Towed Home after Batt Drained

My wife has a 9.5 mile commute (RT 19 miles). She forgot to plug in one night this week. After less than 30 miles of driving the battery drained. The range estimate was 10 miles when she got in the car to come home. I told her to go for it. After about 2 miles range was 5 miles, another 2 miles, 0 range. I met her and charged the FFE on 110 for about an hour. Range was 4 miles I said hell with it and I drove the car home. Made it ~8 miles then died - the good old "Stop Safely Now." Towed the last 1.5 miles home.

I can live w the fact that I will never see the 100 mile advertised range. I can live w 60ish range. We all just need to know that when the range says 10 miles, we get 10 miles. Its super dangerous to have the car die bc the range estimate is bunk.

Please help me make some noise about this w Ford.

bev_la said:

I can live w the fact that I will never see the 100 mile advertised range.

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Um, the "advertised" range is the EPA-rated 76 miles.

Where did you see it advertised that the FFE would go 100 miles between charges? (It can, but only if you stick to speeds like 25-35 mph everywhere you drive.)

bev_la said:

Its super dangerous to have the car die bc the range estimate is bunk. Please help me make some noise about this w Ford.

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I find the FFE range estimate to work very well... it's far from "bunk".

But, there is a learning curve. If the car estimates "X miles" and then the range decreases much faster than expected when driving, it simply means you are using more energy than the car thought you would (based on previous driving patterns). If this happens, and you need that X miles of range, then you must do everything you can to reduce your Wh/mi energy usage. This might mean driving slower (perhaps a lot slower, and even switching to an alternate route so that it will be safe to do so). This might mean turning off the heat or A/C.

I'm sorry you got stuck in your FFE, but is it possible that..

* ...your wife attempted to drive home faster than normal? (Never a good idea if range is questionable... increased speed will only increase the Wh/mi energy needed, and invalidate the initial range estimate, if it was based on earlier driving at lower speeds.)
* ...she turned on the climate control? (Again, same effect... the car ends up using more energy than the range estimate was based on.)
* ...her commute from work is slightly uphill, compared to her commute to work? (This can cause the range estimate to become more "optimistic" due to the lower energy usage during the morning commute, and then later "over-promise" in some cases.)

But... admittedly, you were skirting danger with only 10 miles estimated and 10 miles to drive (regardless of any changes in elevation or driving style). I mean, replace the references to "electricity" in your above story with "gas" and it starts to sound a little silly for you to be faulting the car. Imagine the same 10-mile commute with only half a gallon of gas in the tank in an ICE car that gets 20 MPG, and you had said "go for it".

Good to know the "advertised" range is 76. For some reason I thought it was 100. When we picked up the FFE last June it had 100 mile range; most likely from modest test drives. BC my wife has a very known commute (~20 miles RT), we have never had "range anxiety" before. On a full charge we see between 65-76 range.

Still - maybe the point is lost here - the actual driven miles was 30. AC and heat were off at least for the last 10 miles. This was rush hr traffic surface streets. AND the range went from 10 to 0 in about 2 miles.

I WOULD drive my gas powered car 10 miles if the range was 10 miles (if I had to). I have 100% confidence in the estimate. I have no confidence in the FFE range estimate.

*Though after the 1 hr 110 charge. I was able to drive 8 miles on the 4 mile range. There is a bit of a reserve.

I posted earlier on a range issue. Has anyone experienced an issue after the SSN recall?

My Trip 2 is 3419 miles (since the car was new) -- 317 Wh/mi
My Trip 1 is 341 miles (last few weeks) - 289 Wh/mi

Seems my wife is earning her butterflies?

bev_la said:

Still - maybe the point is lost here - the actual driven miles was 30. AC and heat were off at least for the last 10 miles. This was rush hr traffic surface streets. AND the range went from 10 to 0 in about 2 miles.

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Two things. One, the heater will pull up to 10% of your expected range, so if you're trying to push any limits, don't use it at all. Two, many people ignore differences in altitude. In Southern California, you would do so at your peril. In any case, no matter where you live, take Google Earth and check the altitude at work and home to see if there is a difference. Just for the heck of it. You might be surprised. Even a modest elevation loss will give you an optimistic range because that is what the FFE expects to continue. If you then reverse course, that optimistic range is compounded because you now are going up that same hill.

My favorite example is traveling from the coast inland to my parents in Murietta, CA. The elevation gain is 1500 feet. The FFE just makes it at 68 mph for 65 miles, showing usually only 3 - 8 miles range left. The return trip usually shows 40 to 45 miles range remaining. (But the actual is about 20 to 25.)

It's unfortunate but estimating remaining range is a horribly tricky thing to do since Wh/mi varies greatly with even slight changes in grade, speed, temperature and driving style.

For all the flak that the "Guess-o-meter" gets I find it relatively accurate considering the difficult nature of the problem.

That is a sad story. I did a stupid trip with my son a number of months ago, I'll never make that mistake again (ended up with him getting a ride home with a buddy and me sitting at a mall charging the car). I was never stranded, and it managed to give a bunch of other dads a great joke to tell about my car.

There might be something else going on - you said the Stop Safely Now message showed up. That's different from running out of battery charge. There is another thread here (0 means 0) where the message is completely different, it was along the lines of battery depleted, not SSN. You might have a car problem, not a battery problem.

And, well, you probably learned something else - charging at 110V is not exactly a reasonable thing to do unless you have a lot of time, like many hours. You have to find a 220V station.

I'll disagree with you about the range estimates, the more we use the car and drive it in a consistent manner, the more accurate that estimate is. It runs exactly the same way with an ICE - that range estimate to empty can be wrong, you just don't recognize it because the miles are so much further over a much longer time period.

One person drives the FFE about 30 miles round trip every day. The range is almost always exactly the same pretty much no matter if there is some highway driving or stop and go. Yes I can see a difference in Wh/mi used on the way to work versus the way home (more aggressive driving at night, want to get home). That range includes running the heater around 62 degrees.

My son drives the car around town. He cranks the heater and he hits the accelerator hard, he doesn't care, he's only going short distances. The estimated range drops a good 5 to maybe 8 miles every time he drives the car. The next day, the regular person drives the car and we are back to normal right away.

The ICE - my son gets in and drives away, never lets the car warm up. My wife warms it up for a good 10 minutes before she leaves, she wants warm, the car sits outside. The range on that car drops significantly when she drives the car. Enough that my son notices.

Now in the ICE, if I reset the gas mileage, that range goes stupid far or stupid short depending if I let the car idle and drive hard or I drive carefully and coast a lot. The range goes all over the map.

Nobody knows when the FFE range resets or how much it weights driving habits. We can't manually reset it like you can an ICE. So of course the range estimate will be wrong if you drive the car differently. And it looks like the range is all wrong, when in reality all we are doing is using the car differently (it can't know that).

bev_la said:

I WOULD drive my gas powered car 10 miles if the range was 10 miles (if I had to). I have 100% confidence in the estimate. I have no confidence in the FFE range estimate.

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To be fair, your gas car's estimate probably has a built-in "buffer" of several (if not tens) of miles. In reality, this range estimate that you have "100% confidence in" is probably just as "bad" as the FFE's estimate, but there's a significant reserve to take up the slack for its "mistakes" (aka, failing to predict the future with complete accuracy).

Let's assume that "buffer" is 10 miles. That's all well and good for a gas car (where such a buffer requires only a fraction of a gallon of gasoline, with the tank holding many several), but providing for such a buffer in an EV is currently prohibitive. In the FFE, such a buffer would represent over 10% of the total nominal range! (Not to mention around $2000 of the vehicle's cost.) The reality of current (affordable) EV technology does not allow Ford, Nissan, or anyone else to "hide away" that much range "just in case" somebody pushes their car to the limit. Instead, they advertise the full range possible (emphasis on "possible"), using every watt-hour of energy available for propelling the car that can be stored in a very expensive battery.

In other words, gasoline cars can afford to be a bit "sloppy" estimating range because it is relatively cheap and easy to "hide away" some gasoline as a buffer (meaning, an empty tank isn't necessarily an empty tank), whereas EVs (currently) lay everything on the table (meaning, an empty battery really is an empty battery). You simply have to drive with this in mind.

But someday... batteries will be so cheap and powerful that it will make sense for EV range estimates to include a significant buffer too. Basically, EV range estimates will be able to become more sloppy. In fact, EVs may someday have so much stored energy available, we might no longer need to estimate range very precisely at all... and instead just provide some general indication of how close the battery is to being "full" or "empty". After all, that's how we did it for a long time (and many people still do) in gas cars... just an analog needle, vaguely indicating "how much energy" was left for driving.

Again, gas cars have it easy. They have gobs of stored energy. Consider this: If the FFE were a gas car, it would only be able to hold about three gallons of gasoline (assuming a typical 25 MPG). Try driving a gas car around day after day with only three gallons (or less) in the tank at any given moment. Even with an awesome range estimator, you're likely to get stranded if you don't watch the tank very carefully.

EVA said:

Nobody knows when the FFE range resets or how much it weights driving habits. We can't manually reset it like you can an ICE.

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No but we can have fun speculating: My speculation is that it resets at a full charge given the behavior I see.

WattsUp said:

Consider this: If the FFE were a gas car, it would only be able to hold about three gallons of gasoline (assuming a typical 25 MPG).

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We don't have to consider it because the FFE is available in a gas car. One that gets on average about 30 mpg (at least that is what our ICE Focus does on a tank of gas..a little higher if my wife is driving it! LOL).

jmueller065 said:

WattsUp said:

Consider this: If the FFE were a gas car, it would only be able to hold about three gallons of gasoline (assuming a typical 25 MPG).

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We don't have to consider it because the FFE is available in a gas car. One that gets on average about 30 mpg

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I meant if the FFE were a gas car with the existing FFE range. It would have gas tank with a capacity of about 3 gallons, along with (most) of the same "range" challenges found in the electric version. Point being, range anxiety isn't mainly a function of fuel type, but rather fuel storage.

I had a tow experience recently as well. 0 meant 0. As far as range goes, I don't know if it adjusts unless you use the same route every single day and never do anything different. I go to a local plaza and grocery store that is about 1.5 miles away. I charge up over there and usually hang out for about 2+ hours when I do. There is a bar, a whole foods, a playground for my kids, a restaurant and so on. So there are various options to charge and not just wait around in my car.

But my car has never adapted to me taking this route and I usually go to this place every other day. I will charge my car there and it'll say 80 miles of range. By the time I get home, regardless of route, I wind up with 65 miles. And it's a 1.5 mile drive. So really I lose 15 miles of range no matter how I go the 1.5 miles. And most of the time I try to keep my car under 35 MPH. So for me, I don't really believe the range at all because half the time I might go a mile and lose 15 miles for no other reason than a small incline or hill.

You always have to worry about range on the FFE. But you get to know your routes and car. I know that if I head over to the plaza with 10 miles left and don't charge it, I won't make it back home. And it's only a 1.5 mile trip home so you would figure 10 miles left you'd be set. But again, the car loses like 15 miles going 1.5 miles so you have to realize that's how it works sometimes.

pjam3 said:

I will charge my car there and it'll say 80 miles of range. By the time I get home, regardless of route, I wind up with 65 miles. And it's a 1.5 mile drive.

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There must be some significant elevation changes along your route, especially an uphill segment in the home direction?

WattsUp said:

pjam3 said:

I will charge my car there and it'll say 80 miles of range. By the time I get home, regardless of route, I wind up with 65 miles. And it's a 1.5 mile drive.

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There must be some significant elevation changes along your route, especially an uphill segment in the home direction?

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There is elevation and at first it kind of made me pissed, but I've learned to live with it. It sucks that this is the nearest charging station so it means -15 miles is where my max range will always be until I move or start my day off charging up 2+ hours and go someplace else. It's a slow incline and I've tried to go as slow as possible and even different routes, but it always winds up around the same -15. What sucks the most is coming the other way doesn't give me +15. More like +6.

pjam3 said:

There is elevation and at first it kind of made me pissed, but I've learned to live with it. It sucks that this is the nearest charging station so it means -15 miles is where my max range will always be until I move or start my day off charging up 2+ hours and go someplace else. It's a slow incline and I've tried to go as slow as possible and even different routes, but it always winds up around the same -15. What sucks the most is coming the other way doesn't give me +15. More like +6.

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How much of your battery percentage is used up getting from the plaza to the house? How much in kWh? That has got to be a pretty big hill, no? The fact that driving slower makes no difference in range drop suggests way more energy is being put to vertical climb than to pushing through air resistance. I'm glad I don't have any hills here. The biggest is a toll bridge which makes me use about 0.6 kWh getting up it at 50 mph and gives back 0.2 kWh on the way down.