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Discussion starter · #21 ·
The problem is that many of those locations are NOT high volt DC; I realized the same thing researching here in new jersey. As an everyday driver a BEV is a great option, but you really need to keep an ICE for longer trips.
Yep. If doing an overnight hotel stay, a Level 2 near the hotel would be useful. But not otherwise.
Or rent a car for long trips, unless you have lots of them.
Exactly. I almost mentioned that. Although in our case we'll still own an ICE vehicle.

But if one is going through this same thought process as we are about getting the $5000 ERB or not, but they don't own a 2nd (ICE) vehicle, the $5000 savings more than pays for a bunch of car rentals.
 
Did some more research for realistic range at long-drive highway speeds. That's all I'm really concerned with, since around-home driving is a non-issue. I can easily fully recharge every night at home with Ford's included 22 miles/hr 220v charger, so the MPkWh for around-town driving is totally irrelevant from a range standpoint.

What matters from a range-standpoint is high speed highway range. Tom's comments above about MPkWh dropping precipitously at high speeds look spot-on. I watched one guy's video where he drove his Bolt at 75 MPH with the A/C on. He was showing 3.2 MPkWh during that. This site shows normal average for the Bolt of 3.97...

I regularly got 4.5 miles/kWh in my bolt driving at "legal" highway speed of 65. Around the rural roads here at 50-55mph I could edge up to about 4.7 miles/kWh. Another problem is that it is so damn hard not to love mashing the pedal down and feeling that torque right off the line instead of the delay for a ICE to get up in rpm.
 
if one is going through this same thought process as we are about getting the $5000 ERB or not, but they don't own a 2nd (ICE) vehicle, the $5000 savings more than pays for a bunch of car rentals.
Not necessarily. The weekly rental for a full size car is about $180 using my employer's discount code for leisure travel through Enterprise or Avis. Both have locations within 10 miles of me (and one of them would even pick me up!). So that's about 25+ one week trips to get to $5k. Not to mention:
  • EV charging stops still required for ER vehicle, perhaps less numerous than SR, but maybe longer duration. (Charging curves not known yet for Mach-E.)
  • Ownership of additional vehicle requires additional storage, maintenance, licensing, tax, and insurance.
 
Discussion starter · #24 ·
That lack of delay is what I'm most looking forward to in driving an EV. That has always been an annoying byproduct of most ICE vehicles I've owned.

It is interesting how much the MPkWh seems to vary from driver to driver. The guy in the video noted that having the A/C on was probably responsible for 0.3 of that. But I wanted to include that because I know I'm not gonna compromise the way I'll use the vehicle just to try and eke out a little more range. I know for some EV enthusiasts that becomes almost a game. Which is fine if one is into that, but I know I would quickly tire of compromising, and just want the comfort and convenience and non-compromise that I expect in a $60,000 vehicle. ?
 
Discussion starter · #25 · (Edited)
Not necessarily. The weekly rental for a full size car is about $180 using my employer's discount code for leisure travel through Enterprise or Avis. Both have locations within 10 miles of me (and one of them would even pick me up!). So that's about 25+ one week trips to get to $5k. Not to mention:
  • EV charging stops still required for ER vehicle, perhaps less numerous than SR, but maybe longer duration. (Charging curves not known yet for Mach-E.)
  • Ownership of additional vehicle requires additional storage, maintenance, licensing, tax, and insurance.
We're saying the same thing. I meant we'd still save money by NOT paying the $5000 for the extended-range battery even if we end up paying for some occasional car rentals along the way.

And yeah, those extra charging stops (vs ICE) are one of the biggies. Turning a 1-day 11 hour drive into a 2-day 16 hour drive just to be a slave to recharging isn't gonna cut it for me. Some might not mind that, but I would. When I can just drive an ICE vehicle instead.
 
We obviously don't know the real world range yet but...

One other thing to consider is where you live. In really cold weather, my understanding is you can lose ~30% of your range. I'm not sure if that's just due to the battery being cold or because of the anticipated extra power for heating the cabin. That would put the RWD Premium range from 230 mi to 161 mi. I'm also assuming that the ranges they quote are for a 100% charged battery, I know the recommend keeping your battery less than 100% charged unless you really need that. In that case, if your battery was only 90% charged the standard range in the winter is down to 145 mi. You'd probably charge 100% if you are anticipating a long drive, but you never know.

The above is probably worst case, but I'm just trying to play devil's advocate, I am planning to keep mine for the long haul and will probably go for the long range for those reasons plus some anticipated battery degradation of a couple percent a year. I probably will only take it on 1-2 trips a year where I'll have to charge on the road, but an extra 70 miles of driving is basically an extra hour without having to stop to charge.
 
I was in between the two until I tried few scenarios in abetterrouteplanner.com (that now includes Mach-E) to quickly come into the conclusion that ER is the way to go and even then I’m truly hoping Ford was conservative with the original specs. My real world use case: 90-10 actual battery usability, -10F, snow/wind, +10% speed limit -> 160miles real range with AWD, LR without stopping for charging.
 
I've checked several owner's manuals (Model 3, Focus Electric, Ioniq EV, and Kona EV) for high voltage battery charge recommendations. None of them recommend against a 100% charge when using AC level 1 or 2 charging at home. In some cases for DC level 2 (aka DCFC, Supercharger, "level 3") they advise that charging automatically may slow down after 80% as part of the car's built in battery management system.

All I'm saying is that the engineers have built sophisticated battery management systems for electric vehicles. Apparently, part of their implementation is to not charge to 100% internally, even though externally they'll scale their actual min/max charge so that it displays in the range of 0 to 100 to the driver. So no need for us to stop charging before "full."
 
Discussion starter · #29 ·
We obviously don't know the real world range yet but...

One other thing to consider is where you live. In really cold weather, my understanding is you can lose ~30% of your range. I'm not sure if that's just due to the battery being cold or because of the anticipated extra power for heating the cabin. That would put the RWD Premium range from 230 mi to 161 mi. I'm also assuming that the ranges they quote are for a 100% charged battery, I know the recommend keeping your battery less than 100% charged unless you really need that. In that case, if your battery was only 90% charged the standard range in the winter is down to 145 mi. You'd probably charge 100% if you are anticipating a long drive, but you never know.

The above is probably worst case, but I'm just trying to play devil's advocate, I am planning to keep mine for the long haul and will probably go for the long range for those reasons plus some anticipated battery degradation of a couple percent a year. I probably will only take it on 1-2 trips a year where I'll have to charge on the road, but an extra 70 miles of driving is basically an extra hour without having to stop to charge.
Yeah I keep coming back to that too. The "just in case" scenario. I'm coming to the conclusion that we'll just plan to drive an ICE vehicle on long trips. But I'm in the same boat as you... If I do buy this, it will be a "lifetime" car for me. Hope to get 20 years out of it. Only get the chance to spec it once, and 5 years down the road I don't want to regret not getting the bigger battery (even at a pricey $5000).

I also wonder if the batteries have the capability to be charged at higher than 150kW? Is that an artificial limit or a technical one where the batteries simply can't handle more (safely)? If these batteries could be "opened up" with a software update in couple of years to handle EA's 350hW charging (cutting charging time from 45 minutes to 15-20), that dramatically changes the parameters and makes the extended battery more useful for potential longer (or semi-long) drives.
 
My brother has a Tesla Model S and a 2008 Mercedes S550. I have a lot of experience with both. For road trips, using the S550 over the Model S is a no-brainer, for all of the reasons discussed above. But in addition, the S550 is quieter.
 
Discussion starter · #31 ·
I was in between the two until I tried few scenarios in abetterrouteplanner.com (that now includes Mach-E) to quickly come into the conclusion that ER is the way to go and even then I’m truly hoping Ford was conservative with the original specs. My real world use case: 90-10 actual battery usability, -10F, snow/wind, +10% speed limit -> 160miles real range with AWD, LR without stopping for charging.
Totally agree that if one expects to use it on long (public charging required) trips, the extended battery is a must. I've just been going back and forth trying to decide whether it's even worth trying very long trips at all, even with the ERB. And if the answer is No, I might not need the ERB at all.

I had spec'd my pre-order for RWD ERB, thinking that I wanted maximum range. But even at that, practical range at 75 MPH between recharge stops looks like 200 miles on the initial full home charge, and maybe 175 between public charges. Pretty sure I'd just drive an ICE vehicle (our 2nd car or a rental) instead of doing that. So now I'm gotta switch to the ADW (even though that drops range another 10%). Still muling over the ERB or not.
 
I also wonder if the batteries have the capability to be charged at higher than 150kW? Is that an artificial limit or a technical one where the batteries simply can't handle more (safely)?
I suspect the limits are set such that the car can manage battery temperatures during the charge. They don't want them too hot (or too cold) during charging.

What I don't understand is why the Select trim is limited to 115 kW while the others all say 150 kW. I'm wondering if it's because the Select trim doesn't offer an ER battery option, and perhaps all of the SR options are actually limited to 115 kW on the Mach-E even though this isn't spelled out in the specs sheet?

BTW, the EV owner's manuals that I've checked, across brands including Tesla, mention that regular use of DC fast charging may reduce longevity of the battery. It should only be used when needed for road trips.
 
According to Ford's reservation page, the AWD standard range is rated for 255 hp, and the AWD extended range is rated for 332 hp. If correct, that's a 30% power increase for maybe a 10% weight increase. The RWD also shows a power increase between standard and extended range. Either the extended range comes with bigger motors or the larger battery can just feed more current to the motors. I don't plan to take the Mach-E on long trips so the range difference isn't that important to me, but the power difference should be noticeable at highway speeds. That's why I reserved the AWD extended range.
 
If the Mach-E is merely your city runabout car, stick with the standard range pack and get the AWD. You won't really notice the 20 mile reduction in range with AWD but you'll appreciate the power/torque over the RWD. If the Mach-E is your primary/only car then by all means get the bigger battery.

Software changes but hardware is forever.
 
The one thing that will make me cancel my Mustang Mach-E order is if between now and delivery, Tesla announces a 400mi Model Y for the same price. At that point, the Mach-E is basically DOA.
Ford has got to be sandbagging the performance/range of the Mach E. The 2017 Ford CMax is capable of around 5 miles range per KW usage shown in the photo:
319

so If you think a 100 kWh Tesla battery pack will obtain 400 miles range in the model Y, then the Ford Mach E should do even better.
 
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