route planner) on the web. https://abetterrouteplanner.com/
 

rockatansky

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I just checked Plugshare, and it appears there aren't any fast chargers between Houston and Brenham on 290. (I'm not familiar with the route you're taking so forgive, if I've gotten the highway wrong.) So, there are no fast chargers to show you. All I see are destination chargers at a few hotels in Brenham.
 

ARK

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I can’t really answer your questions directly because I too have never fast charged.

However, I believe people really like using the website https://abetterrouteplanner.com/. I believe they also have an app.

I plugged in the route you want to take into ABRP, and assuming I chose the right cities, it looks like you don’t need to charge. It seems if you wanted to be safe, if you took the route through Katy, you would pass an Electrify America spot, so maybe that is the safer route - see link.
 

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PlugShare is my go to app for seeing chargers available in a given area. Just make sure to filter to CCS connectors only. This will ensure you get fast chargers not level 2. For a specific route ABRP will allow you to customize a lot of settings. I haven’t tried the FordPass app for locating chargers as I find the whole app suspect too often.
 


smp

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A quick Google with the phrase, "EV charging stations near Brenham, TX?" yielded three results within 10 miles of Brenham, TX, but they all are Tesla Destination chargers, and of no use to you (without an adapter from a third party).

Plugshare shows a number of 1772-style stations, but labels them as "non-networked." I don't know what that really means, but I guess they are not in the Ford Network of charging stations.

My advice would be to arm yourself with a number of apps to find charging stations. I am using EVGo, PlugShare, ChargePoint and ChargeHub so far.

Good luck!

smp
 

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I can’t really answer your questions directly because I too have never fast charged.

However, I believe people really like using the website https://abetterrouteplanner.com/. I believe they also have an app.

I plugged in the route you want to take into ABRP, and assuming I chose the right cities, it looks like you don’t need to charge.
ABRP allows you to set multiple waypoints. Setting Home to Destination to Home allows setting a route that ensures enough energy to return.
 
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Major

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So that is normal behavior of the apps - if the trip can be made without charging, they don't show the charging stations? Chargepoint did list a free charger in Vulcan park. Maybe I'll look for that one.
 

smp

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Here's something that I've learned - make certain that you look at the details of the charging station that you will be depending on. A few times, I've run across some "free charging stations" that turn out to be only a 110V outlet available for you to plug your mobile charger into.

smp
 
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highland58

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A quick Google with the phrase, "EV charging stations near Brenham, TX?" yielded three results within 10 miles of Brenham, TX, but they all are Tesla Destination chargers, and of no use to you (without an adapter from a third party).

Plugshare shows a number of 1772-style stations, but labels them as "non-networked." I don't know what that really means, but I guess they are not in the Ford Network of charging stations.

My advice would be to arm yourself with a number of apps to find charging stations. I am using EVGo, PlugShare, ChargePoint and ChargeHub so far.

Good luck!

smp
Electrify America has an app also, use some of your free 250Kwh from Ford.
 

smp

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Electrify America has an app also, use some of your free 250Kwh from Ford.
I'm all set up with the Ford Pass. I was eager to see where I could go to use my 500 kWh. When I went looking for the EA charger sites, I found there are none at all in NH or VT. I only see one "coming soon" at the Mall of NH in Manchester, NH, and one "coming soon" at a Wal-Mart in Lebanon, NH.

When I get brave enough to plan a cross-country trip, maybe I'll be able to find some EA chargers along the way.

smp
 

ARK

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So that is normal behavior of the apps - if the trip can be made without charging, they don't show the charging stations? Chargepoint did list a free charger in Vulcan park. Maybe I'll look for that one.
It probably has to do with the settings you put in on any given app. A good way to figure out if you have set things correctly would be through trial and error, like put Denver as a destination or anywhere else really far to see if you are getting the type of route planning you would expect in terms of chargers being put on there, no slow chargers, etc.
 

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So that is normal behavior of the apps - if the trip can be made without charging, they don't show the charging stations? Chargepoint did list a free charger in Vulcan park. Maybe I'll look for that one.
If you put the destination into the Sync navigation, you can hit the three bars icon and it will let you find points of interest along the journey including charging stations. But, as mentioned if there aren't any fast chargers on the route then it can't show you any. If you use plugshare or ABRP as suggested you can zoom around and look for alternate routes with a fast charger. Fords' nav might let you also, but I've never tried it.

Regardless, if you charge to 100% before leaving you should return home with 30% of your battery left.
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