Range not what is advertised

[mb0220]

Reposting here from an older post about range estimations and the estimated range indicator aka "Guess-o-Meter"on the dash:

"As a wise older engineer once told me: "Electricity is not a liquid. You can measure water or gasoline or diesel or kerosene or coal almost exactly, by volume and by weight. Stored electricity can only be measured by its potential to do work".

When I switched to EV driving years later, I began to understand what that old engineer had shared with me.

Hence, the Guess-o-Meter on our EV vehicles. It tries to estimate the potential to do work by our vehicle-stored electricity. It's always an ever-changing estimate and not an actual measure of physical weight or volume. It's not wrong in what it tries to do... we users have to un-train ourselves from a lifetime habit of measuring fuel by physical attributes (gallons / liters / pounds etc.) and then our GOMs might become more useful to us."

Hope this is helpful.

This is a fantastic concept that many new EV drivers don't grasp. Thank you for stating it so succinctly! I would only add to this that we bring even more vagueness and uncertainty when we try to express the quantity of stored energy in terms of MILES. A gallon is a gallon regardless of the shape of the container, but a mile uphill is vastly different from a mile downhill when it comes to energy consumption. Please people... stop letting the GoM bum you out.

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[Heliian]

Pay attention to the trip, Kwh/100kms. There's approximately 1.3kwh per percent of battery. Summer, I'm sub 30, winter as high as 50. Less range at highway speed, more range the slower you drive.

The km's of range displayed on the dash is useless, ignore it. The google maps range calculator isn't accurate either.

 

[mb0220]

The google maps range calculator isn't accurate either.

True, but I have found the destination SoC on Google is much better than what is calculated in Sync Nav.

 

[Zprime29]

You can do a quick search and find other people complain about the same thing. As others have said, the range estimate is not an accurate fuel gauge. Ignore it and learn to base your range on your efficiency and remaining charge.

 

[Joe Dablock]

I have a lightning and a MME, and they both calculate strange max range numbers in cold weather, but the Lightning tends to be more “optimistic “. (I prefer to use the percentage of charge rather than range.) But for both vehicles (in cold weather) soon as you start driving, the remaining range changes as the computer recalculates based on driving conditions, terrain, and temperature. So the best thing to do, is assume the truck is working fine, and use your own common sense, taking into account, past experience, temperature, terrain, and charge percentage, and then make an educated guess as to what your real range is. But, as the percentage remaining decreases, the range number, becomes more accurate.

 

[RickLightning]

I have a lightning and a MME, and they both calculate strange max range numbers in cold weather, but the Lightning tends to be more “optimistic “. (I prefer to use the percentage of charge rather than range.) But for both vehicles (in cold weather) soon as you start driving, the remaining range changes as the computer recalculates based on driving conditions, terrain, and temperature. So the best thing to do, is assume the truck is working fine, and use your own common sense, taking into account, past experience, temperature, terrain, and charge percentage, and then make an educated guess as to what your real range is. But, as the percentage remaining decreases, the range number, becomes more accurate.

Wow, really? You want EV owners to use their own common sense. That's outrageous. Why should they have to? Sheesh...

 

[Texas Dan]

Download the A Better Route Planner, ABRP. With ABRP not only will you be able to tell under what driving conditions you will get the rated driving range, you will be able to accurately estimate your range under almost any driving conditions. And yes, you can get the rated range under the certain driving conditions.

 

[kubel]

Download the A Better Route Planner, ABRP. With ABRP not only will you be able to tell under what driving conditions you will get the rated driving range, you will be able to accurately estimate your range under almost any driving conditions. And yes, you can get the rated range under the certain driving conditions.

It's unfortunate that Ford software sucks so much that we even have to do this. Road tripping a Ford EV is like playing on hard mode. When I get in my 6 year old Tesla and road trip, it's like I enabled a cheat mode.

 

[CD4TNF]

As a reminder. One of our forum members created this useful calculator for range.

Basically using my dash mi/kWh or what I expect. Plug that and the battery % into the calculator. It spits out range to 20%, range to 10%, range to 0%. Can switch to km/kWh.

I usually shoot for a travel distance between the 20% to 10%. I used it extensively for my first road trip can can attest to it's usefulness. Haven't gotten stuck following the calculator's range.

https://lightningcalcs.pages.dev/

I will also plug the PlugShare app. It's what folks use to find public chargers. Learn what it does by reading this great article.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/best-tech-2025-plugshare-aftermarket-ev-charging-app/

 

[Texas Dan]

It's unfortunate that Ford software sucks so much that we even have to do this. Road tripping a Ford EV is like playing on hard mode. When I get in my 6 year old Tesla and road trip, it's like I enabled a cheat mode.

To be fair, ABRP does just one, it makes a route planner for EVs and it requires a fee for that premium service. With all the variables and effort related to building a decent EV planner I’m not surprised OEMs are reluctant to build really good ones. Through Apple CarPlay and a Bluetooth dongle, ABRP works good enough that you could easily mistake it for an OEM component.

I also might mention that GOMs are a fairly recent feature. A decade or so ago all gas cars had was a dumb fuel gauge and the first cars didn’t even have those. How would you like to drive a modern EV with only a SOC gauge or better yet if the only way to determine the charge level would be to measure the HV battery pack voltage?

 

[YiKeS]

That seems about right as well. I have 2024 Lariat ER and get 400km on 100% charge on the guess-o-meter right now. Did a drive out to Sarnia from Toronto before and actual distance was 355km with about 20km left when I got to a DCFC charging station. As the weather gets warmer, you should see an uptick in range. I took delivery back in Oct of 2024 and was showing closer to 500km range when driving off the lot when it was warmer.

I’d say I’m almost identical to this. Charged to 95% on sat, drove 360KM, battery showed 7% 24km remaining. Temp between 2’C and 5’C, moderate cross winds, average speed was 98kph, all 80 and 100kph speed limit roads.

 

[Kevin22]

Two words….Sport Mode. Leave 1 pedal driving turned on. It has changed the way I drive! Give it a shot. I live 48 miles from work. It only took me 35 “Ford Miles” to get home today.

 

[Lucky Larry]

I’d say I’m almost identical to this. Charged to 95% on sat, drove 360KM, battery showed 7% 24km remaining. Temp between 2’C and 5’C, moderate cross winds, average speed was 98kph, all 80 and 100kph speed limit roads.

I'm in the same ballpark for winter range and in the summer my range will go up to about 470 km (300 m) at a 95% charge. I seem to watch both the SOC and the GOM range, but i use my truck in the city 99% of the time so i can charge at home anytime i'm getting low on juice

 

[dlwhitlinger]

at 95 %. only 224 miles do I have a problem

The published range for the Lightning's with the Extended Range battery is based on simple math.

The battery size is 131 kWh and under IDEAL conditions a Lightning will get 2.4 miles per kWh.

131 kWh X 2.4 miles/kWh = 320 miles and that is using 100% of the battery...from 100% charge to 0%.

Personally, I get 2.4 miles/kWh or more in the spring and early fall (ideal temp such that the battery temperature heat pump doesn't have to run) and if the wind and load is not substantial. In the winter and summer, I get closer to 1.8 or 2.0 miles/kWh.

On a daily basis, I charge to 80% and don't run the battery down below 20%. So effectively, my driving battery capacity is 60% of 131 kWh which is 78.6 kWh which provides 141-157 miles of range depending on outside temp, load and speed. For longer trips, I charge up to 100% when I leave the house, drive down to 20% and use super chargers to charge back up to 80% (charging back up to 100% takes much more time than it's worth). So again...effective useful range of 150 miles when on the road and charging from 20% to 80% between drives.

I find that the range meter on the dashboard is pretty accurate and it's pretty simple math....it's simply taking the current battery charge level and dividing that value by the current trip miles/kWh. So if my battery capacity says 50%, that's 65 kWh (50% of 131) and if my current trip miles/kWh is 2.0, then my range meter says 131 miles which is 2.0 X 65.

And yes, the published 320 mile range is a bit misleading. The battery capacity is capable of doing that under ideal conditions, but you shouldn't drive your battery down to zero and it is rare to have ideal conditions in my experience.

 

[wescravinshocker]

That silly number isn’t your range.
“Ignore the GOM!”

How many miles can you actually get out of an SR battery under normal conditions? Has anyone pushed the limits of driving with zero percent battery range and how low does the power level get at this condition?

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