BlueCruise, Charging Networks, and Trip Stats

[Roy2001]

Lots of money was included in the Bipartisan infrastructure bill to build out the EV charging network. More was included in Build Back Better, but we all know what happened to that

BBB costs too much money. To give $12.5k per BEV is not reasonable at least to me even though I could benefit from it.

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[greenne]

BBB costs too much money. To give $12.5k per BEV is not reasonable at least to me even though I could benefit from it.

To be fair.. the $12.5k was extremely limited to union made, US made BEVs under a certain MSRP. It is debatable whether the Lightning would have even qualified for the full 12.5k. The Mach E would not(made in Mexico), the Tesla would not(non union), nor the Ioniq 5(non US), etc. In my research, the only EV currently on the market that would have qualified for the full 12.5k would have been the Bolt.

What it would do is offer the $7.5k to more people, and not limit the full credit to those who are well off. Thats something I could/do support....

 

[Roy2001]

To be fair.. the $12.5k was extremely limited to union made, US made BEVs under a certain MSRP. It is debatable whether the Lightning would have even qualified for the full 12.5k. The Mach E would not(made in Mexico), the Tesla would not(non union), nor the Ioniq 5(non US), etc. In my research, the only EV currently on the market that would have qualified for the full 12.5k would have been the Bolt.

What it would do is offer the $7.5k to more people, and not limit the full credit to those who are well off. Thats something I could/do support....

Although I disagree with you, I would not open the can. Just feel lucky to have the opportunity to order the Lightning and get the $7500 credit. Cannot wait any longer.

 

[LightningShow]

ER platinum so 300 miles. Also he said maybe 10mph headwind while driving 75mph. He is reported 1.6 miles per kWh. At that rate you would need 212 kWh, so 100 percent down to 15, charge to 80, down to 15, charge to 80 down to 18ish. Drive a bit slower, get yourself a tailwind and you will finish with more in the battery, but will still require two stops. If efficiency turns out to be 2 miles per kWh then you will require 170kwh (still two stops). You need to get efficiency up to 2.125 and run down to 10 percent, up to 80, down to 10 to get it down to one stop on the SR battery.

Pretty much this. The SR battery truck has ~200mi of EPA highway range. A 340 mile one way trip was probably going to be two charging stops even in good conditions unless you are really digging deep in the battery, want a long break and have a place to charge at your destination. If you have 150kw chargers (that work and pull 150kw!) on the route it's probably best to do two 10-50% charge sessions that would run about 12 minutes each on an SR. Doing one 10-90% stop is going to take longer than two 10-50% stops.

 

[RickLightning]

To be fair, the chargers at the Casino show major issues with charging and absurdly high pricing. I realize there is a lack of charging in northern Michigan, but this was not unexpected based on the history in Plugshare.

 

[oneguynick]

To be fair, the chargers at the Casino show major issues with charging and absurdly high pricing. I realize there is a lack of charging in northern Michigan, but this was not unexpected based on the history in Plugshare.

Yes, this was my mistake for trusting the GPS in the truck, not looking at the ChargePoint app, and then reading the plugshare reviews. I won't do this in the future, but I have to say that when I am in my Tesla, I have NEVER done anything beyond just using the car's guidance. It should be that easy.

 

[GDN]

Yes, this was my mistake for trusting the GPS in the truck, not looking at the ChargePoint app, and then reading the plugshare reviews. I won't do this in the future, but I have to say that when I am in my Tesla, I have NEVER done anything beyond just using the car's guidance. It should be that easy.

Thank you for calling this out. It has been one of the main concerns after Tesla doing this so well. Truly Farley should be on the phone daily asking how he can invest in the Supercharger network and getting it opened to Ford vehicles.

 

[adoublee]

Thank you for calling this out. It has been one of the main concerns after Tesla doing this so well. Truly Farley should be on the phone daily asking how he can invest in the Supercharger network and getting it opened to Ford vehicles.

The Supercharger network is intrinsically easier to use because it is all from the same company. One can learn from the ease of use and strive to making open networks as seamless, but just getting their plugs opened to outside manufacturers is not going to result in an equal experience guaranteed. Better to invest in improvements to open network using open network standards.

 

[Mr. Flibble]

Thank you for calling this out. It has been one of the main concerns after Tesla doing this so well. Truly Farley should be on the phone daily asking how he can invest in the Supercharger network and getting it opened to Ford vehicles.

This is supposed to be happening soon:

https://electrek.co/2022/05/10/tesla-add-ccs-connectors-supercharger-stations-us-elon-musk/

But we all know Musk's promises, soon could be 15 years.

 

[RickLightning]

Yes, this was my mistake for trusting the GPS in the truck, not looking at the ChargePoint app, and then reading the plugshare reviews. I won't do this in the future, but I have to say that when I am in my Tesla, I have NEVER done anything beyond just using the car's guidance. It should be that easy.

I have no experience with Tesla, but I can tell you that if you rely on the Ford Navigation even to plot your route, without double checking, well, don't say I didn't warn you...

First, I pull up the route it COULD be with an ICE vehicle on GoogleMaps, because you need to know what detours are being suggested to you. Ford navigation has told people to go 20 miles in the wrong direction to charge (and they've done it) Ford navigation also doesn't let you limit to just EA chargers which are the fastest chargers available. I have no desire to charge at 50 or 62.5 when I can charge at a 350kW charger that runs 107 for quite a while on my Mach-E.

I plan my trip with A Better Route Planner on my desktop. I compare it to GoogleMaps. I open EA on my desktop to see if I see any obvious things to change (for example, after you use your free hours, EA chargers in some states are by the minute, not by the kWh, and that's less than 1/2 the cost. So, if I COULD charge in one state that is per kWh, but could easily make the next charger in a per minute state, I'm going there.

You MUST lookup each location on Plugshare, both when you plan your route and when you are driving to the next location. You'll see "chargers don't work comments". For example, on Wednesday I flagged Indianapolis as having 50% of the chargers out of service at one time. EA didn't know, Plugshare didn't know. On Monday, we were at a charger in Portage, Michigan and there was a tech there doing something. First charger gave me 14kw. He was clueless. I moved to another charger, and reported the problem charger, which he left without fixing.

We were east of St. Louis. Ford navigation (i.e. Trip Planner in FordPass) suggested we drive up the middle of Indiana to the middle of lower Michigan, and hang a left. ABRP suggested we go up to just west of Chicago and head east, or we could head towards Indianapolis. The Ford nav route made no sense. It's done that before also.

In addition, the Ford nav will tell you that the world is ending, and scream at you to charge. I knew we were heading to a charger just inside my limits, and that I'd arrive with 3 to 5% charge. I was ok with that. Ford navigation will start sending messages like "you had better find an outlet somewhere you stupid sh&t!" whereas ABRP says "slow to 55 and you're good". We were fine, slowed to 55 for the last 20 minutes, and saved a good 30 minutes on the trip.

 

[jefro]

I had a BMW i3 with free EVGo for a year. On my first few attempts it was kind of scary. The car didn't charge due to me setting a time of use. That caused the charger to stop but be locked in the car. Took me a while to find out how to manually release the charger from port.
Called evgo and they had suggested pressing the emergency stop and let it reboot.

Yes, unless you have a backup location, going ev is still not as easy as gas. Of course gas may be an issue soon too.

I keep 4 charging accounts and two rfid cards. That and I use 6 charge apps since not one seems to agree with the others.

 

[GDN]

I have no experience with Tesla, but I can tell you that if you rely on the Ford Navigation even to plot your route, without double checking, well, don't say I didn't warn you...

First, I pull up the route it COULD be with an ICE vehicle on GoogleMaps, because you need to know what detours are being suggested to you. Ford navigation has told people to go 20 miles in the wrong direction to charge (and they've done it) Ford navigation also doesn't let you limit to just EA chargers which are the fastest chargers available. I have no desire to charge at 50 or 62.5 when I can charge at a 350kW charger that runs 107 for quite a while on my Mach-E.

I plan my trip with A Better Route Planner on my desktop. I compare it to GoogleMaps. I open EA on my desktop to see if I see any obvious things to change (for example, after you use your free hours, EA chargers in some states are by the minute, not by the kWh, and that's less than 1/2 the cost. So, if I COULD charge in one state that is per kWh, but could easily make the next charger in a per minute state, I'm going there.

You MUST lookup each location on Plugshare, both when you plan your route and when you are driving to the next location. You'll see "chargers don't work comments". For example, on Wednesday I flagged Indianapolis as having 50% of the chargers out of service at one time. EA didn't know, Plugshare didn't know. On Monday, we were at a charger in Portage, Michigan and there was a tech there doing something. First charger gave me 14kw. He was clueless. I moved to another charger, and reported the problem charger, which he left without fixing.

We were east of St. Louis. Ford navigation (i.e. Trip Planner in FordPass) suggested we drive up the middle of Indiana to the middle of lower Michigan, and hang a left. ABRP suggested we go up to just west of Chicago and head east, or we could head towards Indianapolis. The Ford nav route made no sense. It's done that before also.

In addition, the Ford nav will tell you that the world is ending, and scream at you to charge. I knew we were heading to a charger just inside my limits, and that I'd arrive with 3 to 5% charge. I was ok with that. Ford navigation will start sending messages like "you had better find an outlet somewhere you stupid sh&t!" whereas ABRP says "slow to 55 and you're good". We were fine, slowed to 55 for the last 20 minutes, and saved a good 30 minutes on the trip.

I appreciate all of the tools and the work, but @oneguynick noted how truly easy it is with Tesla. Get in the car, follow Nav for stops and don't worry about it. ABRP and other tools can be useful if you want to maximize your stops overnight for hotels with chargers, but it isn't a requirement.

I think my biggest beef with Ford over the disaster is how much they tout their network knowing it really isn't much more than hope and baling wire. Farley has acknowledged that recently, but acknowledgement without action makes it even worse.

 

[RickLightning]

I appreciate all of the tools and the work, but @oneguynick noted how truly easy it is with Tesla. Get in the car, follow Nav for stops and don't worry about it. ABRP and other tools can be useful if you want to maximize your stops overnight for hotels with chargers, but it isn't a requirement.

I think my biggest beef with Ford over the disaster is how much they tout their network knowing it really isn't much more than hope and baling wire. Farley has acknowledged that recently, but acknowledgement without action makes it even worse.

Again, having no experience with Tesla, I can't comment. I can say that there is no situation that would exist, real or imagined, in which I would buy one. Regardless of the product, or the software, I have zero interest in one.

I want Ford to succeed at EVs, and so I will continue to push my dealer, and Ford, to get better every day.

Of note - I was at the Lightning event last month, and spoke for a few minutes to Darren Palmer and conveyed that thought and more, including my Mach-E experience. They are listening, they are working at getting better, and will only be able to do so with constant feedback and urging from customers like ourselves.

 

[vandy1981]

To be fair, the chargers at the Casino show major issues with charging and absurdly high pricing. I realize there is a lack of charging in northern Michigan, but this was not unexpected based on the history in Plugshare.

Another thing to consider is that there are often issues with charger handshakes when a new model is rolled out. I can feel confident that I will have a good session at an EA charger since Ford seemed to use them a lot with their preproduction mules. The second tier networks may be dicey at first but should get better as patches are issued.
My charging sessions with my I-Pace on the EA network were terrible in 2020 but are almost flawless now and im assuming thats due to charger software improvements.

 

[Lightninorian]

I was really disappointed in Ford when I found out I can't just go to the local Ford dealer if I was in a pinch to charge. My main destination in Southern oregon is very light on chargers. They have 2 Ford dealers. Why not just put in a row of 150kw+ chargers. You sell the product, you service the product, you have the location and space, I may even buy accessories while I'm charging. You want to mark up a truck $20k but I can't charge there. I may even see a newer model I want to trade up to in the future. Just one simple minor thing putting chargers at dealerships especially after tax incentives but they left it up to the individual dealers to put in decent chargers which most didn't. I see tesla superchargers at great locations like malls and bass pro shops. What does Ford rely on, walmart. Step it up Ford. Thank you for keeping your great truck affordable but please do what you you can to keep it top shelf. That's all.

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