heelyeah
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Vehicle: 2022 F150 Lightning Lariat ER
Factors possibly affecting efficiency: I had a Yakima truck rack on the back with a Yakima basket and overhead luggage bag on the basket.
Driving speed: I typically drive about 9mph over the posted speed limit, but on this trip I mostly kept the truck right at the speed limit, which averaged 70mph.
Charging provider details: I have plug and charge enabled for Electrify America and AutoCharge+ enabled for EVGo.
Weather: Mostly great but absolutely brutal on Travel Day 4 (see notes).
Summary / TLDR: Last week my wife and I took our kids to Disney World. It's a trip we make once or twice a year but the first time we've done it an EV. I'm not new to EVs. I had a 2021 Mustang Mach E for a year (and ~17,500 miles) before getting the Lightning in July of 2022 (currently at about 10,500 miles). There were some hiccups along the way, but it could have been worse. The overarching theme here will not be news to anyone: the truck is fantastic, and EA stations in particular (and EVGo to a lesser extent) are suffering from massive reliability issues. Charging infrastructure just has to get better, especially with a ton more EVs about to hit the road. It won't be the last time I do this trip in an EV, but we're slated to go again in September, and I imagine we'll drive one of our ICE vehicles then (a Bronco or a Gladiator). I strongly encourage folks to log your Level 3 charging sessions on PlugShare and also to tweet the details to the @rateyourcharge Twitter handle run by Out of Spec. For one, this can only help draw the attention of the providers to fix issues at particular stations. But more than that, it's such a help to other EV drivers to know what they're getting themselves into as they're planning charging stops ahead of time.
Travel Day 1 (going south): We split the trip from Eastern NC to WDW into two travel days since we have two young kids. So for day 1 we were driving from our home in Eastern NC to Hilton Head, SC which is about 350 miles. Started the trip at 90% SOC and stopped to charge in Florence, SC at an Electrify America station. The first charging experience was great, no issues. Charged at Station 4 at EA in Florence and charged at a max of around 143kw. Unfortunately, this would end up being the best experience with EA of the entire trip. Charged to about 80% and hit the road, stopping a little further south at the Electrify America in Walterboro, SC. We could have made it to our destination in Hilton Head but I wanted to top off so that we would arrive at our destination with a higher SOC in case I wasn't able to charge on the island at HHI (more on that later). This stop in Walterboro was a harbinger of things to come from EA on the trip. The first station I tried at the Walterboro EA (station 4) did not work at all. The other 3 were occupied, but fortunately someone left. Every single station had the dreaded message about "overall capacity reduced at this station," a message I would end up seeing quite a bit from EA on this trip. When I finally did get the truck to charge, it ramped up to 75kw at first but very quickly dropped down to 44kw for the duration of the session. Since we had enough juice to make it to our destination, we didn't charge very long here (but unfortunately would need to stop again on the way back - more later).
We got to our destination in Hilton Head: the Disney resort there. Thankfully, there are two Level 2 Chargepoint chargers at the resort. One was iced (
), and one was open. It was something like $0.37/kwh and charged at a rate of around 6kw, but was able to top off overnight so that when we departed we left with a charge of 95%. Perfect. As an aside, there is a notable lack of charging options on HHI given the number of EVs I saw in the area. I saw a Tesla SuperCharger station, but currently no Level 3 charging options for non-Teslas within 45 minutes to an hour (the closest is in Savannah). There are various level 2 chargers sprinkled around the island, mostly at resorts, a couple Starbucks, etc., so plan accordingly.
For Travel Day 1, ended up averaging around 1.9mi/kwh. Warm, sunny weather, keeping it locked around 70mph.
Travel Day 2 (finishing the trip south): We left Hilton Head with a 95% SOC continuing our trip south to WDW, another 350 mile leg. The weather was warmer and we enjoyed greater efficiency the further south we went. We only had to stop to charge one time on the way to Orlando. Trying to avoid EA stations, we stopped at the EVGo at Midtown Parkway in Jacksonville, Florida. This charger is located in the center of a very busy mall area, and was really a pain to get to. Fortunately, all charging ports were open when we arrived. The truck is set up for AutoCharge+ with EVGo, so I plugged right in and the truck started charging, drawing at a rate of 175kw and holding there until the charger had a fault midway through (another common theme with EVGo unfortunately). I tried replugging to the same charger but had the same result, so I switched to a different station and didn't encounter the same issue, charging up to 85% before hitting the road heading south again. We didn't need to stop again and arrived at WDW, our final desination, with around 25% SOC.
For Travel Day 2, ended up averaging around 2.0mi/kwh. Again, warm, sunny weather, keeping it locked around 70mph.
Charging during the trip: Disney World has some Level 2 chargers on property, but not many (and not nearly enough), and they're usually taken. Our resort, Grand Floridian, didn't have any. This wasn't a huge deal because I wasn't planning on doing a lot of driving during the trip, but knew I'd need to charge up when we headed north at the end of the week. So I found an Electrify America about 25 minutes away at a Love's Travel Stop in Davenport, Florida. This station was also plagued by the "reduced capacity" message. The first station (station 2) charged at a rate of 37kw, so I moved to station 4 and got 95kw. Incidentally, I would return here later in the week to find the same "reduced capacity" message and also find that stations 3 and 4 were down entirely, rendering the EA there 50% operational, with even the working chargers charging at a much slower rate than advertised. Not good. Later in the trip I would discover via PlugShare that Grand Floridian does have a handful of parking spots with a standard outlet at the parking spot. I had my mobile charger and ended up using one of these outlets to level 1 charge and top off to 95% before we departed on travel day 3. There is a ChargePoint "level 3" at Disney Springs rated for 62.5kw, which I did check out, but it was actually quite slow for a Level 3, charging the truck at a rate of around 25kw.
Travel Day 3 (beginning return trip north): We departed WDW at around 95%. My goal on the return leg was to avoid EA when at all possible (turned out that wasn't an attainable goal). With that in mind, our first charging stop was at a newer EVGo station in Jacksonville, FL located at Normandy Square. Again, I plugged in and immediately started drawing 175kw. Unfortunately, I experienced the same charger fault as I did on travel day 2 at a different EVGo and had to hop around to a different station to get back to where I was drawing juice. Was able to get to a different station at this location and top off to around 85%. We arrived at our stopover in Hilton Head with around 12% remaining, and was able to use the level 2 charger at the resort to get to 74% by the next morning.
For Travel Day 3, ended up averaging around 1.7mi/kwh. Less warm, but sunny weather, keeping it locked around 70mph.
Travel Day 4 (the worst day, finishing the return trip north): Not being able to fully top off the night before contributed to this being a rough day. After departing HHI at 74%, we stopped in Walterboro again (the same one from Travel Day 1) despite knowing it would be reduced capacity. Stayed there for about 45 minutes to get to 80%. The hope was to make it to the charger in Lumberton, NC from there but colder temps and wind made me anxious as the truck was not as efficient on this day. So we stopped in Florence, SC again at the EA there just to be safe. There were 4 stations here and it was full when we arrived. Fortunately, a Lucid Air departed moments after we arrived and we took his spot at station 4. I think we lucked out here, because we drew 143kw and quickly got to 85%, while the other stations at this location all seemed to be at reduced capacity. Given the mi/kwh rating I'd been getting on the trip to that point, I was fairly confident we'd comfortably make it to our home in Eastern NC without needing to charge again. I ended up being correct, but it was a lot closer than I would have liked. I'd grown used to the warm temps of Florida and the efficiency that brings. I had not planned on the wind, rain, and cold temps we'd be facing going through SC and NC all the way home. We were driving against the wind, at temps in the low 40s and high 30s, going exactly the speed limit (65 to 70mph) and got 1.5mi/kwh for the final leg, and that was without really running the heat at all. As we pulled into our driveway, that was the lowest the Lightning battery has ever been: we arrived with around 7% remaining and about 13 miles on the GOM.
For Travel Day 4, ended up averaging a paltry 1.5 to 1.6 mi/kwh. Absolutely nasty cold, windy, rainy weather, heading north and keeping it locked around 70mph.
Notes on Electrify America: My main issue here is that almost every EA station I encountered was at "reduced capacity." The cited reason was because they were performing an upgrade, but there was no evidence of anyone in the area working on the stations, and the station in Walterboro displayed this message on 3/2 and again on 3/12, so nothing had changed in 10 days. Another frustration was that plug and charge didn't work every time. Everything is set up through Blue Oval for my Lightning to plug and charge at EA, but it failed on at least two occasions and I had to pay manually to initiate charging. I believe the second time it failed may not be EA's fault. I had plugged in, and it started charging via plug and charge, but then a fellow EV driver asked if I could move over a couple feet for him to access the station next to mine. I happily obliged, but when I went to plug back in, plug and charge did not initiate. Maybe it has something to do with plugging in twice in such a short span of time. Idk. So I had to manually pay to initiate.
Notes on EVGo: While I did have a couple of issues with EVGo, I still have to give them the nod over EA in terms of reliability. Even though (both times) I encountered a charging fault and had to move to a different station, every station I went to was consistently fast and charging the Lightning at the max rate it could take. Moreover, the EVGo stations I went to in Florida seemed to have more stalls (they had 6 and 8 at the two EVGos I went to, instead of 4 stations at most of the EA I visited on this trip).
Pics for fun - ask me anything! Hope this helps someone, somewhere.
Factors possibly affecting efficiency: I had a Yakima truck rack on the back with a Yakima basket and overhead luggage bag on the basket.
Driving speed: I typically drive about 9mph over the posted speed limit, but on this trip I mostly kept the truck right at the speed limit, which averaged 70mph.
Charging provider details: I have plug and charge enabled for Electrify America and AutoCharge+ enabled for EVGo.
Weather: Mostly great but absolutely brutal on Travel Day 4 (see notes).
Summary / TLDR: Last week my wife and I took our kids to Disney World. It's a trip we make once or twice a year but the first time we've done it an EV. I'm not new to EVs. I had a 2021 Mustang Mach E for a year (and ~17,500 miles) before getting the Lightning in July of 2022 (currently at about 10,500 miles). There were some hiccups along the way, but it could have been worse. The overarching theme here will not be news to anyone: the truck is fantastic, and EA stations in particular (and EVGo to a lesser extent) are suffering from massive reliability issues. Charging infrastructure just has to get better, especially with a ton more EVs about to hit the road. It won't be the last time I do this trip in an EV, but we're slated to go again in September, and I imagine we'll drive one of our ICE vehicles then (a Bronco or a Gladiator). I strongly encourage folks to log your Level 3 charging sessions on PlugShare and also to tweet the details to the @rateyourcharge Twitter handle run by Out of Spec. For one, this can only help draw the attention of the providers to fix issues at particular stations. But more than that, it's such a help to other EV drivers to know what they're getting themselves into as they're planning charging stops ahead of time.
Travel Day 1 (going south): We split the trip from Eastern NC to WDW into two travel days since we have two young kids. So for day 1 we were driving from our home in Eastern NC to Hilton Head, SC which is about 350 miles. Started the trip at 90% SOC and stopped to charge in Florence, SC at an Electrify America station. The first charging experience was great, no issues. Charged at Station 4 at EA in Florence and charged at a max of around 143kw. Unfortunately, this would end up being the best experience with EA of the entire trip. Charged to about 80% and hit the road, stopping a little further south at the Electrify America in Walterboro, SC. We could have made it to our destination in Hilton Head but I wanted to top off so that we would arrive at our destination with a higher SOC in case I wasn't able to charge on the island at HHI (more on that later). This stop in Walterboro was a harbinger of things to come from EA on the trip. The first station I tried at the Walterboro EA (station 4) did not work at all. The other 3 were occupied, but fortunately someone left. Every single station had the dreaded message about "overall capacity reduced at this station," a message I would end up seeing quite a bit from EA on this trip. When I finally did get the truck to charge, it ramped up to 75kw at first but very quickly dropped down to 44kw for the duration of the session. Since we had enough juice to make it to our destination, we didn't charge very long here (but unfortunately would need to stop again on the way back - more later).
We got to our destination in Hilton Head: the Disney resort there. Thankfully, there are two Level 2 Chargepoint chargers at the resort. One was iced (
), and one was open. It was something like $0.37/kwh and charged at a rate of around 6kw, but was able to top off overnight so that when we departed we left with a charge of 95%. Perfect. As an aside, there is a notable lack of charging options on HHI given the number of EVs I saw in the area. I saw a Tesla SuperCharger station, but currently no Level 3 charging options for non-Teslas within 45 minutes to an hour (the closest is in Savannah). There are various level 2 chargers sprinkled around the island, mostly at resorts, a couple Starbucks, etc., so plan accordingly.For Travel Day 1, ended up averaging around 1.9mi/kwh. Warm, sunny weather, keeping it locked around 70mph.
Travel Day 2 (finishing the trip south): We left Hilton Head with a 95% SOC continuing our trip south to WDW, another 350 mile leg. The weather was warmer and we enjoyed greater efficiency the further south we went. We only had to stop to charge one time on the way to Orlando. Trying to avoid EA stations, we stopped at the EVGo at Midtown Parkway in Jacksonville, Florida. This charger is located in the center of a very busy mall area, and was really a pain to get to. Fortunately, all charging ports were open when we arrived. The truck is set up for AutoCharge+ with EVGo, so I plugged right in and the truck started charging, drawing at a rate of 175kw and holding there until the charger had a fault midway through (another common theme with EVGo unfortunately). I tried replugging to the same charger but had the same result, so I switched to a different station and didn't encounter the same issue, charging up to 85% before hitting the road heading south again. We didn't need to stop again and arrived at WDW, our final desination, with around 25% SOC.
For Travel Day 2, ended up averaging around 2.0mi/kwh. Again, warm, sunny weather, keeping it locked around 70mph.
Charging during the trip: Disney World has some Level 2 chargers on property, but not many (and not nearly enough), and they're usually taken. Our resort, Grand Floridian, didn't have any. This wasn't a huge deal because I wasn't planning on doing a lot of driving during the trip, but knew I'd need to charge up when we headed north at the end of the week. So I found an Electrify America about 25 minutes away at a Love's Travel Stop in Davenport, Florida. This station was also plagued by the "reduced capacity" message. The first station (station 2) charged at a rate of 37kw, so I moved to station 4 and got 95kw. Incidentally, I would return here later in the week to find the same "reduced capacity" message and also find that stations 3 and 4 were down entirely, rendering the EA there 50% operational, with even the working chargers charging at a much slower rate than advertised. Not good. Later in the trip I would discover via PlugShare that Grand Floridian does have a handful of parking spots with a standard outlet at the parking spot. I had my mobile charger and ended up using one of these outlets to level 1 charge and top off to 95% before we departed on travel day 3. There is a ChargePoint "level 3" at Disney Springs rated for 62.5kw, which I did check out, but it was actually quite slow for a Level 3, charging the truck at a rate of around 25kw.
Travel Day 3 (beginning return trip north): We departed WDW at around 95%. My goal on the return leg was to avoid EA when at all possible (turned out that wasn't an attainable goal). With that in mind, our first charging stop was at a newer EVGo station in Jacksonville, FL located at Normandy Square. Again, I plugged in and immediately started drawing 175kw. Unfortunately, I experienced the same charger fault as I did on travel day 2 at a different EVGo and had to hop around to a different station to get back to where I was drawing juice. Was able to get to a different station at this location and top off to around 85%. We arrived at our stopover in Hilton Head with around 12% remaining, and was able to use the level 2 charger at the resort to get to 74% by the next morning.
For Travel Day 3, ended up averaging around 1.7mi/kwh. Less warm, but sunny weather, keeping it locked around 70mph.
Travel Day 4 (the worst day, finishing the return trip north): Not being able to fully top off the night before contributed to this being a rough day. After departing HHI at 74%, we stopped in Walterboro again (the same one from Travel Day 1) despite knowing it would be reduced capacity. Stayed there for about 45 minutes to get to 80%. The hope was to make it to the charger in Lumberton, NC from there but colder temps and wind made me anxious as the truck was not as efficient on this day. So we stopped in Florence, SC again at the EA there just to be safe. There were 4 stations here and it was full when we arrived. Fortunately, a Lucid Air departed moments after we arrived and we took his spot at station 4. I think we lucked out here, because we drew 143kw and quickly got to 85%, while the other stations at this location all seemed to be at reduced capacity. Given the mi/kwh rating I'd been getting on the trip to that point, I was fairly confident we'd comfortably make it to our home in Eastern NC without needing to charge again. I ended up being correct, but it was a lot closer than I would have liked. I'd grown used to the warm temps of Florida and the efficiency that brings. I had not planned on the wind, rain, and cold temps we'd be facing going through SC and NC all the way home. We were driving against the wind, at temps in the low 40s and high 30s, going exactly the speed limit (65 to 70mph) and got 1.5mi/kwh for the final leg, and that was without really running the heat at all. As we pulled into our driveway, that was the lowest the Lightning battery has ever been: we arrived with around 7% remaining and about 13 miles on the GOM.
For Travel Day 4, ended up averaging a paltry 1.5 to 1.6 mi/kwh. Absolutely nasty cold, windy, rainy weather, heading north and keeping it locked around 70mph.
Notes on Electrify America: My main issue here is that almost every EA station I encountered was at "reduced capacity." The cited reason was because they were performing an upgrade, but there was no evidence of anyone in the area working on the stations, and the station in Walterboro displayed this message on 3/2 and again on 3/12, so nothing had changed in 10 days. Another frustration was that plug and charge didn't work every time. Everything is set up through Blue Oval for my Lightning to plug and charge at EA, but it failed on at least two occasions and I had to pay manually to initiate charging. I believe the second time it failed may not be EA's fault. I had plugged in, and it started charging via plug and charge, but then a fellow EV driver asked if I could move over a couple feet for him to access the station next to mine. I happily obliged, but when I went to plug back in, plug and charge did not initiate. Maybe it has something to do with plugging in twice in such a short span of time. Idk. So I had to manually pay to initiate.
Notes on EVGo: While I did have a couple of issues with EVGo, I still have to give them the nod over EA in terms of reliability. Even though (both times) I encountered a charging fault and had to move to a different station, every station I went to was consistently fast and charging the Lightning at the max rate it could take. Moreover, the EVGo stations I went to in Florida seemed to have more stalls (they had 6 and 8 at the two EVGos I went to, instead of 4 stations at most of the EA I visited on this trip).
Pics for fun - ask me anything! Hope this helps someone, somewhere.
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. That wind must have been the real mi/kwh killer on the way back.
