Road Trip, how low is too low (SOC remaining)

[Lucky Larry]

i plan to arrive at the next charger with a 10% SOC. i have however arrived with a 9% soc a few times but i like to have a little buffer in case there is a problem with the charger. I also try to keep my speed under 70 mph.

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[Wendy]

My thoughts:

In an ICE how close would you call it to a gas station (even though they are all over the place!)? Most cars give you the yellow light at about 50 miles left. So at 2.0mpk do you want to be less than 26 miles from a charging station? Only if you are along I-90 or I-5!

My wife was heading to a friend's place with plenty of but then there was an accident and she had to take a terrible detour! I was watching as she navigated through the canyons and sheep farms in the dark of night and I think she did the last 5 miles sitting at 12%. Kind of like the post above where the Mach-E went 12 miles past 0%. You never know, better safe than sorry.

Can you push this 7,000# thing off to the shoulder if it stops? ?

 

[Ragman]

This is a huge it depends, in theory if you are using ABRP with dongle it's constantly recalculating so it changes your charger destination based on live data on the truck kwh use due to wind/speed/temperature/etc. That said it depends where you are - if I'm driving through North Dakota with a Supercharger every 60 miles, then I don't run under 50% or if I'm in a city with 15 Super Charger Stations within 20 minutes 5% is just fine.

Generally though I don't like going under 8-10% as my gut says this is a bad idea for long term battery life - not the "oh crap I might have to walk" test. I've pushed it down to 0% however that was my call to sacrifice potentially some long term battery life that day for expediancy.

 

[deltalightning]

477 miles, averaged 1.9mi/kwh. Learned a lot about how the range estimates work and when i need to charge. Was also very happy with the Apple Maps integration. Overall great trip and now I’d be pretty confident taking the truck anyway.

On a related note, the new EA 350w hyper chargers are crazy awesome…

 

[hturnerfamily]

I made a mistake...

ooops....

but, not with my Pro SR LIGHTNING, although, frankly, I'm so used to it's ~100kw battery pack, which makes for easy basic 'range' calculations... for example: 50% battery x 2mi/kwh = 100 miles. Easy.

I made the mistake when driving our other EV, the beautiful and comfortable KIA EV9 SUV...
it only has a ~75kw battery pack...
My brain kept using my Lightning's 'easy' calculation, and I wondered why I was not actually getting the overall 'range' in the EV9... UNTIL..... yes, my brain caught up with the facts - I was in ANOTHER vehicle !

so, even though the EV9 might get a much better 3mi/kwh..... at 50% batter SOC, it was NOT getting 150 miles...
but,

it was 50% x 3 x 75% = 112 or so miles... not 150 miles like my 'brain' was assuming : / oh well.

now, back to the OP's concern, about 'range' from the GOM, or 'guess o meter'... I really hardly pay attention to that readout, as, we all know, is NOT realistic in many ways... it is simply for some basic 'guidance'...
we HAVE to use a KNOWN mi/kwh 'average', or at least one you are comfortable with, to maintain our sanity, and, frankly, the ACTUAL range... times the battery's SOC at that moment.
Terrain, winds, Speeds, and temps may change along the way, and we have to be mindful of that, as well.

 

[21st Century Truck]

On my old Mach E and also on y current Lightning, I have found that the blue range ring on the Sync NAV screen is a very reliable gauge whether I can reach my intended charging stop. The one solid exception to this is when I was navigating the upslopes on the steep and long Rocky Mountain passes like Monarch Pass in Colorado... but then it regained its accuracy on the downslopes.

Especially when down to single digits on the big battery and on the GOM, the blue ring always (so far haha) got me to the charging stop. At 1st I was pretty nervous... over time, I learned to trust the blue ring.

And as others have said: when in any doubt, sloooow down. Getting there is way better than not getting there

 

[CD4TNF]

That was one of my other questions...will it really go down to 0% before dying? I've seen lots of posts that say yes, but rare posts show actual experience doing it.

Motortrend tested going to 0% so you don't have to.

https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2023-ford-f-150-lightning-xlt-yearlong-review-update-8/

 

[PJnc284]

Should be noted it was the same truck both times and something was off with the BMS. Believe at least one of those instances showed either 2 or 4 miles remaining which is still far lower than most will run their trucks so I wouldn't worry much. If trucks start dying with 10% remaining, then we'd have something to be concerned about.

 

[Bwanapete]

In YouTube’s Ocean-to-Ocean truck race (Silverado, Rivian, Cybertruck, and Lightning), the Lightning got stranded even though the dashboard showed it had maybe 6 miles left. I believe that the accuracy of the GOM and the % of charge left may vary from truck to truck. So I am more conservative now.

 

[Deleted member 12322]

As someone who's knocked out a few 2,000+ mile trips and has another in a couple of months, here's my best piece of advice.

Know how to use the distance to the next charger and your available battery percent to find a minimum mile per kwh. Then monitor it on the center screen, as long as you're beating that you're good. If it's close or dropping below due to worsening conditions then find a closer charger.

I have a post on my profile somewhere in the past two years where I went into detail about how I do it. It personally gives me a lot of peace of mind since it's more or less physics at that point. You can also rerun the numbers pretty easily asking Google via voice too. Like others I avoid going below 10% since I've seen the rumors of it dumping due to BMS issues after fast charging.

This method has worked for me before out in the rural country going stop to stop with no available chargers in between. The only time it gets wonky is if you know you have to climb some terrain in the first portion since it makes your mi per kwh awful that recovers on the downhill. For those I usually put my faith in abrp which I've personally validated my numbers for a few times.

 

[Maxx]

In YouTube’s Ocean-to-Ocean truck race (Silverado, Rivian, Cybertruck, and Lightning), the Lightning got stranded

Are you sure that was a Lightning? There are a lot of impersonators out there these days.

 

[Jseis]

On my old Mach E and also on y current Lightning, I have found that the blue range ring on the Sync NAV screen is a very reliable gauge whether I can reach my intended charging stop. The one solid exception to this is when I was navigating the upslopes on the steep and long Rocky Mountain passes like Monarch Pass in Colorado... but then it regained its accuracy on the downslopes.

Especially when down to single digits on the big battery and on the GOM, the blue ring always (so far haha) got me to the charging stop. At 1st I was pretty nervous... over time, I learned to trust the blue ring.

And as others have said: when in any doubt, sloooow down. Getting there is way better than not getting there

I like using the Blue Orb of Optimism. As I recall it will indicate I can drive a few miles into the ocean as a side benefit.

 

[user-name-required]

About to do my 2nd road trip in the Lightning, this one is a little trickier, mainly because of lack of charging stations between start/finish.

Several of the routes get me there quicker, but arrival is 5-9% SOC. These are the routes I've historically taken, but obviously never had to worry about EV charging in the past.

My question is...how much faith to I put in the built in and app based (Apple, ABRP) range estimates? 5-9% feels very risky to me...

Any experience here?

Sounds like you did the trip already and it worked, but for my $0.02, I have found Ford's estimated SOC at arrival to be very accurate (plus or minus 1-2%) on all of the trips I have taken so far. Whether a short 45km trip up to the local ski hill, or 300km legs of a winter road trip through the BC mountains, the trip computer seems to take the elevation and temperature into account.

So, feeling confident about my SOC estimator on arrival...I typically plan for a 10-15% minimum SOC on arrival. BUT, I have had to plan for an 8% SOC once, over a 250km+ leg....and I arrived with exactly 8%.

I wouldn't personally plan a trip for a <9% SOC anymore though. Keep your speed to the speed limit or very close to, try to accelerate efficiently, and it should be pretty accurate

 

[USA EV]

In general I choose my comfort level based on conditions, usually 10% arrival, and then monitor and determine how much slow down may be required to arrive with > 0% (usually none). Then use that as feedback for the next charge. [Note: it's OK to use up that 10% buffer you started with.]

In your 5% situation, I'd start off 5 MPH under speed limit and confirm that estimated range and distance remaining were tracking and adjust speed from there (hopefully up).

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