Aaaand the "Mustang Mach-E" has been leaked

Keith Tanner said:

FYI, the latest Superchargers can pump in about 15 miles/minute. So that's 225 miles in 15 minutes. I expect the latest Electrify America stations aren't far off. 

Anyone know if the Ford will be associated with a specific charging network the way that Porsche (EA) or Tesla (Superchargers) are? Will Ford work to expand the charging network or will they count on the existing Level 2 stuff?

Electrify America is a big part of Ford's plan to have the largest charging network in the US.

if one has disciplined saving practices. EVs are much cheaper to "fuel", yes? Take the money saved and stash it for the occasional rental to travel. Much like hybrids, the $3-5k you'll save on gas over 7-10 years will usually cover replacement of the HV battery. But nobody ever does that.

z31maniac said:

Keith Tanner said:

FYI, the latest Superchargers can pump in about 15 miles/minute. So that's 225 miles in 15 minutes. I expect the latest Electrify America stations aren't far off. 

Anyone know if the Ford will be associated with a specific charging network the way that Porsche (EA) or Tesla (Superchargers) are? Will Ford work to expand the charging network or will they count on the existing Level 2 stuff?

Kind of off topic, but this got me thinking about "actual range." If I ordered a Tesla Model 3 Performance, 310 mile range. However, everything says the car wants to keep the batteries between 80% and 20% for longevitiy. 

So is the 310 mile range assuming lets say 100% battery down to 5%? 

Because I was thinking if that's the case, it seems a bit sheisty to advertise that, when the car only wants you to use 60% of that capacity. Staying within those parameters on the battery, drops the range to ~186.

I wonder how many people drive their cars to zero miles to empty or run them out of gas.

I myself only use about 70% of my gas before I fill up again. Even on road trips. 

They should have called it the Mustang Macher-E.

rslifkin said:

Keith Tanner said:

Can you quantify "fairly quick"?

I'm not sure I have an ICE that'll do 400 miles on a tank. Maybe the M5 because it has a huge tank. Interestingly, Mazda put a small tank in the ND Miata because it's so efficient. I'd say it has a realistic 325-350 miles of range.

Fairly quick would be 200+ miles of range in 10 - 15 minutes I think.  As in, not much slower than fueling up an ICE car.  As far as ICE car range goes, with a 22.5 gal tank, my E38 is good for an easy 400 miles on the highway with a comfortable reserve.  For an EV, the faster it charges and the more available charging stations are, the less range matters.  If it's got a bunch of range, then we can skip the technical hurdles of making it charge quickly without beating up the batteries, etc. as I'd never need it to charge all that fast.  

Do you not know that most gas pumps run at 10ga/min.  So 22.5 gallons = 2.25 min.  Which, to me, is considerably less than 10-15 min.  

And if you just need 200 miles, that's more like 8 gallons.  

BTW, when you run the math, if you are people are ok with a 10-20 min "fast charge" that gets you 200 miles, that's 20-40 min added to a 600 mile drive.  Which is very similar in reducing the speed limit well under 70mph.  But I bet nobody here would want to reduce the speed limit- that would waste too much time.

I find it interesting that time matters a lot when it comes to speed limit, but you can be flexible a lot when it comes to charging.  Time is time.

rob_lewis said:

Keith Tanner said:

If people start considering it legitimate to rent a long range vehicle for trips (ICE or EV) the way that they are willing to rent a hotel room for visiting family, range expectations will drop. 

Sure, for a trip, that might make sense.  But, now you're asking me to spend more $$ for an EV than a regular car AND have the added expense of renting a car for a trip.  Why not just buy a car that runs on gas (or hybrid) that does it all?

There are a BUNCH of factors that will need to be resolved for EV's to overtake an ICE.  I'm NOT against EV's, they just have a way to go to overtake fuel.

1. You need to be able to charge it as quickly as you can fill a gas tank.
2. You need to be able to charge it anywhere you can fill a gas tank <-- Huge point here
3. Range should be 150-200 miles.  Higher ranges only come up because of points 1 & 2.
4. It must replace my current ICE car totally.  I laugh when an EV enthusiast answer to longer range is, "Have a second car!"  Well, if my second car does everything the EV car does, why should I buy the EV?
5. Tesla's supercharging stations are cool.  There's 4 in Austin and the closest one to me (nowhere on my commute) is 7 miles (about 15 minutes) from my house.  Whereas there are about 9 gas stations within a mile.  Do I need 9 charging stations that close?  No.  One or two, however, would be as convenient.

-Rob

You're thinking about an EV the same way you think about an ICE. Why would you need a bunch of public chargers within 10 miles of your house when you can leave your house with a full battery everyday, and it costs less than a public charger? If you had a gas pump in your house that cost $0.40/gal less than the gas stations, how often would you go to the gas stations, and what density of gas stations would be "enough"?

The road trip complaints are valid, but there is a growing network of chargers that are often near high traffic roads, just like fueling stations are. And as Kieth said, high speed chargers are pretty fast already.

The people that worry about range on road trips are basically the same people that buy a massive truck to tow something a couple of times per year, or "just in case I need to help a buddy move" or whatever. It's entirely your prerogative to do that, but you're letting a fringe case dictate the purchase and that often compromises the experience the majority of the time you spend behind the wheel.

In reply to alfadriver :

Yes, a "good enough" charge time is slower than filling up an ICE car.  But unlike filling an ICE car, I can do other things while charging an EV.  So given enough range, I can plan my charging stops based on when I want to charge it more than "I have to stop that X charger because I'll be dangerously low by the next one".  And that means I can plan to make a charge stop at a point where I'd be stopping for food or something anyway (bathroom breaks aren't long enough for useful charging unless we can cut the plugging in and unplugging time to basically nothing, where a 3 minute / 30 - 40 mile charge might make sense if I'm stopping anyway).  

yupididit said:

z31maniac said:

Keith Tanner said:

FYI, the latest Superchargers can pump in about 15 miles/minute. So that's 225 miles in 15 minutes. I expect the latest Electrify America stations aren't far off. 

Anyone know if the Ford will be associated with a specific charging network the way that Porsche (EA) or Tesla (Superchargers) are? Will Ford work to expand the charging network or will they count on the existing Level 2 stuff?

Kind of off topic, but this got me thinking about "actual range." If I ordered a Tesla Model 3 Performance, 310 mile range. However, everything says the car wants to keep the batteries between 80% and 20% for longevitiy. 

So is the 310 mile range assuming lets say 100% battery down to 5%? 

Because I was thinking if that's the case, it seems a bit sheisty to advertise that, when the car only wants you to use 60% of that capacity. Staying within those parameters on the battery, drops the range to ~186.

I wonder how many people drive their cars to zero miles to empty or run them out of gas.

I myself only use about 70% of my gas before I fill up again. Even on road trips. 

But how often do you fill up to 3/4 of a tank, then refill again at 1/4 tank? That's pretty close to only wanting the battery to be between 80-20%

I fill up, then run it down below the 1/8 of a tank mark basically everytime. Sometimes until the gas light comes on. 

In reply to z31maniac :

I fill too half a tank then when it gets just under 1/2 I fill up again. But, yeah I'm that person who basically uses only 80% of their battery lol.

How often for me? Well if I only commute which is 7 miles total a day, 44 gallon tank, and 14mpg lol you do the math 

If I sold my excursion and bought a Prius with the cash I'd def save money. Now, if EV's were cheap like 5k then I could get one of those and never worry about gas again. I can't wait until Chevy Volts get that cheap. If I was looking to buy a new car to commute in the 50k range then a model3 or this would def be high on my list. 

alfadriver said:

rslifkin said:

Keith Tanner said:

Can you quantify "fairly quick"?

I'm not sure I have an ICE that'll do 400 miles on a tank. Maybe the M5 because it has a huge tank. Interestingly, Mazda put a small tank in the ND Miata because it's so efficient. I'd say it has a realistic 325-350 miles of range.

Fairly quick would be 200+ miles of range in 10 - 15 minutes I think.  As in, not much slower than fueling up an ICE car.  As far as ICE car range goes, with a 22.5 gal tank, my E38 is good for an easy 400 miles on the highway with a comfortable reserve.  For an EV, the faster it charges and the more available charging stations are, the less range matters.  If it's got a bunch of range, then we can skip the technical hurdles of making it charge quickly without beating up the batteries, etc. as I'd never need it to charge all that fast.  

Do you not know that most gas pumps run at 10ga/min.  So 22.5 gallons = 2.25 min.  Which, to me, is considerably less than 10-15 min.  

And if you just need 200 miles, that's more like 8 gallons.  

BTW, when you run the math, if you are people are ok with a 10-20 min "fast charge" that gets you 200 miles, that's 20-40 min added to a 600 mile drive.  Which is very similar in reducing the speed limit well under 70mph.  But I bet nobody here would want to reduce the speed limit- that would waste too much time.

I find it interesting that time matters a lot when it comes to speed limit, but you can be flexible a lot when it comes to charging.  Time is time.

And since time is time, and most EV owners will plug in at home, which conservatively takes less than 30 seconds, nearly all of that time spent on a stop at a fueling station is time that an EV owner doesn't have to spend. If an EV owner spends 30 seconds (slowly) plugging their car in once/week, how does that compare to the time spent driving into a fueling station, filling up, and leaving once per week?  Maybe 5 minutes total on average? More if you have to wait for a traffic signal or something to enter/exit the fueling station. That's all time that the EV driver doesn't have to spend in a daily driver situation.

For road trips, the ICE wins the time argument, but it's not a massive difference. For daily use, the EV does. So the total time argument really comes down to what you do more of.

rob_lewis said:

Keith Tanner said:

If people start considering it legitimate to rent a long range vehicle for trips (ICE or EV) the way that they are willing to rent a hotel room for visiting family, range expectations will drop. 

Sure, for a trip, that might make sense.  But, now you're asking me to spend more $$ for an EV than a regular car AND have the added expense of renting a car for a trip.  Why not just buy a car that runs on gas (or hybrid) that does it all?

-Rob

I think the question is how often do most people take long trips in their car?  Sure, many people do, but there are probably many more who never do (or do it very infrequently.)  If they're going somewhere far away, they fly instead. 

Heck, I don't own an EV but I've still rented cars the last couple times I went on long trips...when considering the wear and tear it would have put on my own car, I figured I was money ahead by doing so.  Another factor for me is since my car is 30+ years old, a rental will have modern conveniences like satellite radio, navigation, etc. that my car doesn't have.  Those things are nice on a long trip, but aren't a factor in my day to day activities so I don't normally care about them.

I heard some months ago there was going to be an electric Mustang, but i figured it would look like a Mustang.  This car, not so much.  Would making it into a pseudo-SUV it have to do with providing enough space to house the battery pack?

pointofdeparture said:

 

 

So Ford is going with a Tesla-inspired interior design here which might not be a great decision. Tesla is a technology company that sells cars. Ford is a car company that doesn't have a great track record with their infotainment systems. The Model Y is going to be a direct price competitor to the Mach-E. I wonder what Ford's plan is to make the technology powering that big screen competitive with Tesla's.

Man, I go out to lunch and an interesting discussion flares up :)

The range quoted by Tesla - and I assume, everyone else - is how far you can go with a 100% battery to the point where the car stops. It's like saying that a car gets 30 mpg and has a 15 gallon tank, so it has a range of 450 miles. Well, yes, sorta. But that's not how you actually use it, running to empty every time. 

You don't need charging stations near your house because you never charge near your house (yes, apartment dwellers and those who are electrically disadvantaged may think differently). So the distance to the nearest charge point isn't really all that important. Same with range, you can assume you'll start just about every trip with a full battery. As for time to plug in at home, in our case it's about as complex as walking around the back of the car (grab the charger handle, press a button, ram the charger home) versus walking around the front. My wife hates stopping at gas stations, she is not bothered one little bit by the daily plug-in routine.

I've told the story in another thread about my last trip to Vegas. I realized at the end of the day that my stops in the ICE coincided in both location and length to what I would have had to do in the EV. So the day where they're the same on road trips - assuming you're not peeing in an empty soda glass or something - is closer than you might think. The fact that you can legitimately do something else while the car is filling up is underemphasised. We have gone shopping, eaten dinner and had ice cream on some of our stops. Never have we sat in the car and waited for time to pass, whereas a gas stop is 100% down time.

The rental car scenario is, as I noted, one that will take a change in mindset. My favorite analogy is the hotel - I don't have enough room for everyone in my extended family to stay in my house if they come to visit. Instead of moving to a larger house, we can rent rooms in a hotel or in the AirBnB down the street. This is logical. So why not do the same with a car? Own a car that works for 95% of your use, and for the other 5% you rent something else? It's like renting a trailer when you need one, or renting tables for a party. Of course, this is like saying "why do you need a truck that can tow 40,000 lbs when you only have a landscape trailer", because we all know that the only answer is a truck that can carry any possible load at top speed across Vail pass :)

Interestingly, the "what if you get stuck in a blizzard" scenario was brought up to Janel as well by a coworker. It is apparently a big area of concern.

The software interface is going to become a real differentiator for the various EVs. Interesting to note that Ford hasn't gone "full Tesla", they did put an instrument cluser in front of the driver and there are more hardware buttons on display. The Model 3 is one extreme, I expect that most automakers will be closer to Ford's implementation. 

One last thought and I promise I'll stop :)

The Supercharger network really makes a difference to the EV road trip. If you were ping-ponging from Level 2 to Level 2 (25-30 miles per hour of charge), it would not be viable. I think all the EV makers realize this, and it's good to see that both Ford and Porsche are partnering with someone to bring an equivalent network online. It sure would be nice if it were completely standardized.

Call it a Taurus E and I might not hate it.

STM317 said:

alfadriver said:

rslifkin said:

Keith Tanner said:

Can you quantify "fairly quick"?

I'm not sure I have an ICE that'll do 400 miles on a tank. Maybe the M5 because it has a huge tank. Interestingly, Mazda put a small tank in the ND Miata because it's so efficient. I'd say it has a realistic 325-350 miles of range.

Fairly quick would be 200+ miles of range in 10 - 15 minutes I think.  As in, not much slower than fueling up an ICE car.  As far as ICE car range goes, with a 22.5 gal tank, my E38 is good for an easy 400 miles on the highway with a comfortable reserve.  For an EV, the faster it charges and the more available charging stations are, the less range matters.  If it's got a bunch of range, then we can skip the technical hurdles of making it charge quickly without beating up the batteries, etc. as I'd never need it to charge all that fast.  

Do you not know that most gas pumps run at 10ga/min.  So 22.5 gallons = 2.25 min.  Which, to me, is considerably less than 10-15 min.  

And if you just need 200 miles, that's more like 8 gallons.  

BTW, when you run the math, if you are people are ok with a 10-20 min "fast charge" that gets you 200 miles, that's 20-40 min added to a 600 mile drive.  Which is very similar in reducing the speed limit well under 70mph.  But I bet nobody here would want to reduce the speed limit- that would waste too much time.

I find it interesting that time matters a lot when it comes to speed limit, but you can be flexible a lot when it comes to charging.  Time is time.

And since time is time, and most EV owners will plug in at home, which conservatively takes less than 30 seconds, nearly all of that time spent on a stop at a fueling station is time that an EV owner doesn't have to spend. If an EV owner spends 30 seconds (slowly) plugging their car in once/week, how does that compare to the time spent driving into a fueling station, filling up, and leaving once per week?  Maybe 5 minutes total on average? More if you have to wait for a traffic signal or something to enter/exit the fueling station. That's all time that the EV driver doesn't have to spend in a daily driver situation.

For road trips, the ICE wins the time argument, but it's not a massive difference. For daily use, the EV does. So the total time argument really comes down to what you do more of.

No, they wont.  MOST people don't have a garage, some will have limited access to charging, many will have no access to charging- as they park on the street.  Unless we all spend a lot of money to install thousands and thousands of street chargers instead of parking meters.  And then hundreds of thousands more for streets that dont have parking meters.  Seems to me that if we really expect EV's to replace ICE's, we should all get out and see how other people than ourselves live.  Hint- it's not the same.

Keith Tanner said:

One last thought and I promise I'll stop :)

The Supercharger network really makes a difference to the EV road trip. If you were ping-ponging from Level 2 to Level 2 (25-30 miles per hour of charge), it would not be viable. I think all the EV makers realize this, and it's good to see that both Ford and Porsche are partnering with someone to bring an equivalent network online. It sure would be nice if it were completely standardized.

Just out of curiosity, how many cars can take this same road trip at the same time?  Noting that if they all leave at the same time, at some point, a car will have to wait for a car to fully charge.  Which happens all the time at gas stations.

Yes, and it happens at some charger stations as well. The same solution presents itself - either you have to wait, or you move on somewhere else, or someone builds another gas/charging station and takes the business.

I am enjoying picturing a large number of cars on the identical road trip and schedule all descending on a gas station simultaneously, then all clearing out and leaving a ghost town behind until the next mass migration.

Having a Yaris and an Echo as our cars we just get things like a 20 foot 2x8 delivered, there's no need to buy or rent a pick up we just pay for someone else to the job it's cheaper in the long term. With regards to range and long trips is it about the journey or the destination? The  answer to that question might tell your range requirements

Keith Tanner said:

Yes, and it happens at some charger stations as well. The same solution presents itself - either you have to wait, or you move on somewhere else, or someone builds another gas/charging station and takes the business.

I am enjoying picturing a large number of cars on the identical road trip and schedule all descending on a gas station simultaneously, then all clearing out and leaving a ghost town behind until the next mass migration.

Well, I really can't recall the last time I was filling my car with gas and nobody else was there.  Including places that are clear road trip stations.  This will happen.  Maybe if fast foot places made a deal with the power grid, they can offer a bunch of chargers.  Would make more sense than having them all at gas stations.

I see four doors.

Not a Mustang.

alfadriver said:

Keith Tanner said:

Yes, and it happens at some charger stations as well. The same solution presents itself - either you have to wait, or you move on somewhere else, or someone builds another gas/charging station and takes the business.

I am enjoying picturing a large number of cars on the identical road trip and schedule all descending on a gas station simultaneously, then all clearing out and leaving a ghost town behind until the next mass migration.

Well, I really can't recall the last time I was filling my car with gas and nobody else was there.  Including places that are clear road trip stations.  This will happen.  Maybe if fast foot places made a deal with the power grid, they can offer a bunch of chargers.  Would make more sense than having them all at gas stations.

Not sure why you wouldn't expect anyone else to be there. The stations are sized accordingly - the one at Park Meadows mall in Denver is 5x as big as the one at Mesa Mall in Grand Junction. High traffic stops get more chargers, just like high traffic gas stations get more gas pumps. 

Now, the nature of rest stops might change into something that's a bit more of a destination. If you have the choice of stopping somewhere with a nice place to sit and a decent restaurant versus a sketchy looking convenience store, you will make that choice and the market will respond.

Keith, please don't stop.  This is a fun and interesting conversation.  I gotta state, again, that I'm not anti-EV.  There's a whole bunch of stuff I like about them.  Just trying to explain adoption or lack there of. 

As have been stated in several posts here, you'll need to change the mindset of the average consumer to adopt an EV right now.  Take the savings to rent a car for long trips, reroute trips a bit to find charging stations, add an expensive charger to your house, etc.  It can be tried, but it's a huge uphill battle.  When an EV can act like a car, people will buy them, plain and simple.  My example of 10 gas stations around my house was more to outline the availability of gas vs. a charging station as opposed to it being near my house.  Charging stations are coming, but they're still not as common as gas.  Looking at the Tesla charging map, I count 7 in Kansas if you don't count KC.  That's a lot of people without a charging station close.  Keith, you mentioned being able to drive to Vegas and have a charging station along the same stops as fuel. That's awesome and for you, an EV makes sense.  For a large part of the country, that's not possible. When someone like Ford and/or Exxon decide to invest up front and get the infrastructure in place first, EV adoption will increase. 

Again, some EV's, in theory, would satisfy my day to day needs for my commute.  But, they're more expensive to purchase, I'd have to pay for a 220v charger installed in the house and I'd have to plan for alternative transportation if I go beyond it's range. Plus, there are easy examples of range (a vacation) that can be overcome by renting, but there are others that you don't plan for, because stuff happens, where you could expend that range and be stuck.  I live in Texas.  We grew out instead of up.  A commute back and forth to work, a run to the mall, or a doctor's appointment on the other side of town in the middle of the day could leave me stranded.  Or, a commute to work, a trip back to my kids school because he forgot his meds and then a trip back to work and eventually a trip home for the day would have me out of juice.  No charging stations anywhere in that route.

Given all of that, there's not a compelling argument for purchasing one over an ICE car.  Hybrids have come far enough (and cheap enough in comparison) to make it a compelling option and one I'm considering.  It's one more people are moving towards as hybrids become more mainstreams.  So, it's not the "fringe" scenarios or the "I need a one ton truck because sometimes I buy fertilizer at the store", it's the cost and other things that I have to do for an EV that I can just as easily do with gas while still with the real risk of being stranded.

-Rob