Maxx
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This is a trip report by a newbie for other newbies and newbie wannabes. MotoMoto (So nice you gotta say it twice) is my first EV and this is the first time I went outside it’s range.
Standard battery pack can be more than enough in east coast in good weather.
MotoMoto is a passing monster and I am starting to trust it.
What goes down, can come back up (My SOH).
EA can be better than Tesla if sample size is small enough.
Lightning dressed up as NY police looks really cool.
Charging stations may be outside your comfort zone if you are an introvert.
Gotta remember to bring a spray. Bugs on country roads can cover that windshield very quickly.
Trip Details:
MD to Ontario: 516 miles, 3 DCFC, 2.3 mi/kWh
Total trip: 1221 miles, 7 DCFC, 2.3 mi/kWh
Planning:
I planned the trip up with the ABRP but ended up completely ignoring it once on the road. The reason is that I was too much of a chicken and setup all parameters conservatively. The combination of everything ended up being too safe and made ABRP too pessimistic. I was traveling in almost perfect conditions so my range was much better than expected. On the way back I became too much of a daredevil and decided to travel with a Smi-ICE state of mind and have a close look at only the next charging stop and maybe a glance at the potential subsequent stop. This turned out to be just fine. I am not recommending this but it gave me confidence with regards to charging network for future fair weather trips in east coast.
Charging Experience:
I chose to travel on a weekday assuming charging may be less competitive. I don’t know for a fact, if this is true but it seemed that way. I was planning to run out of EA credit before trying a supercharger. All six EA charging were flawless. Except the last one that was during rush-hour. All four stalls were taken and one VW ID.4 was ahead of me. Before I could figure out where the closest supercharger was, two stalls opened (in less than 5 minutes).
The ID.4 Guy had a million questions about the Lightning and wanted answers to all of them before I took the last spot and before I could charge. The problem was that all questions sounded like they were in Chinese and he did not come with subtitles. It took me a while to realize he was speaking English and even longer before I could decode it to my version of English (I am an immigrant too). Just when I thought I had answered all of them, the wife came out of the car and started asking the same questions. By this time I was so fluent in whatever he was speaking that I started acting as an interpreter for the lyriq guy that was being hit with the same questions. Moral of the story is that if you are lonely, or need to practice English, charging stations are full of captive audience.
After one of EA charge sessions, no event was posted anywhere by Ford or EA. I thought I got away with free charging but it was deducted from my balance days later. At the end of my 250 kWhs, I went over by $0.16.
Superchargers: I got the Tesla membership but ended up using it only once for 56 kWh. The first stall went up to 166 kW quickly but faulted within the first minute. I could not get it to work again so I moved to another one. Luckily all eight stalls were open. I didn’t need to do any public charging in Canada. I did intend to see if I could use a supercharger without my phone but never got the chance to try it.
I had to get out of the truck several times to make sure that I won’t knock down a supercharger. My 360 camera view is absolutely useless when it comes to seeing corners which is the most important part of camera view for me. If anyone has a mod to improve this, please let me know.
EV travel vs ICE:
Over all, my body always felt like needing a stop when MotoMoto did and I never felt like I was waiting or wasting time. In fact whenever I went to the store, I felt like I was being rushed by that 80% SOC target. When I stayed with the truck, I had to cut whatever I was doing short when it was charged up. Only at 80% to 90% in one occasion it started to feel like waiting. I really didn’t need that 10% either but I wanted to be safe since I have a cheapo phone plan that has no coverage in Canada and had no experience charging there before.
Obviously when traveling with ICE, deciding where to stop is independent of energy but that didn’t seem to be as much of an issue as I thought. I had different expectations and that helped me enjoy the trip just as much as I would with ICE. In fact a little bit of uncertainty made the traveling experience more authentic.
Driving an EV can have other advantages. I feel like I got extra respect from Sheriff for driving a Lightning. He opened up space for me to get out of an only lane.
Technobabble
Initial conditions before departure:
From what I saw from OBDII, I think I was losing 5%-8% of electrons before they made it to the battery but I will have to have a few more runs for a more accurate number.
Tire Pressure during drive: 40-41 PSI (minimal load). During first leg (136 miles), 99% energy went to Route with 2.1 mi/kWh efficiency. LVB SOC did not go up during drive and was at 91%. During charging at EA, 1.2 kW was being lost between the plug and the battery. Not sure how much between the charging station and the plug.
I am not sure if I understand this correctly but Max kW was always the same as current charging speed. Does this mean the truck was limiting the charging speed? It was in 80 kW-115 kW in a 150 kW station.
Here are some of the highest temps I saw on this trip:
I was very concerned about my HVB State Of Health on my truck going down faster than others. Despite other members saying it can go back up, I was not sure how internal resistance of the battery can decrease with age. I should note that on the same day, I had a 100% SOC level 2 charge (first in a very long time). I am not sure which one had more of an impact on SOH improvement.
At this location it seemed like I was losing 3kWh between the plug and the battery. I am not sure if it was because some components were warmer. There were times that power limit on the scanner showed as 165 kW, Max kW was 119 and it was charging at 95 kW. During other sessions Max was higher than Limit. Is it safe to assume, Limit is power limit set by the truck and Max is set by EA and the lowest one is the actual limit?
After This session LVB SOC went up to 93%.
In the 3rd stop, at times, power loss between the plug and HVB was showing as high as 6 kWh. I am not sure this was real or a matter of refresh rates of data. My LVB SOC at the end of this session went as high as 94%. Except the first, in the rest of EA stops, I started around 165 kW. I charged to 88% here but got no deduction in my balance or receipt of any kind. Only several days later my balance was adjusted.
Maximum HVB SOC module variation during the trip was 0.48% and Module variation 0.01V
Conclusion:
I no longer consider MotoMoto a local truck and trust it to go where no man (except the DCFC tech) has gone before.
The Short Story (What I learned)
Standard battery pack can be more than enough in east coast in good weather.
MotoMoto is a passing monster and I am starting to trust it.
What goes down, can come back up (My SOH).
EA can be better than Tesla if sample size is small enough.
Lightning dressed up as NY police looks really cool.
Charging stations may be outside your comfort zone if you are an introvert.
Gotta remember to bring a spray. Bugs on country roads can cover that windshield very quickly.
The Long Story
Trip Details:
MD to Ontario: 516 miles, 3 DCFC, 2.3 mi/kWh
Total trip: 1221 miles, 7 DCFC, 2.3 mi/kWh
Planning:
I planned the trip up with the ABRP but ended up completely ignoring it once on the road. The reason is that I was too much of a chicken and setup all parameters conservatively. The combination of everything ended up being too safe and made ABRP too pessimistic. I was traveling in almost perfect conditions so my range was much better than expected. On the way back I became too much of a daredevil and decided to travel with a Smi-ICE state of mind and have a close look at only the next charging stop and maybe a glance at the potential subsequent stop. This turned out to be just fine. I am not recommending this but it gave me confidence with regards to charging network for future fair weather trips in east coast.
Charging Experience:
I chose to travel on a weekday assuming charging may be less competitive. I don’t know for a fact, if this is true but it seemed that way. I was planning to run out of EA credit before trying a supercharger. All six EA charging were flawless. Except the last one that was during rush-hour. All four stalls were taken and one VW ID.4 was ahead of me. Before I could figure out where the closest supercharger was, two stalls opened (in less than 5 minutes).
The ID.4 Guy had a million questions about the Lightning and wanted answers to all of them before I took the last spot and before I could charge. The problem was that all questions sounded like they were in Chinese and he did not come with subtitles. It took me a while to realize he was speaking English and even longer before I could decode it to my version of English (I am an immigrant too). Just when I thought I had answered all of them, the wife came out of the car and started asking the same questions. By this time I was so fluent in whatever he was speaking that I started acting as an interpreter for the lyriq guy that was being hit with the same questions. Moral of the story is that if you are lonely, or need to practice English, charging stations are full of captive audience.
After one of EA charge sessions, no event was posted anywhere by Ford or EA. I thought I got away with free charging but it was deducted from my balance days later. At the end of my 250 kWhs, I went over by $0.16.
Superchargers: I got the Tesla membership but ended up using it only once for 56 kWh. The first stall went up to 166 kW quickly but faulted within the first minute. I could not get it to work again so I moved to another one. Luckily all eight stalls were open. I didn’t need to do any public charging in Canada. I did intend to see if I could use a supercharger without my phone but never got the chance to try it.
I had to get out of the truck several times to make sure that I won’t knock down a supercharger. My 360 camera view is absolutely useless when it comes to seeing corners which is the most important part of camera view for me. If anyone has a mod to improve this, please let me know.
EV travel vs ICE:
Over all, my body always felt like needing a stop when MotoMoto did and I never felt like I was waiting or wasting time. In fact whenever I went to the store, I felt like I was being rushed by that 80% SOC target. When I stayed with the truck, I had to cut whatever I was doing short when it was charged up. Only at 80% to 90% in one occasion it started to feel like waiting. I really didn’t need that 10% either but I wanted to be safe since I have a cheapo phone plan that has no coverage in Canada and had no experience charging there before.
Obviously when traveling with ICE, deciding where to stop is independent of energy but that didn’t seem to be as much of an issue as I thought. I had different expectations and that helped me enjoy the trip just as much as I would with ICE. In fact a little bit of uncertainty made the traveling experience more authentic.
Driving an EV can have other advantages. I feel like I got extra respect from Sheriff for driving a Lightning. He opened up space for me to get out of an only lane.
Technobabble
Initial conditions before departure:
- At 100% SOC displayed, real SOC was 96.06% and Energy 96.13 kWh
- I started the trip with HVB at 79F, Outside temp 61F, SOH 98%
- LVB SOC at 92%/13.3V
- Motors: Pri 77F, Sec 84F
- Inverters: Pri 91F, Sec 97F
- Transmission: 70F
- DC Coupler 1: 75F
From what I saw from OBDII, I think I was losing 5%-8% of electrons before they made it to the battery but I will have to have a few more runs for a more accurate number.
Tire Pressure during drive: 40-41 PSI (minimal load). During first leg (136 miles), 99% energy went to Route with 2.1 mi/kWh efficiency. LVB SOC did not go up during drive and was at 91%. During charging at EA, 1.2 kW was being lost between the plug and the battery. Not sure how much between the charging station and the plug.
I am not sure if I understand this correctly but Max kW was always the same as current charging speed. Does this mean the truck was limiting the charging speed? It was in 80 kW-115 kW in a 150 kW station.
Here are some of the highest temps I saw on this trip:
- HVB before charging started: 79F (no change)
- HVB during charging: 106F
- DC Coupler 1 during charging: 151F
- Max outside temp 72F
- Motors: Pri 136F, Sec 141F
- Inverters: Pri 108F, Sec 111F
- Transmission 106F
I was very concerned about my HVB State Of Health on my truck going down faster than others. Despite other members saying it can go back up, I was not sure how internal resistance of the battery can decrease with age. I should note that on the same day, I had a 100% SOC level 2 charge (first in a very long time). I am not sure which one had more of an impact on SOH improvement.
At this location it seemed like I was losing 3kWh between the plug and the battery. I am not sure if it was because some components were warmer. There were times that power limit on the scanner showed as 165 kW, Max kW was 119 and it was charging at 95 kW. During other sessions Max was higher than Limit. Is it safe to assume, Limit is power limit set by the truck and Max is set by EA and the lowest one is the actual limit?
After This session LVB SOC went up to 93%.
In the 3rd stop, at times, power loss between the plug and HVB was showing as high as 6 kWh. I am not sure this was real or a matter of refresh rates of data. My LVB SOC at the end of this session went as high as 94%. Except the first, in the rest of EA stops, I started around 165 kW. I charged to 88% here but got no deduction in my balance or receipt of any kind. Only several days later my balance was adjusted.
Maximum HVB SOC module variation during the trip was 0.48% and Module variation 0.01V
Conclusion:
I no longer consider MotoMoto a local truck and trust it to go where no man (except the DCFC tech) has gone before.
Last edited:
. You are right about online relationships. The great thing about us is that we can turn each other off anytime we want. There is no off button at the charging station. Kidding aside, most people are cool. I just need to get out of my cave more often and reintegrate.
