How long should you precondition the battery before leaving?

[Shayne]

I have seen it pre-condition for over 1.5 hours below -20C with a departure schedule. The schedule makes sense as the time varies so just set it up a few hours early when cold and done. Takes the guess work out of it and lets the car decide. How long will vary to answers the OPer question. Set a departure schedule and do not worry about it as the car should determine when to come on and how long. I only use it when cold.

If they gave a button to do the preconditioning (cabin and the drive train) no one would use remote start anymore so you may as well just change what it does.

I would be good with a working departure schedule in fordpass as it is quick and not really much of a hassle to set up.

Sponsored

 

[bshaw]

Right. We know the chargers have cooling systems but do they also have heating systems for cold weather?

A DCFC unit does not need to be kept in a temperature band the way lithium batteries do.
It has to be cooled so it doesn’t overheat, but on the low end, even the coldest outdoor temps should be fine for DCFC to operate at peak energy delivery.

 

[Parasmoney]

And in the car while driving, that we can switch on if heading to a DCFC station to charge soon.

Is a five mile drive to a DCFC enough time to precondition the battery after the car sitting overnight? I end up going to a DCFC to charge the car in the morning when I visit family who do not have level two charging at their house. I haven't been there since the weather has gotten colder but would like to be prepared when we go at the end of the month.

 

[dbsb3233]

If they gave a button to do the preconditioning (cabin and the drive train) no one would use remote start anymore so you may as well just change what it does.

I definitely wouldn't want to lose Remote Start to start the cabin heating/cooling. While I forget to use it many times, I still use it frequently. Even just 1 minute of it helps to get the seats and steering wheel warm, and gives a head start on cabin heating. (And cooling in the summer but I usually only remember in the winter.)

But a separate feature for battery conditioning would be nice. The only time I'd likely use it is in the car on road trips, before arriving at the next DCFC. I never DCFC near home, nor do I find the cold battery to be limiting for actual driving, so I probably wouldn't use it around home. But it could be different for folks up north.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Is a five mile drive to a DCFC enough time to precondition the battery after the car sitting overnight? I end up going to a DCFC to charge the car in the morning when I visit family who do not have level two charging at their house. I haven't been there since the weather has gotten colder but would like to be prepared when we go at the end of the month.

No, generally you need 15-20 minutes, longer in extreme cold. So expect it to go slow at first until it warms up. But ultimately it doesn’t matter since the battery doesn’t heat much while driving. If you drove 30 minutes to the charger the battery would probably still be cold.

 

[DaMeatMan]

I have never understood why people desire that feature. The battery heats up while DCFCing and then must be cooled once plugged in anyway. Besides, the energy consumed to attempt to pre-heat the HVB in route will severely impact range and surely be offset by the increased time required on plug to replenish that energy.

I believe Ford tested that quite extensively and found that pre-heating the pack prior to DCFC didn't net any substantial gains in time or energy.

Given the fact that most public charging bills by the minute, it therefore becomes important to start preconditioning the battery by heating it so that it is warm enough to immediately start accepting a charge at peak charge rates. Without that function, you can literally waste 20 to 30 min (that you are paying for by the min) charging at very low rates of 30kw or thereabouts just slowly heating the battery. By the time the battery is warm enough to start accepting peak charge of 100kw+ thr charging session should have actually been completed by now (if Temps were warm), but in reality the session is just starting to ramp up, and battery levels are likely still well below 50% requiring an additional 20 to 30 min. As a result in cold climates you likely have to pay for an hour or more just to get to 80% - 90%.

For the first year of ownership of my MME I lived in a condo with no access to L1 or L2 charging, so relied 100% on public in town DC "fast" charging, which are typically 50kw in city centers, and 150kw+ as you get closer to highway access points. So charging in the winter was twice as expensive as it needed to be, and was an incredibly painfully slow and frustrating process!

To those that think driving should already result in a warm battery, you folks likely don't actually live in cold climates, or you have never looked at the onboard vehicle stats to check the temperature of the battery. I have on many occasions plugged into my ODB and watched these stats while driving, and even after 20 or 30 min of driving I have seen (battery temps) at just about ambient or slightly above freezing ?. With that said the Mach-E is incredibly passive in terms of its heating and cooling strategy (when not plugged in), and does very very little to condition the pack (if at all) when not plugged in particularly when it comes to cold climates. There be absolutely no reason why someone should arrive at a DCFC with a battery that is literally sitting at -1c or just above freezing! That is insanity, and it shows that the engineers were looking at this purely from the perspective of a consumer that always has access to L1 or L2 charging to condition when coming home, and prior to leaving through set schedules which is bonkers and so far removed from reality that these guys should be fired!

That is why we need it.

 

[AKgrampy]

I don’t schedule a departure time. I’m retired. It is a valid question.

Need a departure time as others have stated and car must also be plugged into a L2 charger.

 

[SnBGC]

Given the fact that most public charging bills by the minute, it therefore becomes important to start preconditioning the battery by heating it so that it is warm enough to immediately start accepting a charge at peak charge rates. Without that function, you can literally waste 20 to 30 min (that you are paying for by the min) charging at very low rates of 30kw or thereabouts just slowly heating the battery. By the time the battery is warm enough to start accepting peak charge of 100kw+ thr charging session should have actually been completed by now (if Temps were warm), but in reality the session is just starting to ramp up, and battery levels are likely still well below 50% requiring an additional 20 to 30 min. As a result in cold climates you likely have to pay for an hour or more just to get to 80% - 90%.

For the first year of ownership of my MME I lived in a condo with no access to L1 or L2 charging, so relied 100% on public in town DC "fast" charging, which are typically 50kw in city centers, and 150kw+ as you get closer to highway access points. So charging in the winter was twice as expensive as it needed to be, and was an incredibly painfully slow and frustrating process!

To those that think driving should already result in a warm battery, you folks likely don't actually live in cold climates, or you have never looked at the onboard vehicle stats to check the temperature of the battery. I have on many occasions plugged into my ODB and watched these stats while driving, and even after 20 or 30 min of driving I have seen (battery temps) at just about ambient or slightly above freezing ?. With that said the Mach-E is incredibly passive in terms of its heating and cooling strategy (when not plugged in), and does very very little to condition the pack (if at all) when not plugged in particularly when it comes to cold climates. There be absolutely no reason why someone should arrive at a DCFC with a battery that is literally sitting at -1c or just above freezing! That is insanity, and it shows that the engineers were looking at this purely from the perspective of a consumer that always has access to L1 or L2 charging to condition when coming home, and prior to leaving through set schedules which is bonkers and so far removed from reality that these guys should be fired!

That is why we need it.

Interesting. It must be a cold weather thing. I don't think I've ever seen HVB temps below 60F (even when ambient is low 40s) and once I start driving it heats up pretty quick.

So if a cold battery can waste 20 to 30 minutes at the DCFC station then how long does it take to preheat via the PTC heater (if that option was available)? You would probably need to start running that heater about an hour ahead of time, right? Seems to me that would consume a lot of energy that would eventually have to be put right back into the pack when stopping for DCFC.

 

[gryphon]

same reason why it won’t precondition when you select a DCFC that you’re en route to, like our Tesla did.
And also why I never get OTAs
And also why my car turns into a Honda Accord 2.0t after 5 seconds..

Ford doesn’t know what they are doing.

At least they’re not a broken record.

 

[jwhamlin244]

Need a departure time as others have stated and car must also be plugged into a L2 charger.

I have a L1 charger and it appears to work fine. Although it results in a 1-2% battery charge loss because the charger is not sufficient on its own.

 

[Shayne]

Interesting. It must be a cold weather thing. I don't think I've ever seen HVB temps below 60F (even when ambient is low 40s) and once I start driving it heats up pretty quick.

So if a cold battery can waste 20 to 30 minutes at the DCFC station then how long does it take to preheat via the PTC heater (if that option was available)? You would probably need to start running that heater about an hour ahead of time, right? Seems to me that would consume a lot of energy that would eventually have to be put right back into the pack when stopping for DCFC.

Most likely a cold weather thing. At minus -25F the batteries are not at 60F. L2 with preconditioning is almost a requirement up here as it is a noticeable difference. Preconditioning to reach a DCFC is not as high on my list compared to preconditioning when on L2 power which is the majority of my cases. I would say L2 is required in some climates. Not a big deal wire the 240V outlet and plug the Ford mobile charger in to begin with. Scheduling preconditioning needs to work however.

 

[dmastro]

Interesting. It must be a cold weather thing. I don't think I've ever seen HVB temps below 60F (even when ambient is low 40s) and once I start driving it heats up pretty quick.

So if a cold battery can waste 20 to 30 minutes at the DCFC station then how long does it take to preheat via the PTC heater (if that option was available)? You would probably need to start running that heater about an hour ahead of time, right? Seems to me that would consume a lot of energy that would eventually have to be put right back into the pack when stopping for DCFC.

Speaking from experience, and not with empirical data, I charge my Tesla at DCFC when I'm on road trips. Just driving does not sufficiently precondition the battery for maximum DCFC efficiency; typically my car will start preconditioning when I'm about 20 minutes from the charger. I don't notice an appreciable extra draw on power resulting from the preconditioning. But I do notice pugging in and hitting 250kW charging speeds.

 

[DaMeatMan]

Interesting. It must be a cold weather thing. I don't think I've ever seen HVB temps below 60F (even when ambient is low 40s) and once I start driving it heats up pretty quick.

So if a cold battery can waste 20 to 30 minutes at the DCFC station then how long does it take to preheat via the PTC heater (if that option was available)? You would probably need to start running that heater about an hour ahead of time, right? Seems to me that would consume a lot of energy that would eventually have to be put right back into the pack when stopping for DCFC.

One can only really speculate at how long it would take to pre-heat the pack to sufficient 20c+ Temps in sub freezing weather, however we can make some assumptions. The PTC heater on the Mach-E is approximately 7kw if memory serves me correctly, and even if it were to take 1 hour of constant usage, we can very roughly say we used 7kwhr of the pack capacity to reach to heat the pack. If we can IMMEDIATELY start charging at 100kw - 120kw as soon as we plugin, that 7 kwhr of energy will be be quickly replaced in approximately within the first 4 min or so which really makes the onboard energy used to heat the pack a moot point since we can immediately charge at high rates.

But with that said, 1 hour to heat the pack is not realistic either, and based on what I've seen in the real world 20 min or so is more realistic, so in reality we are talking about just the first min of charging to replenish what we used to condition the pack to accept higher rates of charge, rather than just starting to condition the pack when we first plugin, where the customer is likely paying for the first 20 minutes just to get the pack up to temperature, and that when the real charge session actually begins which is actually quite expensive and a very stupid charging strategy.

 

[AKgrampy]

I have a L1 charger and it appears to work fine. Although it results in a 1-2% battery charge loss because the charger is not sufficient on its own.

I am not an expert on the car but it does state that the car will only condition the vehicle based on the power available. The HVB will provide an assist for conditioning the cabin. I am not sure it provides an assist for battery conditioning. If you think about it why would you want to drain your HVB to in order to condition it to get a bit more range? The net effect would be a loss of range. The 1 - 2% you lose may just be for conditioning the cabin. My guess is you would lose more like 4 - 5% if conditioning the battery. Once again I am not an expert on this subject.

 

[Sam2084]

I have never understood why people desire that feature. The battery heats up while DCFCing and then must be cooled once plugged in anyway. Besides, the energy consumed to attempt to pre-heat the HVB in route will severely impact range and surely be offset by the increased time required on plug to replenish that energy.

I believe Ford tested that quite extensively and found that pre-heating the pack prior to DCFC didn't net any substantial gains in time or energy.

This is wrong. The energy consumed while preconditioning wont severely impact range. Maybe 10 miles. The 3kWh you waste would be replenished in a few minutes vs waiting an additional 15 to reach peak charging speed. Preconditioning is a huge time saver during road trips. This is a fact.

Sponsored