I wanted to have Android Auto load ABRP on my display, but I later realized that I need a paid subscription. Is it worth it?

[Lightning Rod]

We are going on a road trip from Cleveland OH to Orlando FL, and I wanted to load ABRP on the display in my Lariat. I thought it would load and operate just like Waze does, but I was a bit disappointed when the message popped up saying... Subscribe to premium account, or something like that. On my phone, ABRP has everything mapped out as far as charger and charging stops.

Does anyone here have the paid subscription and is it worth it? I didn't even check the pricing yet.

Thank in advance for any replies.

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[tannerk89]

I used ABRP for about a year when I first started driving EVs. I haven’t used it since. Plug share and learning the expected ranges etc made ABRP kind of irrelevant for me, I never did paid but don’t expect to find much value that Apple Maps or google maps don’t have now with their EV integration.

 

[TaxmanHog]

I have a paid subscription to it, but only for the purpose of refined planning with environmental conditions factored in, yet I have not used it on my Android Auto / Sync screen.

$4.99 a month if you want to experiment with it or $49.99 for a year.

 

[Lightning Rod]

Having trouble

I used ABRP for about a year when I first started driving EVs. I haven’t used it since. Plug share and learning the expected ranges etc made ABRP kind of irrelevant for me, I never did paid but don’t expect to find much value that Apple Maps or google maps don’t have now with their EV integration.

So, Plug share does what ABRP does, without paying a premium?

I have a paid subscription to it, but only for the purpose of refined planning with environmental conditions factored in, yet I have not used it on my Android Auto / Sync screen.

$4.99 a month if you want to experiment with it or $49.99 for a year.

Do you use any apps that loads on your Lightning display screen when on road trips, or do you just load it and look in your phone?

Thanks guys.

 

[TaxmanHog]

I just use it from the phone.

 

[Lightning Rod]

I paid for one month of AVRP, but it still won't load on my truck's screen. I then opened the ABRP, just using Google Maps and that loads up on the screen. I'm thinking I wasted my $4.99, when it looks like Google Maps did the same thing.

 

[TaxmanHog]

So I did a quick test, it does integrate to the 15" Sync screen via android auto, you can start the route from your phone and it'll immediately start projection to the truck, make sure AA has fully loaded

Then I tapped the screen to zoom out.

Alternately you can call up the app from the AA apps tray

Then use the settings to make preference adjustments and call up saved routes in ABRP

If you desire to toggle back to Google maps it's right there on the quick apps bar, or you can select Ford Navigation from the Sync tabs list.

 

[Firn]

So, Plug share does what ABRP does, without paying a premium?

No, not really.

Plugshare is awesome for info ABOUT the charger, ABRP is awesome figuring out which ones you need.

Personally I like having ABRP running on my phone and Google Maps on the screen. ABRP is great at picking spots to charge, but isn't a great navigation app. The real reason I run it on my phone is so I can see if I'm beating, or worse not beating, the arrival percentage. If you hit a sudden headwind it's nice to know you are using more energy than the app expected when it planned your stop

 

[tannerk89]

Having trouble



So, Plug share does what ABRP does, without paying a premium?






Do you use any apps that loads on your Lightning display screen when on road trips, or do you just load it and look in your phone?

Thanks guys.

I generally only used ABRP when I didn’t know the chargers on my route and none of the navigation apps had EV chargers. Now all the EV apps have chargers, I think Apple Maps does just as good, if not better, at finding chargers than ABRP. Apple is tied directly into the truck’s efficiency numbers so it’s not guessing. I think google maps is getting there with the recent changes and deeper integration into the truck’s, but I don’t run android so I’m not sure.

Plug share rates the chargers. So if I know I’ll need a charge in roughly 230 miles I just find a charger in a town that looks good around there and plot my route to that.

With ABRP I found myself going into plug share to check whether it was a highly rated charger with food options, then most of the time changing to a better charger anyway so made the automatic route planning kind of pointless.

 

[RickLightning]

Been using the free version for 3.5 years.

 

[potato]

The one thing ABRP can do is integrate with an OBD dongle to get real time feedback on how fast you're using energy. So in theory its real time route adjustments could be better than the others.

I haven't used it that way myself though. I haven't road tripped in unfamiliar areas enough to need it. I do use the free version as the quickest/easiest way to estimate distance and energy needs between two arbitrary points.

 

[Mcfly]

I've used it with the obd dongle, paid subscription, and it pops up on the screen with real time battery range data. It's crazy accurate for destination State of charge estimates for trips. I was sure I was going to run out on a trip but it was right on. Pucker factor was high. Now I just trust it.

 

[SteuLight]

I love it for when I'm pulling a trailer, because one can adjust the 'mileage' that the vehicle gets. In my case, I set the car to 0.9 mi/kwh @ 65 mph when pulling the trailer. ABRP is crazy good at estimating battery left at the destination, and accounting for hills, weather, etc.

 

[B177y]

I use ABRP paid version with an OBD connection. I used ABRP to plan and route on my Lightning Pro (small screen) for a recent 3300 mile road trip. It's well worth the $50/yr to me to be able to pre-plan a route and save it, then use that route to navigate in Android Auto. I checked reliability of the chargers from user posts in Plugshare to verify the ABRP suggested stops.

I tried using Google Maps for some of the legs between chargers on that road trip, but I liked ABRP better because I could filter which chargers I wanted easier.

Google is getting better, but ABRP still allows more planning and different profiles for towing, normal driving, hauling cargo, etc...

As mentioned, with the OBD connection, the range predictions and real time data is crazy accurate.

ABRP (paid) and an OBD is what the Ford navigation SHOULD be like. Until the Ford nav gets updated to show Tesla chargers and allow pre-trip planning, I'll stick with ABRP.

For shorter trips (round trips to the Seattle metro area for me), Google maps is fine as I am already familiar with some of the locations I might need to "tlop off" at to make it home. Google is the undisputed winner for traffic and location searching and has the best UI by far. I am sure one day it will allow all that ABRP does, just not yet. Maybe Google should buy ABRP like it did with Waze to get all of the ABRP tech....

 

[3rdgenfan]

I get enough use out of ABRP throughout the year, even just when curiously browsing, that I have no problem forking over the $50 for the annual premium setup.

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