This will be my last attempt at a Lightning Road Trip

[Henry Ford]

Adding the charger option to the Android Auto Google maps was a half-assed compromise. It will find chargers, but there doesn't seem to be a way to adjust the range, so it schedules stops where you arrive with 40%. What I ended up doing was looking further down the road using FordPass to find a better alternative, but then I had to drive to that destination and start the process all over.

If Google plans a route where you stop and charge at 40% I'd be inclined to stop and charge at 40%. However, this is based on my experience using Google Maps without charging stop integration. I find it to work really well. I'm not a road trippers though so maybe my intuition is off. Hopefully someone with more experience can chime in.

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[Rip]

The range that the algorithm assumes is just too short, and I don't know if there is a way to extend it. If you look down the road past the Google recommendations, I have almost always found a charger that is further down the road. It's not really an easy task, because both the FordPass and Tesla apps give you very little map detail. No road names or numbers, just roads lines in darkish gray against a black background. I looked on Google maps to find a town or rest area 40-50 miles further along than the Google recommendation, then searched that town in the FordPass App. Usually, selecting that one gets you there wigh 15-25% left

 

[Grease Lightning]

Tesla and Electrify America support plug-n-charge. The rest require activating the stall from the FordPass app.

But they still fail to honor our subscriptions. @Ford Motor Company surveyed quite a while ago about adding that to the “Blue Oval Network” and still nothing. That is a huge failure of the system. I would much rather keep plug and charge off and save 25% when I need to DCFC.

 

[RickLightning]

An update: Following the trip back from Captiva in Florida to Southwest Harbor Maine, my original sentiment holds. Unless you like very long driving days with an unreliable and sometimes unpredictable charging network, the Lightning is an excellent vehicle fo 2-400 mile trips, but for anything beyond that, I will get something else (probably a hybrid). It is disappointing to say that, but the infrastructure is just not well-integrated or seamless enough to make it worthwhile.
I found that if Google Maps predicted an 8-hour trip, it was going to take 12 hours. I had to spend a lot of time uploading apps, joining apps, calling and talking to tech support to get charging started, finding other chargers when the one I had planned on using turned out to not be compatible (despite FordPass and the Tesla app claiming that they were). Now that all the support for expanding the charging network has been squelched, I can't see things getting better.
Ford needs to study the Tesla navigation app. It's seamless, easy to use, and finding and adding chargers to your route can be done with a couple of taps on the screen. Right now, trying to plan a road trip driving day is too much like work, and your plan can go awry right away.
Example: I left a hotel in Richmond, VA, with a plan to stop at a supercharger near the highway that was supposed to be compatible. As we drove, I watched the "percentage at destination" tick down from 14 miles to 12, then 10, then 8, and so I tried to find an alternative that would be closer. Of course, you can't really do that while you're driving, but it did come up with an alternative. I ended up having to wander around a circuitous route through the suburbs around Arlington and Alexandria, to find an EVConnect charger that required a call to tech support to get started. It turned out to only put out 60 KW. So I spent about half an hour finding another route to another better charger. Altogether that little adventure cost me probably an hour in a day that was already going to be a long one.
Adding the charger option to the Android Auto Google maps was a half-assed compromise. It will find chargers, but there doesn't seem to be a way to adjust the range, so it schedules stops where you arrive with 40%. What I ended up doing was looking further down the road using FordPass to find a better alternative, but then I had to drive to that destination and start the process all over.

I missed your thread back in January because I was on a [cough, cough] roadtrip. In all fairness to you, it wasn't the same as yours, it was HARDER. I drove from Michigan to Montana, going through NORTH DAKOTA, the land of "wait, there are EV chargers?" Then we drove back via Montana, that has one route with EA chargers that you must charge at.

This is 100% a lack of planning and understanding. We have driven tens of thousands of miles between our Mach-E and Lightning, and have now been to 31 states and 1 province.

Sorry you haven't had a good experience.

 

[Grease Lightning]

but thats a hard sell if you need two vehicles to accomplish one job.

But why the do they have to sell it to anyone? It is a personal choice and a decision that is theirs and a partner’s if they have one.

We all do different things for our own reasons and we can express them without giving a about it being a hard sell to you or others.

Maybe they want two cars. I have two so I don’t put all my miles on one and wear out my truck faster then I want and have a car that is twice as efficient. So some could say that is a hard sell, but makes sense for my use and my other needs so I don’t give a .

Maybe remember others aren’t you and don’t have to justify things to you or others to make it okay.

 

[Grease Lightning]

Maybe my travel is different than some, It's not 'unusual' for me. The way I use the EVs covers 99% of my travel by auto. Actually, for the last several years it has covered 100%. The only reason I use the Hybrid is when the weather is really bad, like 0 or below outside. I will use the Lightning when the conditions are a little more reasonable. I use the Tesla or EV6 when the weather is nice. Maybe that is unusual.

You don’t need to justify things. You do you and enjoy it. That others think is irrelevant and only a narcissistic would try to distort reality to try to make you think what you are doing is wrong.

I think you having more than one car for different uses is totally normal.

 

[Grease Lightning]

That's fine if that's what you want to do, but when people are talking about L3 charging, don't come in and mix in your experience with L2 charging and think it's a contribution to the discussion.

They are contributing to the discussion, by sharing how they road trip. Often many people do alternatives to exclusively DCFC on a road trip. So it is nice to mention others approaches too.

 

[BlueLightning]

I don’t chance it, drove my Model 3 LR 152 miles.

With hills and north wind, had 8 miles left out of the 300 computer estimates from start to arrival.

Again, don’t even want to chance the computer on the Lightning standard battery pack. LOL.

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