Road trip experiences

[whitgallman]

Just got back from Dad's, 76 miles each way (I-85 from Charlotte to Spartanburg). Going down I drove 60 mph mostly until I had above 4 miles surplus when I went to 65. I could only get a few surplus miles until I got to the top of Kings Mountain. Going down it I had 9-10 surplus miles. The AC was not on. The car's HVAC is automatic even with AC off. If it's 65F in the car it will turn the heat on if the temp knob is at 72F, killing some charge. Some women in a Mazda saw my "Out of gas and loving it!" message in the back window and gave me thumbs up as they passed.
I got to Dad's and plugged in with car showing only 1 mile of charge left and 10 surplus miles. (Schneider Level 2, 30+ amps 240V) I watched periodically and it seemed to add a mile a minute for the first half hour. The charge reached 84 miles in 2hrs-45 minutes, about 2 minutes a mile. A friend of Dad's from down the street drove it and admitted it rode as smooth as his Cadi and had plenty of pep.
On the way back I started with 84 miles range, ran 65mph (seems equally as efficient as 60) only getting a couple of surplus miles until I crossed the mountain and then got about 12 surplus. Once over the mountain, I ran the AC some, 3 fan notches. I got home with zero range left, yellow warning light on stating I needed to charge and only the 10 miles surplus left.
Made it home at 4:45 PM and plugged in. In the first hour of charging since plugging in after the yellow warning light, I’ve picked up 35 miles.
It reached 50%, 40 miles in 75 minutes. But it took until 10:30 PM for the battery to fully charge.
Anybody notice charging like that?
Whit

 

[KeiJidosha]

Just got back from Dad's, 76 miles each way (I-85 from Charlotte to Spartanburg)...
... Made it home at 4:45 PM and plugged in. In the first hour of charging since plugging in after the yellow warning light, I’ve picked up 35 miles. It reached 50%, 40 miles in 75 minutes. But it took until 10:30 PM for the battery to fully charge.
Anybody notice charging like that?
Whit

Sounds like you are enjoying your Focus Electric! Thanks for sharing your travels.

Regarding charging time, EVs will differ, but many will add miles more slowly the closer they are to full charge. Since you are the first with a Focus Electric, your experience will be very helpful to those of us planning to drive, or to buy their own Focus Electric.

My EV (also with a 6.6kW charger) would add range at ~1 mile per minute for the first 15 minutes or so, then would slow to 1 mile for every 3 minutes of charge. Above 90%, it would slow from ~3 minutes per mile to ~5 minutes per mile. When it read 100% it would continue to charge for another 45 minutes as the amps would slowly fall from 32 to about 6 as all the battery Cells would "balance". This would add another ~3kWh of charge or about 9 miles of range that did not show on the range meter.

What I found was that when the range ballooned up during that first 15 minutes charging, it would disappear just as fast when I started driving, meaning it was never really there. I learned to subtract about 10 miles from the range shown, unless the batteries got to balance that last 45 minutes.

But it is really your experience that is the most telling for Focus drivers. Please keep us updated on what you find.

 

[ElectricEV]

Hey Whit awesome Ford focus electric trip report. Keep them coming! One quick questions. On a promo video when I saw Letterman test driving the focus ev he mentioned a score was given to the driver based on energy consumption + maybe some other variables. Does the driver get a score? What was yours on this drive? Love the fact that you got a thumbs up while driving

 

[whitgallman]

the "MyFordMobile.com" web site has a scale labeled "Zippy to Zen" with 5 notches. I'm 4/5ths ZEN.
I keep thinking that gas car fuel economy techniques apply, but they may not. I would love to see a 'torque curve' or efficiency vs rpm curve for the motor so I can gauge where to operate. The drag coeficient for the car would be interesting too.

 

[blavenn]

Hey Whit first of all thanks for sharing all your experiences thus far but the only thing that bothers me is what you stated with the HVAC system always being on. Maybe on your next trip could you test it by pushing the power button off on the AC controls and see if that makes some difference? Some Leaf owners are able to get over 120 miles. We gotta try and set the bar higher than them heheh

 

[ehelmholtz]

I'm confused by what's meant by 0 miles range left but 10 miles of surplus left. Aren't estimated miles all the same? - at least they are on the LEAF.

 

[KeiJidosha]

I'm confused by what's meant by 0 miles range left but 10 miles of surplus left. Aren't estimated miles all the same? - at least they are on the LEAF.

From the Owners Manual;

"Budget Text — Shows the distance to your next charge point and the surplus distance available, or your budget and status if you didn’t identify a charge point through the navigation system.

Budget Text View: contains basic information to help you reach your next charging destination or to achieve your vehicle range estimate.
Charge pt: is the distance remaining to the next charge point you identified using the Navigation system.
Surplus: is the available range beyond your identified charge point (current Range Estimate shown on Battery Gauge minus Charge pt distance).

If you don’t enter a charge point, you will see:
Budget: is set to the Range Estimate at the point of departure. This will count down with the odometer.
Status: is your performance against your Budget (current Range Estimate shown on Battery Gauge minus Budget distance). A positive Status indicates you are using less energy than typical and have extended your Range Estimate by the distance shown."