God help people who plan with built in nav

[JRT]

So this I not my 1st EV, I cut my teeth with 31k miles in a 2021 SR Mach-E and did several trips and know the wonders of reduced cold weather range very well. I was carrying my Mach-E and my 2014 Ram 1500 for those years because we just need a truck for family trips and moves, the ER 2023 XLT I have is perfect and even with the observed 20% winter range impact will still work well, if I plan and research. If I was a normal consumer I'd be very mislead based on the built in Nav right now, it is almost a safety issue when you consider potentially hazardous cold weather too.

So we have a trip from Huntsville AL to Flagler Beach FL this holiday coming. I've done plenty of planning and even bought the ABRP upgrade to try out. ABRP gave me a pretty good plan with my adjusted settings, I tweeked 2 stops for convenience and it had minimal impact. Basically 4 stops would be good, but I wanted to shorten stop times to not be 40 min plus charging so add 1 stop. This kept 3 stops well under 30 min and 2 just over 30 min. All EA stations with good Plugshare reviews and status. So should be a free trip with my credits.

For fun, since Ford EV specialists PM about my Lightning, to help me get ready, lol. I told them I'm pretty set but the entire Ford Pass app planner was terrible. They said oh no it is much improved, give it a try.... well I did. Planning on the phone isn't great, but it did give me 3 charging stops, and I added 1 that I wanted. So not really as well optimized vs ABRP but this was my experiment. I went to load the trip in my truck and it recalculated it to 2 charging stops! Given 50s outside this would never work and hopefully it would adjust and add charging stops.

I guess my useless point is if I set up a plan in the app, then why does the built in navigation go and replan it and remove the stops. That is madness in my opinion. I'll be running ABRP on this trip and have all the extra charge stations on my trip notes just in case.

Sponsored

 

[hturnerfamily]

exactly my experiences, too... especially when 'sending' a planned trip from the Ford Pass App to the TRUCK - which then decides on a TOTALLY DIFFERENT route and removes ALL of the pre-planned charging stops - your term 'Madness' is correct.

I use google maps exclusively. It just works. It's actually easier on my laptop, since you can 'move' your route to different roadways depending on your needs, and it just works. Simple.

Not sure why Ford's nav makes it's so difficult.

 

[JRT]

Ya honestly Google maps is my default too. This is technically my first road trip where I'll be significantly outside my normal EV experience, but am very familiar with this route as it is pretty common for us in years past. We decided to load us up in the truck vs 4 round trip tickets and rental car expense. I've got us planned for 12 to 13 hrs travel time with breakfast stop, lunch stop all on charging stops. It will be a grand tour of Walmart EA stations lol.

 

[RickLightning]

I guess my useless point is if I set up a plan in the app, then why does the built in navigation go and replan it and remove the stops. That is madness in my opinion. I'll be running ABRP on this trip and have all the extra charge stations on my trip notes just in case.

ABRP (free version) just added the ability to lock in stops when you save the plan, they always recalculated also. It's really annoying.

I have found on multiday trips it is less frustrating to plan each day separately.

If you don't navigate to the next DC fast charger with Ford Navigation, you won't get the battery conditioning happening 18.6 miles before the charger, which makes your session faster in cold weather...

I run ABRP on one phone, GoogleMaps on the other, and Ford Navigation on the screen, usually only to the next charger.

 

[JRT]

Yup, one reason I wanted to run ford nav originally was precondition. I may do it still, have to see

 

[davehu]

So this I not my 1st EV, I cut my teeth with 31k miles in a 2021 SR Mach-E and did several trips and know the wonders of reduced cold weather range very well. I was carrying my Mach-E and my 2014 Ram 1500 for those years because we just need a truck for family trips and moves, the ER 2023 XLT I have is perfect and even with the observed 20% winter range impact will still work well, if I plan and research. If I was a normal consumer I'd be very mislead based on the built in Nav right now, it is almost a safety issue when you consider potentially hazardous cold weather too.

So we have a trip from Huntsville AL to Flagler Beach FL this holiday coming. I've done plenty of planning and even bought the ABRP upgrade to try out. ABRP gave me a pretty good plan with my adjusted settings, I tweeked 2 stops for convenience and it had minimal impact. Basically 4 stops would be good, but I wanted to shorten stop times to not be 40 min plus charging so add 1 stop. This kept 3 stops well under 30 min and 2 just over 30 min. All EA stations with good Plugshare reviews and status. So should be a free trip with my credits.

For fun, since Ford EV specialists PM about my Lightning, to help me get ready, lol. I told them I'm pretty set but the entire Ford Pass app planner was terrible. They said oh no it is much improved, give it a try.... well I did. Planning on the phone isn't great, but it did give me 3 charging stops, and I added 1 that I wanted. So not really as well optimized vs ABRP but this was my experiment. I went to load the trip in my truck and it recalculated it to 2 charging stops! Given 50s outside this would never work and hopefully it would adjust and add charging stops.

I guess my useless point is if I set up a plan in the app, then why does the built in navigation go and replan it and remove the stops. That is madness in my opinion. I'll be running ABRP on this trip and have all the extra charge stations on my trip notes just in case.

agreed, planning a trip from your phone is crap. I will plan with ABRP from home on a computer with a decent size monitor. on the road using the app just for tweeks.

 

[Joneii]

I don’t usually use Apple Car Play, but the other day I played around with it to try the new EV feature in Apple Maps. I didn’t really like it and will probably stick with the Ford nav (I ve found Ford nav to have the best traffic updates, plus preconditioning). However, at one point I had Apple Maps, Google Maps and the Ford nav all directing me to the same destination simultaneously. Of course they were all trying to get me to go there via different routing. It was pretty funny. My Siri speaks Austrailian, and Google maps is an American lady (I had the Ford nav muted). I could only take the cacophony for a few minutes, but if you mute them all you can just switch between them as you like.

 

[kstype]

So this I not my 1st EV, I cut my teeth with 31k miles in a 2021 SR Mach-E and did several trips and know the wonders of reduced cold weather range very well. I was carrying my Mach-E and my 2014 Ram 1500 for those years because we just need a truck for family trips and moves, the ER 2023 XLT I have is perfect and even with the observed 20% winter range impact will still work well, if I plan and research. If I was a normal consumer I'd be very mislead based on the built in Nav right now, it is almost a safety issue when you consider potentially hazardous cold weather too.

So we have a trip from Huntsville AL to Flagler Beach FL this holiday coming. I've done plenty of planning and even bought the ABRP upgrade to try out. ABRP gave me a pretty good plan with my adjusted settings, I tweeked 2 stops for convenience and it had minimal impact. Basically 4 stops would be good, but I wanted to shorten stop times to not be 40 min plus charging so add 1 stop. This kept 3 stops well under 30 min and 2 just over 30 min. All EA stations with good Plugshare reviews and status. So should be a free trip with my credits.

For fun, since Ford EV specialists PM about my Lightning, to help me get ready, lol. I told them I'm pretty set but the entire Ford Pass app planner was terrible. They said oh no it is much improved, give it a try.... well I did. Planning on the phone isn't great, but it did give me 3 charging stops, and I added 1 that I wanted. So not really as well optimized vs ABRP but this was my experiment. I went to load the trip in my truck and it recalculated it to 2 charging stops! Given 50s outside this would never work and hopefully it would adjust and add charging stops.

I guess my useless point is if I set up a plan in the app, then why does the built in navigation go and replan it and remove the stops. That is madness in my opinion. I'll be running ABRP on this trip and have all the extra charge stations on my trip notes just in case.

I agree, I think the logic is the "App" is a snapshot in time and when you send to the truck it's taking that and then adding in variables like SoC and temp etc. and redoing the plan. I think they need to add an option for "Update Trip Y/N? the first time you pull up the saved trip - this may help.

I would also like to see @Ford Motor Company allow users to set a "preferred SoC on arrival" so that can be take into account on trips.

 

[FirstF150InCasco]

So this I not my 1st EV, I cut my teeth with 31k miles in a 2021 SR Mach-E and did several trips and know the wonders of reduced cold weather range very well. I was carrying my Mach-E and my 2014 Ram 1500 for those years because we just need a truck for family trips and moves, the ER 2023 XLT I have is perfect and even with the observed 20% winter range impact will still work well, if I plan and research. If I was a normal consumer I'd be very mislead based on the built in Nav right now, it is almost a safety issue when you consider potentially hazardous cold weather too.

So we have a trip from Huntsville AL to Flagler Beach FL this holiday coming. I've done plenty of planning and even bought the ABRP upgrade to try out. ABRP gave me a pretty good plan with my adjusted settings, I tweeked 2 stops for convenience and it had minimal impact. Basically 4 stops would be good, but I wanted to shorten stop times to not be 40 min plus charging so add 1 stop. This kept 3 stops well under 30 min and 2 just over 30 min. All EA stations with good Plugshare reviews and status. So should be a free trip with my credits.

For fun, since Ford EV specialists PM about my Lightning, to help me get ready, lol. I told them I'm pretty set but the entire Ford Pass app planner was terrible. They said oh no it is much improved, give it a try.... well I did. Planning on the phone isn't great, but it did give me 3 charging stops, and I added 1 that I wanted. So not really as well optimized vs ABRP but this was my experiment. I went to load the trip in my truck and it recalculated it to 2 charging stops! Given 50s outside this would never work and hopefully it would adjust and add charging stops.

I guess my useless point is if I set up a plan in the app, then why does the built in navigation go and replan it and remove the stops. That is madness in my opinion. I'll be running ABRP on this trip and have all the extra charge stations on my trip notes just in case.

I LOVE the truck but the app is useless. Someone at Ford’s should be fired.

 

[TheWoo]

Yup, one reason I wanted to run ford nav originally was precondition. I may do it still, have to see

I use ABRP to plan, then just put the next charger as my destination in the Ford Nav each time. It's annoying, but the best way to precondition I've found.

I can't remember, but you may be able to add a specific charger as a stop after you put your destination in. Seems like maybe I did it that way on my way back from Thanksgiving...

 

[mb0220]

Agreed that native route intelligence is not yet trustable. Agreed that ABRP is great. But I have also found that PlugShare has a fairly decent routing tool as well (maybe just for medium distance drives, like 200 miles or so) - especially if you want to hand-select your own chargers. You can filter them by what's close to your intended route. They also have a nice chart that shows the elevation profile of your route and includes your planned stops. I find that handy for predicting efficiency.

 

[JRT]

Of course my 1st ev stop isn't in the built in nav...

Sponsored