Charge Depleted

Yup, happened on my FFE's maiden voyage, 78 mile RT commute to work, 1200ft elevation loss/gain, stop-and-go freeway traffic for about 30% of the trip. Did not intend to go round-trip on a single charge, but I thought my chargepoint account was set up for the charging station at work, and it wasn't. Fortunately I elected to freeze my extremities on the way down to work, so I had well over 60% of charge left, which the FFE translated to 62 miles, to get me back home.

Well, that wasn't enough for a 38 mile, 1200ft elevation gain. But, damn-the-torpedoes idiot that I am, I opted out of every opportunity to stop for a quick jolt at a free charger or blink station along the way. Heck, I even thought I was going to make it when FFE was telling me I had a mile of charge left with 7 miles to go. Stupid, in hindsight.

Then it happened. "Charge depleted, pull over safely". I feel a chill down my spine, and it wasn't because all life support systems were shut down for the entire trip. I was still 4 miles from home, going uphill before a final descent into the valley.

I slowed down from 50-55 to 35-40mph, semis blowing by me as I crawled up the truck bypass. Went about a mile more until the charge was really depleted. The crest of the hill was within sight, but my speed was gradually falling... 25.. 20... 10... 5... I thought we were on the downhill side by now, but it must have been an optical illusion... we were moving, at a leisurely walking speed, but the speedo needle was on zero... I got religious for a moment... speed finally started picking up after we really crested the hill, got to about 15 when I lightly braked, maintaining 15-20mph all the way down in hopes that we'd generate enough energy to drive home. No such luck - still had zero range at the bottom of the hill, so I pulled into a park and ride area and shut down, making sure the FFE was positioned for a quick tow hookup.

So now I know - charge depleted means, well, that the charge is depleted. Got maybe a mile or three to go. No "reserve" like in most ICE cars - which I've taken 20-30 miles on fumes a number of times.

Also - Ford Roadside assistance works well, very courteous, and perhaps even expecting your call...

"Ford or Lincoln?" she asked.
"Ford, a Focus Electric".
"Aww, did you run out of charge?".
"Yup."
"Don't worry honey, that's why were here".

Suddenly I felt better about this sorry situation I've inflicted on myself. In fact, if I wasn't happily married, I'd have asked her out for a cup of coffee or something.

How many kWh's did the FFE show as used?

Doh!

Hopefully you'll only do that once. I believe you can call Chargepoint on the phone and work through issues like that while you're in front of their EVSE. In fact, I believe they will turn on an EVSE for you even if you don't have an account, with just a credit card.

People complain about the range estimation abilities of EV's, but truthfully, ICE cars are probably worse at it, and the fuel gauges in ICE cars tend to not be very accurate. Like you, I've run on fumes many times, but I've never run out of gas.

You'll get better at estimating range in time. You should eventually be able to do it better than your car can.

Thanks for sharing your anecdote. I'll keep it in mind when I get my EV.

Were you using the navigation system for this trip?

Was Ford able to tow you to your home?

jcjj said:

How many kWh's did the FFE show as used?

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Funny you should ask... I didn't find out that the trip meter collected kWh used until a few days ago when I decided to use it, so I don't have actual data from that feature.

However, I expected the data from my charge-depleted trip to be captured in the myfordmobile trip log, but it wasn't for some reason. All other "trips" earlier that day were captured for a total of ~9.2kWh, but that's only half the story, at most. It also captured a separate "trip" for that one mile after I crested the hill and started to regen going downhill - the trip log says 0kWh used, Wh/mile wasn't calculated (showed two dashes), and 3 miles were gained from regen.

So I figured that the myfordmobile charge log might be able to tell us how much energy was recharged when I got home, but the charge log seemed corrupted - Trip occurred on Tuesday 2/5, but the charge log shows that the FFE was charging between Sunday afternoon through Thursday morning, for 3 days and 15 hours. I'm thinking that the charge depletion event honked up something. Fortunately, all subsequent data after that strange recharge log entry seems to be intact.

I'll post a screen capture of this once I figure out how to do that in this forum... Anyone know the best way to report bugs like this to Ford?

In short, I don't have an exact answer as to the kWh used. But if I had to guess... I'd say 9.2kWh (from trips recorded) + 11.7kWh (avg consumption on same trip home, six data points so far) - 1kWh (since I was about 3 miles from home before charge depleted) = 19.9 kWh.

Parzival said:

I believe you can call Chargepoint on the phone and work through issues like that while you're in front of their EVSE. In fact, I believe they will turn on an EVSE for you even if you don't have an account, with just a credit card.

Click to expand...

That's what chargepoint told me on that Monday, so I embarked on our maiden voyage on Tuesday. I got to the private charger at work, made the phone call, and the rep said that they can't turn on a private station until I get my RFID card.

On Wednesday I called them back to see when my stinkin' card is coming (I might have been a little ticked off that morning after), that rep said I'd be all set if I just installed their mobile app, and then called them when I got to the station. So I did that, then I drove to work on Thursday, parked at the private station, started up the app, made the call. Still no dice - that rep said that I had to create a new account using the mobile app, then deposit another $25 into that account. So I did that, and the mobile app created a "virtual" card, and I was able to start the station from my Android - no phone call necessary. I charged up the FFE and made it home that day (woohoo!). Been thoroughly happy with chargepoint since then.

Parzival said:

People complain about the range estimation abilities of EV's, but truthfully, ICE cars are probably worse at it, and the fuel gauges in ICE cars tend to not be very accurate. Like you, I've run on fumes many times, but I've never run out of gas.

Click to expand...

Wow, you're much better at it than I am! I ran out of gas twice - once while coasting into an Arco station, and another time after I parked the car for the night... Didn't know that I ran out of gas until I tried to start it the next morning.

Parzival said:

Were you using the navigation system for this trip?

Was Ford able to tow you to your home?

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Yes, and Yes. ETA for the tow was one hour, ended up taking two hours for the flatbed to show up. In my experience, that's par for the course - previous experience with AAA around here had me waiting about that long. I was happy that they sent a flatbed - used a few minutes of my two hours in solitary confinement to RTFM - the manual says we must be towed by a flatbed or wheel lift, said that being towed by a slingbelt is "not approved".

v_traveller said:

In short, I don't have an exact answer as to the kWh used. But if I had to guess... I'd say 9.2kWh (from trips recorded) + 11.7kWh (avg consumption on same trip home, six data points so far) - 1kWh (since I was about 3 miles from home before charge depleted) = 19.9 kWh.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. Seems about right compared to others on this forum.
I am contacting Ford due to my 2013 only having about 16kWh of battery usable range.

I reset my Trip 1 after every charge. For me, the kWh's used is more useful than "miles" shown on Battery Meter.