macjaeh
Active member
- First Name
- Mac
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2022
- Threads
- 2
- Messages
- 26
- Reaction score
- 61
- Location
- Richland, Washington
- Vehicles
- Mach-E First Edition, F150L Lariat ER (Ordered)
- Thread starter
- #1
My wife and I live in Richland, WA, and we had our first child last December. My daughter's pediatrician doesn't want her to fly until she's at least 1 year old. Our entire extended family lives in Wisconsin, so we planned a road trip back home to meet her relatives. We'd taken this same trip last year in our Mach E, and planned to do it again this year in the Lightning. We knew from planning the trip last year that I-90 and I-80 are non-starters due to the lack of fast charging coverage out West, so we once again planned to journey south to I-70 and drive through Colorado.
We'd heard multiple concerning reports of charging issues at Electrify America stations, including some of the specific locations we needed to rely on for our trip, so we did a bit of extra research ahead of each charging stop to maximize our chances of success. This wound up being extremely helpful in avoiding some bad charging situations.
We loaded up the Lighting (Lariat, ER, Rapid Red, Max Tow, Spray-in Bedliner, Retrax PRO XR tonneau cover) with all our gear and our kiddo and hit the road at 7pm pacific on Wednesday night. My wife sat in the back with our little one, and the grind began. We drove through the night on Wednesday, stopping primarily at 350KW chargers after first verifying that neither PlugShare nor the EA app were listing them as unavailable. We mostly drove around 120-180 miles (~2hrs at highway speeds) between charges, driving with the flow of traffic, which on an 80MPH freeway can be quite fast.
Given that we would be traveling at rather inefficient speeds, and the fact that we'd need to stop every couple of hours to change/feed the baby, we opted for a very conservative charging strategy that relied on frequent, short charges at the highest available rate.
EA Locations:
1) Island City, OR
2) Boise, ID
3) Mountain Home, ID
4) Heyburn, ID
5) Perry, UT
6) Spanish Fork, UT
7) Green River, UT
8) Grand Junction, CO
9) Edwards, CO
10) Commerce City, CO
11) Fort Morgan, CO
12) Ogalalla, NE
13) Lexington, NE
14) Grand Island, NE
15) Council Bluffs, IA
16) Waukee, IA
17) Williamsburg, IA
18) Geneseo, IL
19) Rockford, IL
While it was certainly disappointing to see the number of Electrify America stations that were down at sites we visited (1-2 at each station), we still never encountered a situation where we had to wait for a charger to become available, and only at 3 of the 19 stations did we encounter charging faults or reduced power (Green River UT, Lexington, NE, Council Bluffs IA) on the first handles we tried. For the most part we were able to pull anywhere between 140-170kw for the entirety of our charging time (we rarely charged past 80%) and never had wait in line, or leave a charging stop empty handed. Had we not done our research on PlugShare, I feel we would have spent about twice as much time charging - just based on how many chargers across the network seem to be inoperable, at reduced power, or throwing charging faults.
Despite the distance, the experience was downright leisurely. The charging stops lined up perfectly with our parenting duties and Blue Cruise ably handled much of the monotonous, tedious maneuvering that tends to cause driver fatigue over long distances. We stopped overnight in Ogalalla, NE for 8 hours of shut-eye at a hotel, but the rest of the time we just took turns driving while the other napped and cared for the kiddo. I can also highly attest to the vast number of diaper-change surfaces the Lightning provides from the cabin to the frunk to the tailgate. Our daughter handled the ride like a champ - and used the Sketch app to launch her nascent art career.
The trip took just over 54 hours all-in, and we arrived in Milwaukee at 3am on Saturday morning.
Compared to our Mach E (First Edition - AWD, extended range), the ride was a lot smoother. We also averaged 2.2 mi/kwh in the Mach E during our trip last year, and around 1.8 mi/kwh in the Lightning over the same stretch this year.
I eagerly await the day that I-90 and I-80 are covered in DC fast chargers from coast to coast so we can cut straight across, but until then, road-tripping the Lightning home through Colorado is a generally pleasant experience.
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