Unreliable Guess-o-meter, range anxiety, and the frigid weather...

[MillieChliette]

How can you already own an EV yet simultaneously seem to know so little about how range is calculated? It's a guess. It guessed wrong.

Your truck worked exactly as expected with ~1.6mpk in freezing temperatures on the highway with climate at a comfortable level (and also likely a headwind since your return efficiency seemed better). I know it seems to not have been your fault that preconditioning didn't work when you left your house, but remote start does not condition the battery. It will still help since it will use shore power getting the cabin to your desired temperature instead of battery power once you depart. Then using remote start again before you left to go back home was just wasting battery. Why would you do that if you were so anxious about the range?

Literally any EV available today would have shared similar range loss for your trip including your Mach e.

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[Pioneer74]

How can you already own an EV yet simultaneously seem to know so little about how range is calculated? It's a guess. It guessed wrong.

And there lies the problem. The GOM used to be accurate. Ford updated it and now it isn't. Ford, in this case, made it worse.

I don't know what I expected from them. They can't even display the same information in two different screens that match.

 

[jimfigler]

On topic and off topic….This may seem like a no brainer to some or all but my brain just got it. The ER is rated 80 miles greater than the SR according to 2023 specs under the ideal 2.37 kWh/mile…ish. (135 kWh battery x 2.37 = 320 miles) But as factors reduced that 2.37 say down 1.5 kWh/mile that 80 mile difference is now 56 miles. I think there must others like myself who assumed the ER will always have 80 miles of range over the SR regardless of conditions when that is not the case. The other way to think of it is 30% reduction of 320 is 224 miles and of 240 miles is 168 or 56 miles. My calculations may be off by a mile or two but you get the point. I know I’m a dope to just figure this out. No ridicule please ?

 

[luebri]

I bought the ER believing that I could do 220-230 miles reliably. Turns out, that's a wing and a prayer based on the past few days.

You were on pace to get 1.6 MPK X 131 (battery size) = 209.6 miles. This is such a minor difference vs your expectations.

Yes the GOM is not great for some, especially seemingly after a recent update that has made it even worse for some.

I dont disagree that for an $80k truck I expect a very good experience but I also know that Ford is still very very early in their EV efforts.

Something to keep in mind. We have had computers and Operating systems that have had progress bars for 40 years and I have yet to find a progress bar that was worth a sh**. The GOM really isn't much different.

If that is enough for you to hate your truck, then bummer for you. I find it annoying, but still am overwhelmingly happy with the Lightning.

I have never owned an EV or a Ford so Im not an apologist for either the concept of EV's or for Ford.

 

[rdr854]

And there lies the problem. The GOM used to be accurate. Ford updated it and now it isn't. Ford, in this case, made it worse.

I don't know what I expected from them. They can't even display the same information in two different screens that match.

I noticed that day one. It just gave me a chuckle. I picked the one in the instrument cluster since it is the more conservative of the two. That said, what I care about is the historical usage range as I believe that is more reflective of my overall driving habits.

I plan to drive from DC to Richmond VA this week. I will find a charge station in Richmond to top off just because I don’t like to get below 50% when traveling or 70% when driving around town. In this regard, I do not look at the GOM to determine when to recharge. I look at the percent of charge - just like we do on our iPhones and iPads.

Habits for recharging and refueling should be similar. In the fire service, the policy is to refuel when the fuel gauge reads 3/4 full. I have been refilling my ICE car between 1/2 and 1/4 full rather than when the gas light comes on since it is better for the car’s fuel system.

 

[Intellibeam]

The recent updates 3.5.5 or MIL-DTE e'ffd with the Ford Pass app and truck console predicted range at stated percentages, it's using the summer optimum value of 2.4 MPK..... stick to your drivers cluster current trip MPK value and calculate from the present SOC, as others said above the 1.6 would have been a better prediction use and endurance up and back.

Yesterdays charging session completed at 95%, now way I'm getting 298 miles range, if you use this value you're destined to failure in our cold conditions.

Hopefully the next few weeks of driving history will overwrite our excessively optimistic value with reality, I still would not trust this based on my actual use case, [non-hyper-miler mode of operation] is 1.6 to 1.8 MPK

How are you getting 298 miles in Massachusetts lol. I'm at 200 on the nose with the exact same charging levels.

 

[vandy1981]

This truck is one of the most beautiful vehicles I've owned (out of way more than 100), but if it can't be reliable with some reasonable range, then it might be too early for something this big and heavy to be a practicable EV for family service.

I appreciate your perspective but it's impossible to gauge your actual consumption based on your post. I averaged 1.4-1.6 miles/kwh on a 700 mile road trip during Elliott with 0-10F ambient temps. I would probably get 2.0-2.2 mi/kWh on the same route in the summer.

This translates to a 20%-36% loss of range in incredibly cold weather and is in line with most other EVs, including the Mach-E. So I don't think it's fair to say that it's not a "practicable" EV.

I would suggest that you rely on the percentage and mi/kWh readout when gauging range on future road trips.

 

[CallOnColin]

I think everyone is in pretty large agreement. IGNORE THE GUESS-O-METER! That is why it's been derisively named such a thing on this forum! hopefully it gets better, but for now just ignore it.

You're new to the truck, obviously by your mileage. Hell, Im still new to mine, but understand it a lot more then the 1st week (my first EV). I've had it for 7 weeks and have 2000 miles on mine.

The bottom line is I just pay attention to my Miles per KWH. You got 1.6 miles/KWH on an interstate drive in cold weather is pretty phenomenal! So everything you did helped your efficiency for sure. 1.6 X 131 (battery size) = 209.6. You used ~65% of your battery on a 141 mile trip. You were good the whole time with room to spare, no need for anxiety. All your efforts (lower speed, lower cab temp, etc) helped but were probably also unnecessary for this trip. For a 180 mile trip yes then you would have been tight and those things would be smart.

That said, This must have been your first drive in cold weather for the GOM to be that far off. My GOM has actually been fairly accurate it just took some miles to get the data to do its guessing. My first 2 days I had the truck the weather was 60 degrees or so and the GOM was ~280 and then the 3rd day (Mid November) it got cold and has been cold since. Since my 3rd day with the truck GOM has been ~200 at 90% consistently at around 30 degrees F. If it's even colder than that and it was all interstate speed 70+ mph then I can easily and confidently predict that range would be around 150 to 175 miles.

The one caveat, I would say to be mindful of is WIND! If you are down wind on a trip and then are coming back the other way dead into a headwind, you mi/KWH are going to vary drastically.

One other thing, using 1 pedal Regen going down a hill at highway speed is not giving you any benefit if you end up losing speed. Yes, you get energy going down the hill but if you lose speed you will lose all that energy when you accelerate back up to speed. If you are going down a mountain for an extended period of time, then yes you will gain energy, but just the up and down of normal driving at highway speed wont do anything more beneficial then maintaining speed.

Last thing... you've owned 100+ vehicles!?!?!? If you do not own a business that needs a lot of vehicles then I am flabbergasted by that number.

Third paragraph here needs to be stickied. Great explanation to help people freaking out about the range mileage guess because they don’t understand how EVs work yet. Follow the mi/kWh. Do your own math. And watch out for head wind! Appreciate you!

 

[Halbach]

It is not rational to choose between freezing inside the cabin, OR making it to your destination. While I understand the trade offs and the limitations of batteries in cold temps, a 200 mile or less range on the Lightning, much as I love the truck, is simply nonsensical.

Call me nonsensical l, but I do that! ("freeze inside the cabin") however, I did that in my ICE truck too. My commute is quite short so my ICE was still cold by the time I got to work, I don’t bother heating the lightning either and save the range, I have a Pro so my anxiety will be even higher when I have to take it long distances.

 

[Tony Burgh]

Ford sold the EV truck concept to people who didn’t comprehend EV’s and/or trucks or chose not to.

 

[vandy1981]

Ford sold the EV truck concept to people who didn’t comprehend EV’s and/or trucks or chose not to.

It's not just a Ford problem. Check out any EV forum and you'll find identical posts with complaints about being misled about cold-weather range.

 

[RickLightning]

@nanohead, there is no way your Mach-E suffers less winter loss. Do you also take it on similar trips in similar weather?

I get 3.0 in summer. Yesterday it was 19. I drove about 120 miles including 50% local, and 1/2 dozen stops leaving it running. 2.0 miles per kilowatt.

 

[TaxmanHog]

How are you getting 298 miles in Massachusetts lol. I'm at 200 on the nose with the exact same charging levels.

The algorithms for the dash and Ford Pass are lying to us with the DTE-MIL or 3.5.5 update, if/when you get it DO NOT TRUST IT!

 

[Amps]

The algorithms for the dash and Ford Pass are lying to us with the DTE-MIL or 3.5.5 update, if/when you get it DO NOT TRUST IT!

Sometimes, I think that's what some drivers are asking for. "Lie to me with a big Madison Avenue number to make me feel good and I'll deal with it later, if and when I need to drive that far someday."

Ford compounded the problem by making a big font dynamic range guess number prominent while hiding battery state of charge percentage, available kWh, and trip consumption in various places.

It's a big, heavy truck. It's going to use a lot of energy. There are lots of use cases where it makes a lot of sense and a lot of use cases where this is not the truck for the job.

 

[cwstnsko]

It sounds like your Mach-E has not yet received the update that make your GOM conform more to Tesla owner’s pre-conceived notions of how a GOM should work. Maybe Ford won‘t bring that update to the Mach-E. I’m not sure if the % of Mach-E owners that are also Tesla owners is as high as it is for the Lightning, so the social media/forum comments complaining that “it doesn’t work like my Tesla” may not be as prevalent as they seem to be on the Lightning boards.
Personally, I would much prefer that the GOM continue to use recent driving history unless you specifically go into the menus to reset it.
Perhaps now that you understand how it is working, it will cause you less anxiety. I know I laughed out loud when, in the middle of a road trip, driving 75mph in 20F weather, my GOM jumped to 316 miles after L2 charging at a motel overnight. I watched the GOM gradually return to reality as the battery got consumed and stay reasonably accurate over the course of several DCFC cycles until I reached my destination and L2 charged again and saw the magic fake GOM reading return.

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