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Joneii

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I've been lurking on this Forum for over a year and I have learned a ton. Thank you to all of the folks who share their knowledge and experiences. I owe the fact that I have a Lightning to this forum. I live in PA and put my reservation in for the Lightning like everyone else. Then I waited. My research on this forum led me to discover that most of the allocations were going to zero emmisions states, so I informed my dealer (they didn't believe it until they called their Ford rep and he confirmed the situation--only 1 vehicle/EV certified dealer in most of PA). I moved my reservation to a Maryland dealership and was invited to order in wave 6!

Now I have an extended range Lariat with max tow and this past weekend we took it on a shakedown trip towing our 2002 Airstream Classic (25' long, 8.5' wide, about 7300 lbs loaded, bullet shaped). I did a short test drive (53 miles) in the local area mostly 50-70 mph speeds and averaged 1.1 mi/kW. We plotted a trip from central PA to Bethany Beach, DE. It is a trip we did before with our diesel Ram 2500 pulling the same camper. Also the DelMarVa penninsula is sort of a fast charge desert, so it would be a challenge.

Inputting the destination into the truck yielded a route that immediately raised some questions. Our truck calculated that it could go 113 miles on 100%, which didn't make a lot of sense to me given the 1.1 mi/kW average, but it was conservative. It gave us a charge stop at a car dealership in a bigger city. This didn't sound fun (I imagined trying to manuever my whale of a camper around a cramped lot full of expensive new cars), however, there weren't any other fast charge options in the area, so we decided to go for it.

The first few miles of our route climb a PA mountain (more like a big hill; 1500' up 8% grade) and the truck recalculated the range to 87 miles--ouch! This trip was not looking good. Luckily the dealership was closing and the service center was done for the day so we could drop the camper in front of their service garage and charge the truck. I really appreciated the Blue Oval network as I didn't want to download a separate App for every charger type that we were going to encounter. The first charge was fast and cheap (.20/kWh). But we decided to eliminate the other car dealership from our route. This is where the limits of the in truck navigation and trip planner became clear.

We knew there was an Electrify America charger close to our route, but it wasn't coming up in the truck. The truck wanted us to go to another car dealership and then to a Royal Farms Chargepoint in DE. We looked up the Electrify America station and input the address. The navigation system routed us to it, but still didn't recognize it as charging stop. We chalked this up to our ignorance and user error (anyone know how to designate an address as a charging stop?).

That stop was great! Walmart parking lot meant that we didn't have to unhook to access a charger without blocking any or traffic, there were 7 of 8 chargers operational and only one other car while we where there. A quick meal in the camper while we charged and we were on our way. The next stop (our final before our destination) wasn't operational. That would've been nice to know, but we looked for a nearby alternative. It too was at a Royal Farms, and unfortunately, it too was not operational. At that point we were relegated to a slow charger. Luckily we had a camper and could spend the night charging on a level 2.

The trip home was much better. We decided to use 4 Apps to do our own mission planning (FordPass, ABRP, PlugShare and GoogleMaps). This combination allowed us to find reliable, trailer friendly fast chargers. The truck was also learning the camper and had figured out that it could do 145 miles on 100%, so staying in the heart of the charge curve (15%-90%) yielded a route home with three stops and fairly short charge times (40 minutes, 1 hr, and 20 minutes). We learned a lot and also have a lot of questions:
1. Why doesn't the FordPass App indicate if stations are out of service (it turns out that the Royal Farms locations in DE have been having issues with their ChargePoint chargers for months).
2. Why doesn't the truck's trip planner show the Electrify America stations?
3. How can we indicate that a particular waypoint is a charging stop?
4. When is Pet Mode going to be a reality?!
5. Ditto for PAAK?

Okay, now the big question. After returning home I disconnected the camper and returned to Normal Drive mode with no active trailer, and charged my truck. However, the next morning I was surprised by my new Guess O Meter indications--100%, 232 miles of predicted range! Did I get a standard range over the air downgrade?! I drove a bit hoping this would reset itself, but it hasn't. If I put it into tow mode with the trailer, the range goes to 160 miles (that seems awfully high). I'm guessing my truck is confused because we now have more miles towing (700 or so) then normal driving (400 or so), but I would assume that the drive modes would keep the range calculations independent. Any guesses on how I can get my extended range back?
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sotek2345

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For the route planning, while the Ford app and Nav system can be sometimes useful, I always go back to ABRP, Plugshare and Google maps in our Mach-e. ABRP to figure out the route, Plugshare to check the station to make sure it is good, Google maps (via android auto) to do the actual navigation to the charger. Rinse and repeat at each charging stop. Not ideal, but it works.

For the range - no idea. Maybe try resetting your driving history? what mi/kWr are you seeing without the trailer?
 
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Joneii

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For the route planning, while the Ford app and Nav system can be sometimes useful, I always go back to ABRP, Plugshare and Google maps in our Mach-e. ABRP to figure out the route, Plugshare to check the station to make sure it is good, Google maps (via android auto) to do the actual navigation to the charger. Rinse and repeat at each charging stop. Not ideal, but it works.

For the range - no idea. Maybe try resetting your driving history? what mi/kWr are you seeing without the trailer?
I thought about that reset, but wondered if there was a good place to view the total EV driving history before I reset. Also, I would like to keep the learning it did for my trailer and I’m not sure if I would lose that too.
 

mstuewe

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the estimated miles are irrelevant. your truck isn't going to perform worse because you previously towed an airstream, theres no reason for it to be calculating it that way. fords implementation of range estimates is terrible. I wish they just told me the the # of kWh I have available so I can just multiply it by 2 and know that I have at least 2 mi/kWh to work with on the highway and even more if I slow down or take city streets. much simpler than a garbage calculation.
 

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sotek2345

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Double check you've not still got a trailer associated - we discovered that even if you exit tow/haul it can sometimes still show as having a Trailer connected :(
Nikki! Welcome. First I have seen you on the Forum. Love your Youtube channel!
 

Stlww18

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I can't help with the range question, but I will agree that ford navigation is trash. It didn't even recognize my parents address for a home built in the 50's in the middle of an urban area. It also tried to route me on an 11 hour trip for what should have been 6 hours.
 
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Joneii

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I thought about that reset, but wondered if there was a good place to view the total EV driving history before I reset. Also, I would like to keep the learning it did for my trailer and I’m not sure if I would lose that too.
I was getting between 3.0 and 2.4 mil/kW without towing, but I was doing mostly rural, easy driving.
 
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Joneii

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Double check you've not still got a trailer associated - we discovered that even if you exit tow/haul it can sometimes still show as having a Trailer connected :(
Yep, I made that mistake at first and was sure inactivating the trailer would fix my issue, but that wasn’t the issue. I reactivated the trailer just to be sure and it recalculated my range to 160 miles (from 232 sans trailer).​
 

Aminorjourney

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Yep, I made that mistake at first and was sure inactivating the trailer would fix my issue, but that wasn’t the issue. I reactivated the trailer just to be sure and it recalculated my range to 160 miles (from 232 sans trailer).​
Ah bugger :(

I might just reset the efficiency and start again. I do that from time to time.

Nikki! Welcome. First I have seen you on the Forum. Love your Youtube channel!
Thanks ;) I hover, mostly.
 

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Griddlez

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You had to sit and wait for a level 2? Ouch.. that's my nightmare, having that happen with the family. Your efficiency numbers seem pretty high tho which is sweet! I get .8 on average cruise controlled at 70. I may get 1.0+ if under 60 but haven't done enough testing there to know.
 

Griddlez

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You had to sit and wait for a level 2? Ouch.. that's my nightmare, having that happen with the family. Your efficiency numbers seem pretty high tho which is sweet! I get .8 on average cruise controlled at 70. I may get 1.0+ if under 60 but haven't done enough testing there to know.
Oh and as far as the GOM issues - do you think at any point camping you may have accidently started towing without saying a trailer is connected (selecting your trailer from a list)? If that happened it would have fed into your normal GOM estimates.
 

bryan995

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the estimated miles are irrelevant. your truck isn't going to perform worse because you previously towed an airstream, theres no reason for it to be calculating it that way. fords implementation of range estimates is terrible. I wish they just told me the the # of kWh I have available so I can just multiply it by 2 and know that I have at least 2 mi/kWh to work with on the highway and even more if I slow down or take city streets. much simpler than a garbage calculation.
The SR at 98kwh makes this easy.

% remaining basically == kwh remaining :)
Multiple by 2 and viola.
 

data003

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If you disconnect the 12v battery and then reconnect it, it resets the GoM.
 
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Joneii

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Oh and as far as the GOM issues - do you think at any point camping you may have accidently started towing without saying a trailer is connected (selecting your trailer from a list)? If that happened it would have fed into your normal GOM estimates.
It is certainly possible that I did that, but I don’t think so because I was paying close attention to the range during the whole trip and it would’ve been pretty apparent if I somehow had a surprise 200+ range number.

As for waiting for the level 2, we lucked out that it was in an empty community college parking lot and since it was already 11:30 pm, we just went to sleep in the camper. The charging was free, but I guess it really cost us $30 since we had already paid for a campsite that night. We always travel with enough water and power onboard to boondock if necessary.
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