Mach-E stranded on a 3,000+ mile road trip due to faulty HV battery module. Full battery swap required.

[Brofessional]

For me the biggest problem right now is just parts shortages which no one can do anything about it. If we could tow into a dealership and have a normal few days of waiting on turn around the anxiety people are feeling with these issues would most likely subside since no vehicle is immune to failure.

But right now we're seeing stuff about battery failures with no ETA. That's the real issue currently, not the handful of battery failures out of the thousands of cars sold.

Given they use the same LG chem batteries as the Bolt that NHTSA just told people to not park in their garage, I wouldn't be surprised if no replacements happen until that problem gets sorted. May also be why none have been delivered recently and production dates have been pushed back.

I know some dealers have been told they're waiting on chips, but a chip shortage certainly sounds a lot better than "we're trying to make sure they're not going to burn your house down." And honestly they could easily shift chips to other models to make the chip excuse "technically" true.

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[vulpes]

It looks likes folks need to be careful in temps over 110 f and long drives with mountains for now. Just avoid that drive profile for now folks. Just my thoughts...

Could be problematic after a long hill climb and turning vehicle off while the motors and battery pack are still dumping heat into the coolant system if you stop and turn off the car right after running it hard.

I'm really wondering how a 'module failure' occurred... presumably in a place that *should* have been temperature controlled. If it was temperature related we may see a pattern of failure in super hot places like AZ ?

Just drove from El Passo to Anaheim yesterday, highest battery temp was during charging at 114F, it tends to stay around 100.4 when driving. Had one of the motors up to 195 driving into Austin the other day. Both motor inveters stay around 114. Coolng system is a bit odd, I can see the input temp to the battery pack it it tends to stay in the high 90's but does drop lower sometimes and brings the battery temp down, have not figured the trigger yet.

The only reason I mentioned temperatures was because that's what we thought the problem was, I make no claim to the cause of the actual issue. While I do have an ODB reader, my ios app (CarReaderPro) doesn't support most of the temperature sensors yet, so I couldn't read them myself at the time to check. Also, since the car didn't ever start again (after cooling down overnight), it could 100% be unrelated to the cooling system inadequacies.

I was curious about battery pack usage during the trip so I looked back. We started with 100% charge leaving Seattle, plugged in at 34%, 26%, 9%, 7%, 19%, 2% and 7% first day on the road, so we were certainly using the whole pack. On the day of the death, we plugged in at 45% and 27% before getting stranded with 17% battery remaining. I take that to mean that the issue began and manifested in a dead car within 24 hours.

With the millions of EVs out there, performing daily without problems, it's easy to overreact to reports like this. Unfortunate to be sure, but in the grand scheme, a pretty tiny percentage.

I would argue that out of million EVs, a tiny non-tesla percentage take roadtrips, and besides much slower charging ones, only e-tron and mache (from small amount of research I did to isolate it to LG Chem battery supplier) put the battery through its paces, so the sample size isnt 1/1mil, its more like 1/1000. Still small, but you would probably buy a few lottery tickets with those odds of "winning"

@vulpes sorry to hear about your high voltage battery issues. Definitely starting to sound like more of a trend. Just know that you aren't alone and batteries just got off backorder yesterday.

Here's my journey so far (almost one month in for the HV battery replacement): https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...he-dreaded-turtle-wrench-and-error-icon.7085/

Glad to hear you were near your house and the car actually detected the issue and notified you! Sorry to hear that everything has been back ordered and dealership hasn't been much help with a rental and such. I intend to keep this thread updated and looking forward to reading yours!

 

[theo1000]

I would argue that out of million EVs, a tiny non-tesla percentage take roadtrips, and besides much slower charging ones, only e-tron and mache (from small amount of research I did to isolate it to LG Chem battery supplier) put the battery through its paces,

Good point. The Taycans have been putting them through the paces as well with the same battery pedigree. Looks like a Ford specific software snafu, that either drives the electronics to failure or does not switch to friction braking to relieve the strain on the regen systems. hopefully fixed soon.

 

[ADDZ71]

Given they use the same LG chem batteries as the Bolt that NHTSA just told people to not park in their garage, I wouldn't be surprised if no replacements happen until that problem gets sorted. May also be why none have been delivered recently and production dates have been pushed back.

I know some dealers have been told they're waiting on chips, but a chip shortage certainly sounds a lot better than "we're trying to make sure they're not going to burn your house down." And honestly they could easily shift chips to other models to make the chip excuse "technically" true.

They do not us the same LG batteries as the Bolt. They both have LG as a supplier but definitely not the same battery.

 

[EELinneman]

Im beginning to feel like Ford is going to need to set up some sort of level 2 EV service centers on a regional basis. Where your primary contact is still your local dealership service department, but once a threshold is met, it triggers your car being shipped to the level 2 shop where all they do is work on EV’s. This would lead (theoretically) to technicians having greater levels of experience and knowledge, thereby reducing repair times.

It would also save Ford on sending engineers to every small town dealership to deal with high level issues. They could more easily send engineering teams to these hub centers and have the problems come to them in one spot.

I know that sounds more than a little bit like the [competitor name redacted] way of doing things, but I think that especially right now, local dealerships feel overwhelmed with the need to learn about a completely different powertrain architecture. Especially one that is unlikely to supply them with a steady stream of income the way ICE does.

Joe is bringing up some important items.

1. Ford needs to train the service people in BEV's especially if they are going to sell a trillion LIghtnings. If they don't they will get clubbed by their competitors about the shitty service.

2. Dealers should advertise or at least advise customers about their ability to service the cars they sell. Right now, we hear stories about the sales people not having a clue about the car they are selling and we are hearing the same about service. With catastrophic failures such as the main battery, this will not help sales. Ford needs sales based on their first half of the year.

3. Ford needs to create and offer a BEV maintenance plan. What they advertise now still talks about oil changes and spark plugs. I'm not even seeing the effort to be applicable. This should have been done at launch. Ford Protect is just as bad.

I really hope that the Ford people watching these forums can pass this along. Bad experiences are going to cost Ford a lot and they need this to be successful.

 

[AZBill]

Given they use the same LG chem batteries as the Bolt that NHTSA just told people to not park in their garage, I wouldn't be surprised if no replacements happen until that problem gets sorted. May also be why none have been delivered recently and production dates have been pushed back.

They do not use the same batteries as the Bolt, nor does Hyundai. LG supplies custom cells/modules for each car manufacturer. In fact the newer Bolt batteries are built at a GM/LG plant in Michigan, I am sure GM is not involved in supplying Ford.

 

[theo1000]

Joe is bringing up some important items.

1. Ford needs to train the service people in BEV's especially if they are going to sell a trillion LIghtnings. If they don't they will get clubbed by their competitors about the shitty service.

Which all makes me wonder about the Electric Vehicle Emergency Warranty that is part of the Ford plan. I always assumed there is number you call when broken down and voila someone comes along to bail you out. All this makes me wonder what exactly that warranty covers.

 

[pt19713]

Displaying the data on the dash is a great idea in concept but then what do you do with the data? If someone saw a 195 motor temp now what? Do they immediately stop, slow down, etc. From my experience on this 10k road trip, Ford can't even educate new buyers on how to fast charge the vehicle. Can't imagine how they could educate on temperature management, better to just leave it off the dash and let the car handle it. Not saying that the car is handling it correctly at the moment, it should get better, I assume Ford is seeing this data and will make adjustments.

The display wouldn't have to be shown in a numerical value but instead use the old-school colors. This would dumb it down for people less knowledgeable about cars. If the indicator is in the red, most can figure out that's not a good sign.

 

[phil]

That sounds extreme, I think you are reading too much into problems in a first model year build of a brand new platform. I do hope, however, that Ford will improve the lead time on parts availability substantially. Among all the vehicles I have driven, only one left me stranded over the years, for just one night.

Really? I thought I was being quite moderate.

EV's are highly effective for some things (e.g. commuting, getting around town, quick/quiet acceleration), and poorly suited to others (e.g. towing heavy loads, traveling long distances, low-priced family car).

Extreme would be insisting that EVs are great at everything. Perhaps someday, they will be. Perhaps not. But for now, the tech and infrastructure are not fully mature.

 

[pt19713]

Doesn't it do that automatically? With my M3 when I park in the garage or something I can hear it "doing stuff", I assume it's some coolant pump running to bring things down to temperature. Sometimes even 10-20+ minutes after I've parked

The Model 3 and Model typically pump approximately 5.2 liters per minute when minimal cooling (or heating) is needed, and up to 11.3 lpm when battery pack temps hit ~ 131-135F during L3 charging. The 3/Y pack weighs about 500 lbs less than the Mach-E pack, so there's probably some significant thermal differences between the two systems, so it's hard to say what's going on in the background with the Mach-E.

Below is snap shot of some of the parameters you're able to monitor on the Tesla models. There about another 80-90 parameters that can be viewed in addition to these. The images below are during a Tesla V3 supercharger session, so the temps are higher than normal. Ambient temp 93F.

 

[SnBGC]

I like the idea of having more data like temps available to display.

Like the Lightning has. Battery and motor temps.

 

[blue92lx]

The display wouldn't have to be shown in a numerical value but instead use the old-school colors. This would dumb it down for people less knowledgeable about cars. If the indicator is in the red, most can figure out that's not a good sign.

I agree, I don't think anyone in the history of car driving has been confused that it's time to pull over when the water temps are in the red. Instead of water just make it a battery temp gauge and problem solved.

 

[SnBGC]

The Model 3 and Model typically pump approximately 5.2 liters per minute when minimal cooling (or heating) is needed, and up to 11.3 lpm when battery pack temps hit ~ 131-135F during L3 charging. The 3/Y pack weighs about 500 lbs less than the Mach-E pack, so there's probably some significant thermal differences between the two systems, so it's hard to say what's going on in the background with the Mach-E.

Below is snap shot of some of the parameters you're able to monitor on the Tesla models. There about another 80-90 parameters that can be viewed in addition to these. The images below are during a Tesla V3 supercharger session, so the temps are higher than normal. Ambient temp 93F.

Fascinating.
I wasn't aware Tesla's displayed SOC was different than actual. The MME does that too.

 

[dtbaker61]

Hi there. Can you send us a direct message with your Mustang Mach-E's VIN, your name, and the dealership you are working with? I'd like to look into things on my end.

...and will you tell us ALL what you find out?!
It's important to know if this is a general issue, or a one-off glitch, hardware, software, or 'conditional' problem.

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

Electric for local, gas for distance. No drama.

I've had plenty of drama driving gas cars for distance over twenty plus years of driving, including breakdowns in the middle of nowhere, including repeated 12V battery failures.

but do go on.

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