need opinions

[Tim Jodice]

I want to buy a EV Focus for my drive to work. My drive is 61 miles each way I would have level 2 charger at home and work. I asked my local ford dealer if I could test drive it for a day to find out if it would make it with reserve. They let me take it and put 140 miles. This is how it went, picked it up at 5 Wednesday night with a full charge they told me level one charging would charge in 8 hours so I drove it around that night down to 40% charge. Plunged it in at 7. After reading the manual I realized that it takes 20 hours, knowing that I planed on stopping at the dealer in the morning for a 30 min charge on a level 2 charger. Made it to work with 5 miles to spare. All sounds bad but looking at the number on the trip odometer the drove took 14.7kw total and averaged 240wh/mile. It was about 50 outside heat on 68 the whole drive and averaged about 65 mph. Reading on here it seems most of you report 19.5 kw are available if so that means my drive I should have about 81 miles or a 20mile/25% reserve. What do you all think?

 

[v_traveller]

I think a dealer that lets a potential customer take a car home overnight and put 140 miles on it is awesome!

To me , your use case doesn't sound bad at all. If I were in your situation, I'd go ahead with getting the FFE if:

(1) there are alternate charging stations near your work, just in case the L2 EVSEs at work are out of service or fully utilized or ICEd out. I have a couple of options that are walking distance, and several more that are within a few miles that I can charge up at before going home.

(2) if it doesn't get too cold in winter, which as you probably know, affects range. Lowest it gets where I am during commute hours is mid-30s, I don't notice any range degradation unless I turn the heater on.

Thanks for the test report! I average about 240 Wh/mi on my commute also (it's only about 80 miles round-trip).

 

[danholl]

If it gets really cold where you are you may have to drive with car heater off and the seat heater on to get your 60miles

 

[Tim Jodice]

I think a dealer that lets a potential customer take a car home overnight and put 140 miles on it is awesome!

To me , your use case doesn't sound bad at all. If I were in your situation, I'd go ahead with getting the FFE if:

(1) there are alternate charging stations near your work, just in case the L2 EVSEs at work are out of service or fully utilized or ICEd out. I have a couple of options that are walking distance, and several more that are within a few miles that I can charge up at before going home.



(2) if it doesn't get too cold in winter, which as you probably know, affects range. Lowest it gets where I am during commute hours is mid-30s, I don't notice any range degradation unless I turn the heater on.



Thanks for the test report! I average about 240 Wh/mi on my commute also (it's only about 80 miles round-trip).

1) I own the business, currently I am the only one who has an ev, if one of my guys bought one I would add another charger and if it fails there are 11 charging stations within a 2 mi circle.

2) The temp is about the same here, I will always precondition the car, hoping the 25% reserve will cover the real cold days.

 

[WattsUp]

Tim, your comments got included in the quote. You have to do a little editing with the

tags if you want to insert your comments between quoted text.

 

[Tim Jodice]

I think a dealer that lets a potential customer take a car home overnight and put 140 miles on it is awesome!

I told them I wanted to buy one but was not comfortable spending 30k only to find out it did not have the real world range (i. e. heat or A/C on 65-75 mph) I need. It was nice to find out that my driving yielded better than advertised range. To bad more dealers don't let qualified buyers drive them for a day. Range was the only thing stopping me from buying one. Thanks to them they got a sale and I have a new electric car, win win.

 

[WattsUp]

For a trip consisting entirely of freeway driving, anywhere above 60mph and you are going to start sacrificing nominal range. To achieve the full advertised range for a long freeway trip, you will need to maintain a speed of around 60 mph or less. Put another way, you need to keep the average energy usage close to 256 Wh/mile to achieve the advertised 76 miles of range on a full charge.

If you turn on A/C or heat for any significant portion of the trip, you will increase the average energy usage and correspondingly decrease the range by several miles to tens of miles.

All this advice is assuming level ground. If the trip is mostly uphill, expect range to be significantly curtailed (Wh/mi will be higher). On the other hand, if mostly downhill, expect a range boost (Wh/mi will be lower).

 

[hcsharp]

I think a dealer that lets a potential customer take a car home overnight and put 140 miles on it is awesome!

My dealer let me take the car overnight and we live 53 miles away. Between my wife and I we put at least 125 mi on the car before it was back in their hands. That was Twin State Ford in St. Johnsbury, VT. They were the only dealer I found that actually wanted to sell this car. I called at least 12 Ford dealers before I found them.

I can say you drive a lot easier than my wife does. Today she used 16.5kWh to drive 42 miles. I said "You don't need to drive 90 mph!!!" She said "I didn't. It would only go 84!" I hope she was joking but she really did use 16.5kWh to go 42 mi.

 

[jeffand]

I did check the weather conditions in NH. Because of the cold conditions in the winter I would recommend storing the car in a garage. This will help keep the cars battery warmer at night. You will need a level 2 charging station to be installed. Level 1 charging won't cut it. Driving the car in 10 degree weather can cut the range by up to 20%. If you don't plug the car in at night this drops in range even more during the winter.

I would also install the app on your cell phone or check out the web site for Charge point, and plug share. So you can form a plan for alternate charging locations just in case. This is a wise thing to do since on some cold days the range may be too close for comfort. This will help reduce any range anxiety by having a plan.

 

[Tim Jodice]

I did check the weather conditions in NH. Because of the cold conditions in the winter I would recommend storing the car in a garage. This will help keep the cars battery warmer at night. You will need a level 2 charging station to be installed. Level 1 charging won't cut it. Driving the car in 10 degree weather can cut the range by up to 20%. If you don't plug the car in at night this drops in range even more during the winter.

I would also install the app on your cell phone or check out the web site for Charge point, and plug share. So you can form a plan for alternate charging locations just in case. This is a wise thing to do since on some cold days the range may be too close for comfort. This will help reduce any range anxiety by having a plan.

I agree and planned on all of your suggestions,it will be parked in a heated garage at home on a level 2 charger every night because it will always need to be charged at night. Signed up at charge point according to them the biggest gap is 24 miles, personally if I was cutting it close I would drive 50 with the heat off rather than hanging out on a charger.

Questions:

Does the car automatically maintain optimum battery temperature when plugged in to a level two charger?

Is there such a setting that keeps the car ready at all times meaning keep the cabin and batteries at temp indefinitely?

 

[EVA]

Tim congratulations. You're on a great adventure.

The only thing I have experience with is remote starting, through the app, the website, or the key. The car will only stay on for 10 minutes. And it will try to maintain interior temperature to what you set the car before you turned it off.

The batteries do what they need to do automatically with level 2 charging.

Yeah - 110V would have never cut it for you on either end.

 

[jmueller065]

The only thing I have experience with is remote starting, through the app, the website, or the key. The car will only stay on for 10 minutes. And it will try to maintain interior temperature to what you set the car before you turned it off.

I think the number is 15 minutes--at least that is what the website and the App says when you remote start it (I haven't timed it).

In addition, on the left dash panel there are some settings you can play with to change the behavior of the HVAC system when remote starting (one of which is "maintain to last settings"; the other is "auto" which is what I leave mine set to).

 

[Tim Jodice]

All this advice is assuming level ground. If the trip is mostly uphill, expect range to be significantly curtailed (Wh/mi will be higher). On the other hand, if mostly downhill, expect a range boost (Wh/mi will be lower).

My house is at 200 feet work is 37. Is that going to make a big diffrence in range going home?

 

[v_traveller]

No, that shouldn't cause a big difference in range between back and forth. Just to give you a data point for the effect of elevation change on range:

My commute involves ~1200ft elevation loss to work, usually use 7-9 kWh, typically consume 190 Wh/mi. On the way home, it usually takes 9-11 kWh, usually consumed at the rate of around 290 Wh/mi. It all seems to wash out in the end... lifetime avg is 238 Wh/mi, which is what I would expect if I had a flat commute.

 

[michael]

Congratulations to you. You are pushing the envelope a little bit...no range anxiety for you!

As best I understand it, when the car is plugged into a level 2 charger, the battery thermal management system is in operation. In my area, sometimes it gets above 100 and the car tells me to plug in when stopped. While I believe, as other have said, that there is only a 15 minute precondition period, that should be plenty. The 160 foot elevation difference is of little consequence, based on my experience.

One very good thing about the FFE is that it (like other EV's) is quite consistent about energy consumption, given constant conditions. So you will learn what the car will and won't do. If you find yourself running low on energy, slow down and watch the reserve mileage start to increase. But DO have backup plans for charging in case of unanticipated issues. And if the weather is really bad, maybe occasionally you might take a regular car.

You can configure the display to the left of the speedo to show how much power is going into the climate system. The heater can be a really big consumer, so you might want to put that up and make sure you aren't wasting a lot of power there.

The first time I planned a 60 mile trip (Simi Valley to downtown Los Angeles and back home to West LA) late at night, I scouted out chargers that could be used. As it turned out, didn't need them, made it home just as the guess-o-meter predicted with plenty of reserve.

Have fun!

Have fun!

 

[WattsUp]

As best I understand it, when the car is plugged into a level 2 charger, the battery thermal management system is in operation.

And also when the car is turned on.

 

[Tim Jodice]

Congratulations to you. You are pushing the envelope a little bit...no range anxiety for you!

Have fun!

A little about me, in addition to repairing car and aircraft I also fly them. It is not unusual to takeoff with 5 hrs of fuel and plan for a 4 hr flight to have 20% reserve. If weather or something comes up land sooner than planed. That is my plan with this car, reading on this forum average person is reporting 80+/- range. Works out to a 20% margin. I have 3 level 2 chargers on my route, provided I don't do anything stupid (80 mph heat on full windows down) I don't see any reason I won't make it every time. If the temps are extreme then so will my driving ( 50 mph no climate control). Why? The money I currently spend on fuel driving a 1998 diesel Mercedes with 376,000 will make the payment on this focus. The bonus, I get the privilege to drive a new car and should have a a few years of low maintenance.

 

[Fluke]

I hate to always be the wet blanket on FFE range from a relatively cold location, but...

I pulled up the weather averages for Amherst, NH and compared them with my local conditions for the cold months of the year. Amherst looks to average 5 to 10 degrees F colder than KC during the winter months on both high and low averages. In KC, from late November through early March I don't see near 80 miles of actual range on a full charge. The GOM will show between 60 and 75 miles when the weather is cold. Actual driving miles will range from 50 to 60 miles. When it is very cold, I am lucky to go 50 miles travelling at 45mph and below. I don't generally use the FFE on the highway during the winter because the range goes even faster. These ranges are without using heat at all (window cracked open for defrosting) and only using seat heaters.

 

[michael]

I'm not surprised you're a pilot. I have been, too, and I look at things those terms. 10 miles reserve is more than 10%....if the vehicle is predictable, it works. If not, as you near your destination, you will have a better view of your position. And you don't need to worry about missed approaches.

One other thought....if I were you, I'd set the thing for value charging, ending shortly before your departure. Not only will this help to warm the battery, but it will minimize the time spent at full charge (which probably contributes to long-term battery degradation).

Please keep us posted as to your success when the weather cools off.

 

[Tim Jodice]

I hate to always be the wet blanket on FFE range from a relatively cold location, but...

I pulled up the weather averages for Amherst, NH and compared them with my local conditions for the cold months of the year. Amherst looks to average 5 to 10 degrees F colder than KC during the winter months on both high and low averages. In KC, from late November through early March I don't see near 80 miles of actual range on a full charge. The GOM will show between 60 and 75 miles when the weather is cold. Actual driving miles will range from 50 to 60 miles. When it is very cold, I am lucky to go 50 miles travelling at 45mph and below. I don't generally use the FFE on the highway during the winter because the range goes even faster. These ranges are without using heat at all (window cracked open for defrosting) and only using seat heaters.

How often do you drive the car and when is it plunged in? Reading here I think I have an ideal mission for this car because:
It will be parked in a heated garage at night plugged in level 2 charger no cold soaking and battery topped up. Taken out of the garage driven for an hour, everything at temp so the power needed is to maintain temp and drive. Plugged in level 2 charger at work all day outside. My understanding is that the battery maintains temp when on a level 2 charger. Last, When it is cold out I will put the heat on Hi heat soak the cabin before unplugging.

Raised another question, do I want a black car to help against the cold? I am a Windows down guy in the summer and if I understand all of the other posts it takes more to heat than cool. So, it it better to get "free" heat in the winter an have higher cooling needs in the summer?