I just returned from a week long roadtrip and, what a miracle, had very few charging failures. In 15 charges I only had to restart a charger once, and that was even before I walked away from the car so it's hardly worth mentioning. The other 14 charges worked perfectly! Not a single payment hassle. I love it when minimum expectations are met! 7 of those charges were free (mostly L2). My trip took me through British Columbia and Washington state and a bit of Idaho. I used Flo, Chargepoint, Shell Recharge, Electrify America/Canada, EVGO and various L2.
Just finished a 2-1/2 day, 1,500 mile road trip in a Mustang Mach E Select standard range battery (230 mile EPA range, InsideEVs 0-100% test 226 miles at 70 MPH). Bluecruise and the ADAS features definitely helped reduce driving fatigue. I definitely was not as tired as I had been after a 1,200 mile road trip two years ago in a Ford Focus Electric (115 mile EPA range) with non-adaptive cruise control. With the Mach E range, every stop on this trip was made when we needed to take a driving break, with adequate SOC to reach a backup charging location(s), and we charged while we stopped. Our lowest arrival SOC was 24%. I map out preferred charging stops and when possible, avoid problematic locations that I can identify based on status and comments in Plugshare. On this trip we had nine Electrify America CCS stops. Seven were Wal-MArts and the other two were in strip malls. Plug and charge worked at all but one, and all at or close to the max charging curve. Two locations had techs working when we were there. One four dispenser location was full (because two dispensers were down) after we plugged in. One eight dispenser location had two other EV's. One location had one other EV. We were the only EV at the other four locations, including two on a stretch with long gaps. Four Chargepoint CCS stops using the RFID card and all sessions initiated in about five seconds. Also we were the only EV so we got 70-75 kW max power at three 62.5 kW shared locations, which were power company locations. Three were truck stops and one was a city hall in a small downtown. One truck stop location had a tech arrive as we left. Two Shell Recharge CCS stops at grocery stores, also power company locations. One was 70-75 kW max on a 200A 150 kW unit, and one was 40 kW on a 100A 50 kW unit. One Hampton Inn hotel stop with two SemaConnect L2 where we charged overnight. My first time using Semaconnect. The ability to charge at the hotel was a pleasant surprise as the location was not shown on Plugshare, so a mental note to check their website for locations on the next trip. The other night we had a good SOC at arrival so did not need to charge. In the last six months I also took two different 1,600 miles round trip solo trips with similar charging experiences. On one of those trips I did encounter one full Electrify America location.
