djwildstar
Well-known member
- First Name
- Guy
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2023
- Threads
- 2
- Messages
- 164
- Reaction score
- 201
- Location
- Atlanta, GA
- Vehicles
- 2023 Lightning Lariat ER, 2023 Mach-E GTPE
- Occupation
- Information Security
- Thread starter
- #1
Long Road Trip
For Christmas we visited my sister-in-law's place. This was our longest road trip so far: We drove from Atlanta to Toledo and back again, with some around-town driving as well as an excursion to Sandusky. We got a late start on Friday the 23rd, and split the drive north into two segments, with an overnight stop and charging just north of Knoxville. The return was a single 16-hour marathon. Weather on the drive up was unseasonably warm, 40’s and 50’s, while the drive back was a more typical 30’s and 40’s.
This was our fourth and longest road trip in the 7 months and nearly 14,000 miles we've had the truck. Our other road trips have been in spring and summer, from Atlanta GA to Point Pleasant WV, and from Atlanta GA to Walt Disney World (twice). Overall I estimate that about 4500 of our miles have been road trips.
By The Numbers
The Beast’s trip odometer and charging logs report:
Overall, we spent 17.6% of our time charging, and 82.4% driving. Our experience closely matched Motor Trend's 75 MPH, 30-minute charging stop road-trip strategy, so we were probably within 75 minutes of the best-possible time for a trip of this distance.
Observations
We were unable to get any charging, even Level 1, at my sister-in-law’s house. None of their garage and external outlets work -- they were powering their Christmas decorations from an extension cord strung out of the laundry room window. My brother-in-law doesn’t know why the outlets don't work (I suspect it’s because he doesn’t know what a tripped GFCI breaker looks like), but for the sake of Christmas harmony and my wife’s sanity, I didn’t go into it.
The new GM Ultium-branded chargers at Flying J and Pilot locations worked well, BUT getting to them was hard because they aren't in Sync Navigation and FordPass refuses to plan a charging stop there.
When we had problems, it was at Electrify America:
My wife really, really, really wants chargers that are at someplace other than WalMart:
My Take-Away
I still love this truck for road trips. BlueCruise and the enforce stop-and-walk-around nature of EV road tripping made the marathon return trip (16 hours door-to-door) do-able. I feel like I could do back-to-back 12-hour to 16-hour days without a lot of trouble.
My wife is less enthralled; she finds the charging time to be too much, and in general would prefer to cover more ground in fewer hours. She does still love the truck for in-town trips, and the comfort of the Lariat trim made the trip bearable for her.
For Christmas we visited my sister-in-law's place. This was our longest road trip so far: We drove from Atlanta to Toledo and back again, with some around-town driving as well as an excursion to Sandusky. We got a late start on Friday the 23rd, and split the drive north into two segments, with an overnight stop and charging just north of Knoxville. The return was a single 16-hour marathon. Weather on the drive up was unseasonably warm, 40’s and 50’s, while the drive back was a more typical 30’s and 40’s.
This was our fourth and longest road trip in the 7 months and nearly 14,000 miles we've had the truck. Our other road trips have been in spring and summer, from Atlanta GA to Point Pleasant WV, and from Atlanta GA to Walt Disney World (twice). Overall I estimate that about 4500 of our miles have been road trips.
By The Numbers
The Beast’s trip odometer and charging logs report:
- Trip Computer
- 1.8 mi/kWh,
- 1656.2 miles, and
- 30:40 total power-on; so
- 54 MPH overall average speed.
- Charge Logs
- 15 fast-charging stops,
- 6:29 charging time, and
- 737.5kWh; so
- 26 minutes average charging stop, for
- +37.5% (88 miles) to the battery.
Overall, we spent 17.6% of our time charging, and 82.4% driving. Our experience closely matched Motor Trend's 75 MPH, 30-minute charging stop road-trip strategy, so we were probably within 75 minutes of the best-possible time for a trip of this distance.
Observations
We were unable to get any charging, even Level 1, at my sister-in-law’s house. None of their garage and external outlets work -- they were powering their Christmas decorations from an extension cord strung out of the laundry room window. My brother-in-law doesn’t know why the outlets don't work (I suspect it’s because he doesn’t know what a tripped GFCI breaker looks like), but for the sake of Christmas harmony and my wife’s sanity, I didn’t go into it.
The new GM Ultium-branded chargers at Flying J and Pilot locations worked well, BUT getting to them was hard because they aren't in Sync Navigation and FordPass refuses to plan a charging stop there.
When we had problems, it was at Electrify America:
- On the way up, one stop refused to charge at more than 37kW.
- On the way back, one location would provide 160+kW, but terminate the session after 2-5 minutes. I plugged and re-plugged until we had enough to reach the next-nearest charger.
- On the way back, EA maintenance was at the location that had been delivering 37kW, and the issue was fixed (we were the first vehicle to charge there after repairs were completed.)
My wife really, really, really wants chargers that are at someplace other than WalMart:
- In general, the bathrooms were gross (I suspect Sam Walton would be quite upset);
- WalMart isn't very welcoming or interesting to walk through as a visitor; and
- We would welcome fast charging at Buc-Ees or Target instead.
My Take-Away
I still love this truck for road trips. BlueCruise and the enforce stop-and-walk-around nature of EV road tripping made the marathon return trip (16 hours door-to-door) do-able. I feel like I could do back-to-back 12-hour to 16-hour days without a lot of trouble.
My wife is less enthralled; she finds the charging time to be too much, and in general would prefer to cover more ground in fewer hours. She does still love the truck for in-town trips, and the comfort of the Lariat trim made the trip bearable for her.
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