How long can you idle a Mach-E in subfreezing temperatures? - One owner did a test.

[sotek2345]

This is a facet of the MachE I'm particularly interested in. I live in NYC and have a choice to make regarding parking the car on an open lot and an indoor garage. The indoor garage is of course warmer and has E-charging outlets, but it's also $200 a month more expensive... the outdoor lot is a great price, but I'm concerned on those cold days (in NYC it is rare the temp dips below 20F, but we do get sustained temps in the mid 20s pretty consistently) if the car will give me trouble starting up from only the battery.

Of course, this is all counterbalanced by the fact that I do not trust the people valeting the cars. I have seen these people drive $200k cars around the garage like it's the Indy 500. I would ring someone's neck if they put a dent in my new MachE. The outdoor lot lets me park it and pick it up myself so I see that as an advantage.

Upstate NY here - no issues starting with a cold soaked battery at -9 degrees the other day.

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[jonkMACHE]

Upstate NY here - no issues starting with a cold soaked battery at -9 degrees the other day.

Do you notice much "vampire drain" from the car sitting outside for ~72 hours in sub-freezing temps? Just wondering how much charge I can expect to lose after a few days of inactivity.

 

[ahg]

This is a facet of the MachE I'm particularly interested in. I live in NYC and have a choice to make regarding parking the car on an open lot vs. an indoor garage. The indoor garage is of course warmer and has E-charging outlets, but it's also $200 a month more expensive... the outdoor lot is a great price, but I'm concerned on those cold days (in NYC it is rare the temp dips below 20F, but we do get sustained temps in the mid 20s pretty consistently) if the car will give me trouble starting up from only the battery.

Of course, this is all counterbalanced by the fact that I do not trust the people valeting the cars. I have seen these people drive $200k cars around the garage like it's the Indy 500. I would ring someone's neck if they put a dent in my new MachE by driving it like that. The outdoor lot, on the other hand, lets me park it and pick it up myself so I see that as an advantage.

If the indoor lot is all valet parking how do you get to use the e-charging outlets? Or will the valet park at them and plug the car in if you ask?

 

[Jim Glass]

This owner did a controlled test of idling his car like it was stuck in traffic in freezing temps like what happened on I95 in VA.

https://www.insidehook.com/article/vehicles/electric-car-12-hours-freezing-cold-test

Excellent story that confirms one article I read that said there were no EVs that had to be towed when the I-95 event stranded folks for up to 16 hours. Only ICE vehicles were towed!

 

[mkhuffman]

This is a facet of the MachE I'm particularly interested in. I live in NYC and have a choice to make regarding parking the car on an open lot vs. an indoor garage. The indoor garage is of course warmer and has E-charging outlets, but it's also $200 a month more expensive... the outdoor lot is a great price, but I'm concerned on those cold days (in NYC it is rare the temp dips below 20F, but we do get sustained temps in the mid 20s pretty consistently) if the car will give me trouble starting up from only the battery.

Of course, this is all counterbalanced by the fact that I do not trust the people valeting the cars. I have seen these people drive $200k cars around the garage like it's the Indy 500. I would ring someone's neck if they put a dent in my new MachE by driving it like that. The outdoor lot, on the other hand, lets me park it and pick it up myself so I see that as an advantage.

I would do the indoor lot if I could park it myself, especially if the garage has free charging.

 

[AllenXS]

This owner did a controlled test of idling his car like it was stuck in traffic in freezing temps like what happened on I95 in VA.

https://www.insidehook.com/article/vehicles/electric-car-12-hours-freezing-cold-test

Is he the owner, isn't it a borrowed from Ford car?

 

[sotek2345]

Do you notice much "vampire drain" from the car sitting outside for ~72 hours in sub-freezing temps? Just wondering how much charge I can expect to lose after a few days of inactivity.

Sorry - never let it sit more than ~9 hours

 

[jonkMACHE]

If the indoor lot is all valet parking how do you get to use the e-charging outlets? Or will the valet park at them and plug the car in if you ask?

I'm assuming that's the case... which I'm not exactly thrilled about. I can see a dozen different ways they do something to screw the car up during the charging process.

 

[jonkMACHE]

I would do the indoor lot if I could park it myself, especially if the garage has free charging.

There are a few spots on the base level of the garage... I'm wondering if they'll let me keep it parked there and do it all myself. Could be a game changer.

 

[BilLongua]

A few thoughts - he started with 100% charge. Figure more like you would be at 50 or 60% when caught off guard and trapped on the highway (could be much less if in the middle of a long trip). Plus, this isn’t an ‘owner’ as Ford loaned him the car (sponsored?). Bit of fluff here, but good story overall and the comments have been great & informative as always. But I’m still troubled by the MMEs I’m reading about that just died because the 12V froze in sub zero weather. Even newer builds.

 

[kltye]

Here's some basic math for everyone who's like "BUT NO ONE STARTS THEIR JOURNEY @ 100% SoC!". From @breeves002's tl;dr, it looks like the car consumes ~2% of charge every hour. So let's say you have 40% SoC when you're stuck - that means you get about 20 hours of idling before the car dies.

For comparison, I had a 2013 Fusion (2.0T). It had a 16 gallon gas tank, and idled at ~0.5 gallons/hour (at least that's what the ECU reported). 40% of that tank is about 6.4 gallons (because NO ONE STARTS THEIR JOURNEY @ 100% FUEL!). At 0.5 gal/hr, I would be able to idle for 12.8 hours - which is LESS than the MME with the ER battery.

And of course, you can easily rely on heated seats and/or lower temperatures (seriously, you're an idiot if you run out of the house in shorts and a t-shirt in the middle of winter and require 73-degree heat to stay warm), which would drastically extend the idling time.

Can we put this to bed already?

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