Good MotorTrend article on the GOM and winter range

[Pioneer74]

Remember when you screwed up as a kid, deflected blame, and your parents told you, "It's not what you did, it's lying about it that disappointed us"? I'm that parent here, and in this age of machine learning and artificial intelligence, I'm disappointed that Ford is either unable or unwilling to give me the bad news about how far this truck will actually travel on a charge—especially when destinations are entered into the native navigation system.

https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/...z2&utm_source=braze&utm_medium=emaileditorial

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[jdmackes]

https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2023-ford-f-150-lightning-xlt-yearlong-review-arrival-range-anxiety/?lid=9iupub6n3gm4&eml=organic:eml:brz2&utm_source=braze&utm_medium=emaileditorial

I found the headline pretty disingenuous. They were traveling at 85 mph, no wonder they didn't get the initial range they were expecting. It's easy enough to see what the current draw is while driving and adjust your usage, but they were doing highway driving which is worst for an EV, plus they were doing 75-85 the entire time and only slowed to 65 when they "had to".

 

[Peddyr]

I found the headline pretty disingenuous. They were traveling at 85 mph, no wonder they didn't get the initial range they were expecting. It's easy enough to see what the current draw is while driving and adjust your usage, but they were doing highway driving which is worst for an EV, plus they were doing 75-85 the entire time and only slowed to 65 when they "had to".

Well everyone knows with an ICE F150, when you do 10 miles over the speed limit your mpg stays the same You nailed it @jdmackes. He took the trip in March, but didn't mention the temps. Anyone in here that lives in a cold weather climate knows you're going to lose upwards of 10% due to external temps. Did he have the heat cranking at 75? He just says "some heat". He either intentionally left out these little pieces of informatin, or he hasn't driven it enough to know what tweaks you need to make. He could clearly learn a thing or two from this forum

 

[Pioneer74]

I found the headline pretty disingenuous. They were traveling at 85 mph, no wonder they didn't get the initial range they were expecting. It's easy enough to see what the current draw is while driving and adjust your usage, but they were doing highway driving which is worst for an EV, plus they were doing 75-85 the entire time and only slowed to 65 when they "had to".

I agree with what you're saying, but the GOM should react to conditions and adjust.

They should also give us reliable information.

When pressed on the subject, Ford admitted programming the system to present EPA best-case range when charging via Level 2 chargers

 

[jdmackes]

I agree with what you're saying, but the GOM should react to conditions and adjust.

They should also give us reliable information.

I would think that it did adjust, they said when they started out they had a range of like 300 miles and by the time they arrived it was down to 120, I'm sure it was dropping quickly and giving a lower range and would have stated in his trip settings that he's only getting like 1.5 or less miles per kw

 

[Zprime29]

" Driving 10 over the 75-mph limit on US-10 for the 15 miles back to grandma's consumed 49 miles of indicated range. "

While I agree that the GOM is broken, it's absolutely misleading or at worst, inexcusable that they imply or didn't know traveling at 85 mph was going to be incredibly energy inefficient. Especially after they just discovered that they already had range issues. Who arrives at a destination, realizes they don't have enough fuel to make it home, then drives recklessly fast after getting more fuel? Even in a gas car drivers know going slower = more mileage. That right there is almost as bad as that idiotic youtuber.

 

[Pioneer74]

I would think that it did adjust, they said when they started out they had a range of like 300 miles and by the time they arrived it was down to 120, I'm sure it was dropping quickly and giving a lower range and would have stated in his trip settings that he's only getting like 1.5 or less miles per kw

Every night during the winter my truck, when charged to 90%, would give me a range of 285 miles after the DTE update. Before that update, it gave me correct range of around 195. Before I even unplugged. The truck lied to them before they even left, giving them a false sense of how far they could travel.

I'm not defending them for being surprised that driving 10mph over gives less range, but not having accurate information from the beginning of the trip is what turns the general population against EV's.

 

[Zprime29]

Every night during the winter my truck, when charged to 90%, would give me a range of 285 miles after the DTE update. Before that update, it gave me correct range of around 195. Before I even unplugged. The truck lied to them before they even left, giving them a false sense of how far they could travel.

I'm not defending them for being surprised that driving 10mph over gives less range, but not having accurate information from the beginning of the trip is what turns the general population against EV's.

A really smart system would let you know with a pop up warning:
"Range reduced due to outside temperatures"

That's all is would have taken for Ford to stop getting all the angry emails from new EV drivers panicking about their battery. How hard would that be??

 

[jdmackes]

Every night during the winter my truck, when charged to 90%, would give me a range of 285 miles after the DTE update. Before that update, it gave me correct range of around 195. Before I even unplugged. The truck lied to them before they even left, giving them a false sense of how far they could travel.

I'm not defending them for being surprised that driving 10mph over gives less range, but not having accurate information from the beginning of the trip is what turns the general population against EV's.

Ah, well that's a little nuts then. I haven't had mine through a winter (just got it a month ago) so I was unaware of that. How quickly would it update after you drove a little? Is it just that the system maybe doesn't think that it is actually as cold as it is and needs a moment to verify (assuming that the battery is preconditioning)?

 

[Pioneer74]

Ah, well that's a little nuts then. I haven't had mine through a winter (just got it a month ago) so I was unaware of that. How quickly would it update after you drove a little? Is it just that the system maybe doesn't think that it is actually as cold as it is and needs a moment to verify (assuming that the battery is preconditioning)?

I didn't precondition. There is a glitch that makes the heated steering wheel not work when preconditioning, and I wanted it to work.

It wouldn't actually "update". It would just take more miles away than you actually drove. I would end my 100 mile commute with around 90 to 95 miles remaining from the original 285.

 

[jdmackes]

Well, that is an issue then

 

[Skidrowe]

Gas vehicles all suffer from the exact same problems that affect range on EVs. Because gas stations are on every corner of every town and city, people don't realize this. They just drive until the gas light comes on and then fill up at the closest station. They even have the same inaccurate guess-o-meter. They don't pay much attention to it.

Since charge stations aren't as prolific as gas stations and EVs can't fill up as fast as gas trucks, new EV drivers rely on the GOM to not run out of electrons on a trip. When it fails them as it would have on every ICE vehicle, they blame the EV. Once the charging infrastructure improves, people will go back to ignoring the GOM. EV manufacturers can either improve their GOM technology (as Tesla has already done) or wait for infrastructure to improve. Until then, the manufacturers will be blamed for traveler's lack of planning and their dependence on sub-par range estimation technology.

 

[Zprime29]

We really need to do better with our education system. *sigh*

 

[Pioneer74]

Gas vehicles all suffer from the exact same problems that affect range on EVs. Because gas stations are on every corner of every town and city, people don't realize this. They just drive until the gas light comes on and then fill up at the closest station. They even have the same inaccurate guess-o-meter.

My 2021 F150 ICE had a very accurate GOM. I could always trust it.

EV manufacturers can either improve their GOM technology (as Tesla has already done) or wait for infrastructure to improve.

Ford had an accurate GOM on the Lightning. Until they intentionally broke it.

 

[Zprime29]

Since I never had the opportunity to drive it in very cold weather, I have experienced the opposite on the GOM. I regularly prune my driving logs in FordPass of any entries that have bogus efficiencies. I *think* the result of that is my GOM showing a larger than EPA range estimate. It makes me wonder if all they did was cap it on the down side and use the same algo if efficiency results in a higher number. I'll post a pic later, my GOM was showing me range based on a 2.7 mi/kWh efficiency the other day.

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