Mustang Mach‑E Road Trip: Denver to Santa Fe

Mustang Mach‑E Road Trip: Denver to Santa Fe

Many first-time EV own­ers aren’t sure if road trips are doable in an elec­tric vehi­cle. They might have reser­va­tions about charg­ing time, where to stop, how to plan a route, and oth­er con­cerns. Patrick and Liv, YouTube vlog­gers who run the chan­nel Mach‑E Vlog, recent­ly pur­chased a Ford Mus­tang Mach‑E and took it on a road trip to San­ta Fe, New Mex­i­co. We spoke with them to hear about their expe­ri­ence with their new car and received some help­ful trav­el tips as well.

Patrick and Liz had been think­ing about buy­ing an elec­tric vehi­cle for a while, but decid­ed on the Mach‑E upon view­ing it at an auto show for the first time. They put in their reser­va­tion for the all-wheel dri­ve, extend­ed range mod­el the same day. They start­ed their YouTube chan­nel short­ly after and received their car on March 2nd, 2021, which they lov­ing­ly named the Elec­tric Blucifer.

The road trip began on Sat­ur­day, May 15, 2021. In prepa­ra­tion, they had planned their route using the car’s inter­nal plan­ner as well as A Bet­ter Route Plan­ner, an assist­ed plan­ning tool that allows you to map your route and choose from avail­able charg­ing sta­tions based on the spe­cif­ic range of your car’s make and mod­el. They left Den­ver with a full charge and arrived at Trinidad, Col­orado with 26%, charg­ing for 50 min­utes to get back up to 84%. Next was a stop at Wag­on Mound, New Mex­i­co where they only charged for 20 min­utes and arrived in San­ta Fe with a 35% charge. Patrick and Liv used DC fast-charg­ing sta­tions and not­ed that charg­ing was easy and pro­vid­ed them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to stretch their legs and get some food at con­ve­nient loca­tions along their route. Although they were not in a rush to get to San­ta Fe, they nev­er had to wait for charg­ing to be com­plet­ed — rather, the car was wait­ing for them because they often want­ed longer breaks. In addi­tion, the Elec­tric Blu­cifer enticed peo­ple to stop by and ask ques­tions at every stop, allow­ing Patrick and Liv the oppor­tu­ni­ty to speak about the ben­e­fits of an elec­tric vehi­cle while their car was juic­ing up. 

While in San­ta Fe, they were able to charge at a Lev­el 2 sta­tion in a park­ing garage down­town as they walked around. Despite tak­ing side trips around the San­ta Fe area, Patrick and Liv were nev­er wor­ried about their car’s range or the abil­i­ty to locate charg­ing sta­tions. Leav­ing for the Den­ver area on Tues­day, May 18, 2021, they stopped at Wag­on Mound, New Mex­i­co to charge for 20 min­utes, Trinidad for 25 min­utes, and an extra bonus stop in Foun­tain for 15 min­utes. Their dri­ving time to and from San­ta Fe was actu­al­ly no dif­fer­ent than pre­vi­ous road trips they’d tak­en in a gas-pow­ered car. Both trips aver­aged around 7.5 hours includ­ing pit stops for the bath­room, lunch, leisure and fuel­ing up. Patrick and Liv found it eas­i­er to road trip in their Mach‑E because of the dri­ving assist fea­ture which made the dri­ve itself more pleas­ant. In addi­tion, they enjoyed dri­ving clean and know­ing that they were doing some­thing bet­ter for the environment. 

They shared some tips for dri­vers who may feel cau­tious about tak­ing their elec­tric vehi­cle on a road trip:

1. Don’t wor­ry too much! A road trip in an elec­tric vehi­cle should be a fun experience. 
2. Make a plan using a route plan­ner, like A Bet­ter Route Plan­ner or PlugShare. 
3. Take advan­tage of your charg­ing stops. Don’t under­es­ti­mate how much time you may want for breaks, espe­cial­ly if you’ve been dri­ving for a long time.
4. A back­up plan is always a good idea. Find­ing some alter­nate charg­ing sta­tions or routes may ease your mind if you’re stressed about range anxiety. 
5. Keep in mind that it will take some time to get used to feel­ing com­fort­able dri­ving longer ranges than usu­al. Know that tech­nol­o­gy will con­tin­ue improv­ing, mak­ing road trips eas­i­er in the future. 

Find Patrick and Liv on YouTube, Twit­ter, and Insta­gram.

Watch their first YouTube video of their road trip here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHqLaxwh5nk&feature=youtu.be