How Bad is an Electric Car Road Trip in the Mach-E?

What's up with everyone, Matt Moran, here in our 2022 Mustang Mach e? In this video, I'll find out what a

road

trip

in this vehicle is like. It will be our first Maki

road

trip

and, in fact, the first of its kind.

electric

road trip I did a quick little trip in a Tesla a few years ago, but otherwise just wanted to let you know that there is a lot of information out there about mixed experiences, some people have terrible experiences with charging stations, other people have great experiences and no problems um so in this video I just want to share my experiences of what we're going to do with us this is a 400 mile road trip we're most likely going to make three different charging stops and um , I'm just going to try it here and see how it goes.

We will have the whole family here with us. I'm filming this the day before, so I have it all washed and ready to go tomorrow, but you know. I'm just going to tell my experiences here, we'll see if it's good, bad, ugly, whatever, we'll see and we'll go on the adventure together here, so to give you a little preface to this 400 mile journey. trip, we're going from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Seattle, New Jersey, for a little trip to the beach for a week, so, you know, we'll be mainly on the Pennsylvania Turnpike for most of the time, we'll be visiting Electrify America stations.

Mainly the Ford app is not directing me through the Electrify America stations currently because they are doing maintenance on the Electrify America stations and that is causing an error so Ford I actually pre-scheduled the trip last week and it was like if I didn't have problems. and then they made this change with Electrify America and now it doesn't even show the station so it's flying a little bit blind. I was hoping to use the Ford navigation system but it looks like I'll have to use the other navigation apps and so I'm using a better route planner which is a third party thing that also has an app and they programmed it and I manually programmed the Plan Original Ford before Electrify America stations were supposed to still be running.

Okay, but we'll find out if that's true or not, but that'll be the basic overview. You know, hit those three stops and it should be uneventful. It sounds like you know we'll only stop for like 10 minutes from the first one and then only about 23 minutes to the next one and then a little bit longer stop, but it should be a pretty easy trip even here with a standard range Maki with all-wheel drive. only 224 miles. range again that's the expectation, we'll see what happens, we'll see what happens with the charging stations and all that and how these applications work.

I'll try to discuss that a little bit here in this video as well, but a little overview of the preface of uh you know what we're in for and what we're planning here so yeah let's hit the road and see what happens so I pleasantly surprised when I got out to the car in the morning to go out that we were actually showing 229 miles of range instead of the 224 that the car is supposed to max out, another nice surprise was that the front end was useful to me and I was able put my wheeled duffel bag there instead. from putting it in the back and stacking it on top and blocking my rear view partially, it was really nice to be able to put it in there along with the Ford mobile charger, so one thing I really love about the Maki is that you have that front but anyway, On the way we saw a nice WRX STI early in the morning and one interesting thing was that I was surprised when it told me the blue Cruise was on but wouldn't let me do my hands. free thing, he kept telling me to keep my hands on the wheel.

I later found out that was because I didn't do a software update and the blue cruise maps need to be updated every three months, otherwise you'll lose that hands-free functionality. so the whole trip to New Jersey I couldn't use the hands free feature but anyway the first stop here at Bedford Sheets for the first Electrify America stop here I stopped and selected one of the 150 kilowatt charging stations . since that's what Maki looks at for its charging speed, I didn't want to take up any of the faster chargers so I plugged it in here and this is something.

This is my first time using one of these public chargers and it was a little difficult to handle using that charger, it's pretty heavy, hard to use with one hand, um, but I plugged it in. I was waiting and it kept saying it was connecting to the vehicle and um, I just thought, wow, this is taking a little while. I didn't expect it to take so long and it never ended up working the first time I stopped at a public charger and it definitely didn't work, a little scary you know, because you wait and depend on these stations to work and the first time I plugged it in it didn't work .

Fortunately, there is only one other car at this station at the moment, so I was able to get into one of the faster 350 kilowatt chargers and plug it in, and luckily that one did. it works and that's why it's important that you know a lot of these chargers that are out there and make sure that you don't arrive at one of these chargers with a five percent battery level in case you need to limp somewhere else, you know. It's nice to know that there's a buffer there and that's a good thing. Speaking of buffer, the vehicle had more efficiency than I expected, so Rod's best planning app said it would only have 40 batteries when it arrived at the station.

I was actually 49 and yet this stop was really just a full stop just to give me a little charge to get to the next one, but honestly, we actually did it because you know we had a baby with us. You know we had to change the diaper we had to give him, you know, give him a max as far as his feeding and stuff, and as a result we ended up staying at that charging station and longer and we ended up going to a much higher level. high. You know, we carried more than we needed. I would have left if there had been people waiting for the charger just to be polite but luckily you know we were able to stay there and I was able to top off the battery so we had a lot more. load than we really needed to have, so it was nice to have that buffer and not be running on fumes, you know, but you know, I found out that you know most of the stops, you can see the second stop here, same thing.

You know we arrived with a higher load than we needed and the second stop here in Carlisle, same deal, you know we stopped, went to the bathroom, you know, changed the diaper, fed him that stock, we also planned around our lunch so we had our lunch there in the car and that was a longer stop you know we needed to stay even with the bigger battery you know we still needed to stay there for about 20 minutes or so bring it up to a battery level of 76, um, and so you know, but you know, we were just doing normal things, we weren't waiting, we weren't, you know, uh, waiting for the car to finish charging, the car was always ready to go before us and , as you saw, I just needed to go. 76 percent I ended up leaving it back at 87.

I would have left earlier because it really slows down once you get to 80 um and I would have left if there was someone waiting for the charge, but luckily there wasn't so I didn't. I feel bad, you know, getting a little bit of extra range in there and filling it out. The charging rates, although they were quite slow, as you can see, it was 30 kilowatts when I got to 87 percent, but whenever it was lower, you know. it's certainly faster, so one thing is if you don't know the way these batteries work in

electric

vehicles, you know they advertise this maximum charge rate of like 150 kilowatts for the Machi, you only get that if you're at the level of five percent battery, otherwise you're, you know, I think for the first 20 or 30 percent you're at about 100 kilowatts or so and then it drops like 75 on average, so, you know, we just keep driving around here. , but at the third charging stop uh, this was another one that was actually in a shopping center and uh, at this one I did need to charge a little more to get to the beach.

I just needed to stay there for 10 minutes, uh, that's basically it. I ended up staying there just for a moment, you know, we changed the diaper, um, you know, we let her run for a minute and you know that was it and we were, you know, ready to go again, but on this one I do want to. Point out like there was a guy with a BMW I3, which is a slow charging vehicle, a lot of them have the gas engine in reverse and he was just hogging one of those spots. I didn't know where the person was and I like it. this ionic 5 was trying to find a charger and luckily they were able to find one of the others but if that place was a little busier you know you got this guy on an I3 just sitting browsing around the mall when you probably don't need to be sitting there, that's just part of this evolving infrastructure, you just have to make sure you know how to think about the other drivers who need to get to their destination and also need their loads. and uh you know just one observation that I saw, but otherwise you know all the other loading stops, everyone was very friendly and another thing that I noticed at this particular loading stop, as you can see, those little flaps had opened there in the Maki.

I think it had been pretty hot, you know, doing back-to-back fast charging and this is also in the heat of, you know, late summer, uh, late, so you know I certainly think these things are pretty hot, but fortunately the car. it ran perfectly the whole unit had no problems and you know it was rock solid reliability and that was great you know I could drive a 400 mile unit and in one day, you know, in the middle of the summer heat, I was able to You know , it still does it very, very well and you also know it's very comfortable, it's a great Highway Cruiser, really nice, you know, road trip companion and anyway, we got back in the car and headed to the beach, like that We arrived in Sea Isle City with about 10 battery charges left and overall I was very happy because other than that first scare, I want to say it was an uneventful trip, it was totally flawless charging wise, the car ran very good, the chargers worked very well. and no complaints, it was really great and I'm glad we were able to get to our destination without any problems and when we got to the beach house we were staying at, luckily we were able to use the garage so I was able to plug in and charge the vehicle with the slow mobile charger, you know, and I mean, it took me half the week to get back to 100, but I was able to continue charging the vehicle all weekend, which also gave us all power.

You know, running around town in the car and I didn't have to limp around with a 10 battery, so that definitely made it easier, but you know, if you're going on one of these road trips and you don't have the luxury. to use a garage or an outlet that you know where you're staying, just try to find a hotel that has a destination charger, a lot of them have Tesla chargers, you can buy an adapter to um, but you know I highly recommend that at less so you can start your day with a full charge or at least know some charge so you know you're not trying to look for a public charger on the beach here or wherever you are and During the week I also went ahead and did the update, so we were able to do the blue cruise on the way back, but as you see, it showed me that the update was completed successfully, but it also showed me that, I guess, because you know. we're driving the less efficient you know, higher speeds on the highway, the range that was quoted to me there for the one way trip on the way back home was going to be 217 miles, so, you know, adjust that range accordingly It varies a lot depending on the circumstances, the weather, everything you know as far as how much range it predicts you'll have, but every time it came time to go home, you know, I tried using the Ford Pass app again, but it still wouldn't communicate. with Electrify America. stations and was also choosing the level 2 charger from this Hyundai dealership.

He loved that charger and wanted me to continue there and I don't know why because there are other evgo fast chargers nearby that I could have gone too, luckily, you know. a better route planner, they had a better route for me here and interestingly, you know, since I was starting with 100 freight from Sea Isle City, they didn't want me to stop at the mall because that would have been too close and it opens a slower battery charge, so instead, this suggested that I go all the way to Philadelphia and then charge and, you know, top off the battery a little bit there to get to the sheets in Carlisle, and those were the plans, that's what We ended up doing it and luckily now with iOS 16 on the iPhone they have integration with Maki so they will be able to read the car battery level with carplay and now they also have multi-stop routes so I was able to do that.

I ran the navigation tovia Apple Maps and was able to give me predictions on how much range I would have left and also suggests that same route as a better route planner, so it's pretty smart with its route and so they would actually use that. I was able to see, okay, here's how much battery I have left and it was nice to know that the maps worked with the car to monitor everything and make sure I was going to have enough range. to get to each of the stops and that was a really nice featureI'm so glad you know they were able to integrate that and I mean you know the timing was perfect because it literally came out a week ago and I was able to use it here and it worked pretty well although everyone Every time I got to a stop in Apple Maps, I got a little confused and sometimes had to reload the entire route and couldn't continue from where I stopped, so it's still a little not perfect.

It's buggy but it's still better than nothing and it's really nice to have that as the four pass feature wasn't working properly so anyway we hit the road on the way back and luckily the hands free feature was on working thanks to that software. update, so it was really nice to have it now. I still think it's not as good as a super cruiser Cadillac. I think the system is much better in many ways, but this was decent. You know, it was a little iffy with the lane location. the lane placement wasn't supernatural, I loved hugging 18-wheelers and stuff, so I'd actually take manual control and, you know, get a little further out of traffic and stuff, but it was certainly a bit of a pain. reduce fatigue and It's a little bit better to have than just the normal adaptive cruise control, but you know, it's nice to have.

Hopefully they will make some more improvements. They just announced that they will have an upgrade here in the coming months. better lane changing ability and better lane placement and all that kind of stuff so I'm sure the blue cruiser will improve but I wasn't in love with it here on the first trip we took here but anyway , the first load stop here in Philadelphia, you know, I was already starting with a 60 load, you know, it wasn't super fast, but it's still a decent load. Here I ended up getting over 80 kilowatts in there before it strangled me, but, again, just by the time we change the baby's diaper, grab all that stuff and are ready to go, the car was already ready to go before that for us, every time all these loads stopped, the car was always ready to leave before us.

It wasn't an inconvenience, it didn't take any longer than any gas engine stop we would have done just because of our circumstances again, not everyone has babies and you know everyone wants to do these power trips, but I mean, you can see that it does too. were. Pretty cheap too, so I mean it was again, you know, a pretty short charge there, you know, from 60 to 87 again. I would have left earlier if someone had been waiting, but luckily you know we were able to have lunch there and get a nice big meal. The battery is topped off there, uh, before you hit the road again, but by the way, you know all these charging stops were super cheap, even if I had paid for them, they were free because of this maintenance that the electrical fire that States United is doing on the grid so Completely free to drive on this road trip which is awesome but even if we had to pay it was like even the biggest loaded stops were like 10 bucks so I mean You'll save a lot of money on gas if you're on the road.

You stumble upon one of these things and you're willing to deal with the slight inconvenience of having to stop for a little longer, which again in our case wasn't an inconvenience at all, so we got to the second stop anyway. charge here and Carlisle, once again, it's the same charger as last time and you know it works perfectly and this one, you know, goes pretty fast, but I was a little disappointed with the charging speed of this one because 29 should still be maxing out. of over 100 kilowatts and yet, You know, I'm sitting at 83. So that's another thing, even if your car can accept super fast charging, it doesn't always mean you'll get that super fast charge, sometimes chargers just they can put out a certain amount, it just depends on a million different factors the weather the temperature of the battery in the car the temperature outside you know, the air I mean there's a million variables so you know those advertising rates I think you know that they're a little bit misleading, but you know Keep in mind that that's an ideal number, you know, but I mean, here's another eight dollar stop to make that load there, um, and it was a nice big part that, as you know , recovered and then we hit the road again and enjoyed the beautiful views. here on the pennsylvania turnpike, it's really nice to drive on the turnpike if you've never done it before, it's not cheap with the tolls these days, but you know, it's a really nice road to drive on with speed limits tall and nice and all that, etc. the last load stopped charging at Bedford once again, that same charger was not available and there were other cars there waiting so this wasn't ideal as I ended up having to sit there and wait, luckily as conditions were there were two cars ready. leave shortly after we arrived so we only had to sit for about five or ten minutes before we could grab one of those chargers after someone left and you know, slide in there and start charging and like a nice quick charge too As you can see, we ended up getting over 100 kilowatts for charging speed, so that was fine, but that, again, just shows the limitations of knowing if one of these chargers isn't working.

I have three Chargers and a lot of people on road trips. This was also around rush hour on a Friday, so, you know, maybe it's a little busier than if we did a weekend trip or something, but you know, it just illustrates like, you know, if these Chargers aren't always going to be 100 functional all the time, so you want to make sure you have a lot of them available, so you know I'd love to see Electrify America charging more than four. stations you know, maybe add a few more, just give yourself a little bit of cushioning or just improve the reliability so these things never fall off, you know, and that way you'll never have these worries, but anyway, you know, everyone They were very friendly on that graph by the way, people were just hanging out and talking and, uh, one guy was even calling Electrify America to try to fix that other charger, but you know no luck, it just wasn't being fixed for whatever reason and then once again you know it was another stop where we basically did all the usual things, go to the bathroom, have a snack, have a drink, change the baby's diaper, feed the baby and then you know what we're back. the car and the car were basically ready to go and, you know, there were no inconveniences, so I think overall my real takeaway is that, in our experience, it was no more inconvenient than a gas stop.

I think a lot of people, yes, actually, you were supposed to press a stopwatch from the moment you pull up to a gas pump and time how long it takes you to pump gas and then go to the convenience store, grab a snack, grab a drink, go to the bathroom. stand in line at the register and then go back out, you know you'll be surprised how long that actually takes and every time you say, oh man, it'll take you 20 minutes to load the car if you plan it right, you know, and you plan around it of lunch.

Stops and stops for snacks and bathroom breaks, um, it's really not going to be much more inconvenient as long as the loads are functional and there aren't too many other people on them, those are the only two unpredictable things you can never really predict. which you can definitely use the Plug Share app which certainly helps you eliminate some of the less reliable uh stations or you know, let you know if you see that there's a charger that's not working ahead of time, but other than that, you know. Those are really two unknowns, but you know it's something I certainly wouldn't hesitate to take another road trip in an electric vehicle again.

I think we're planning on, you know, doing more Maki road trips in the future. and I have every confidence that hopefully it will pass without incidents like this, but anyway I just wanted to give you guys a little insight because I see a lot of horror stories about, you know, oh, the Chargers never work on this. the infrastructure is not ready, this is a nightmare and all this, and you know, I've seen on the forums that that's not always true and a lot of people don't have problems on road trips and a lot of times you know people are using these chargers. every day to get where they need to go reliably, so I'm happy to be able to provide a counterpoint to all the negativity out there when it comes to charging infrastructure.

It worked really well for us, you know some of the other networks. It may not be as reliable, but Electrify America, other than it didn't work, you know it was really reliable, it always worked and you know it was a really good setup and anyway, that's our road trip in the drill, so Let me know in the comments below. what you think, you know the charging infrastructure and what a road trip in an electric vehicle is like, let me know if you have any experience of your own driving electric vehicles on road trips and know what it's like for you.

I certainly love hearing about everyone else's experiences, but overall I'm very happy to report that ours was a really good experience, thankfully, but anyway, thank you all so much for watching, I'll see you next time, take care.