Always plug in in your garage?

[RockwallRick]

We have settled in to charging about once a week up to 90%. To each his own, but I haven’t seen a need to plug in every night!

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[ChasingCoral]

I have had the car for three weeks and don't drive much during the workweek, but with the standard battery, it's still enough to go from 90% to 40%, and I plug it in before the weekend, and weekend driving again drains the battery to 40% or around it. I don't think it's a practice to follow, or something obviously wrong with it, but it works for me so far. When I start going to the office more often, I will charge in the middle of the week, but I'm still planning to charge at 40%

That’s generally what I do as well except I have Marlin programmed to charge to 80%. I’ll generally drive until I’m down around 40% before plugging in but with cold weather coming I may plug in more often and start using pre-conditioning.

 

[ChasingCoral]

May I expand this issue by asking if there are any suggestions for leaving my MME plugged in our garage while we leave for the winter. Live in northern Michigan and will be gone for 3 plus months. Just let it sit un-plugged or plugged on a charging program? What are the risks of just letting it sit?

There are threads specifically on that topic. One is
https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...arage-before-12v-battery-dies.2989/post-94422

 

[jeffdawgfan]

Just as a point. Whether you slow charge to 90% or 100%, you are not really charging to 100%....and nothing is worse for degrading the battery than frequent DCFC.

 

[Trick.Mach-E]

One other factor to consider the way you charge your battery...

"How long will you keep your Mach-E?"

My wife continues to drop the time she owns a vehicle... it was 10 years when I met her now it's down to 4 years!!! So for her that means she will most likely keep her Mach-E until February 2025 and the Mach-E will have less than 50k on it. Heck she is already talking about how we should get a GT in 2022!!!

If you are not planning on keeping your EV for a very long time don't worry about the battery... short of a outright failure the battery will be perfectly fine for the average car loan/lease (3-6 years).

 

[TheVirtualTim]

20-80% is the "golden range" for the batteries. If you keep the state of charge in that range then the battery will practically last forever.

The highest amount of stress on the battery is when it is either near full or near empty. You could do 10-90% and still be fine. But if you don't need 10-90, then 20-80 is technically just a little bit friendlier to the battery. The batteries are happiest when they are in the middle ranges and if you need to store the car for an extended period then Ford recommends you store it with batteries at about 50% state of charge.

Freezing temps is bad for the batteries. The car will nag you to plug-in when temperatures are very cold. Do this even if you do not need a charge. It will use the AC power from the charger to to maintain the battery temperature.

When I'm done using the car for the day, I plug it in... whether it needs a charge or not. Since I limit the charge to 80% ... which is not stressful to the batteries at all ... there's no problem doing this.

 

[mdolan92869]

One other factor to consider the way you charge your battery...

"How long will you keep your Mach-E?"

My wife continues to drop the time she owns a vehicle... it was 10 years when I met her now it's down to 4 years!!! So for her that means she will most likely keep her Mach-E until February 2025 and the Mach-E will have less than 50k on it. Heck she is already talking about how we should get a GT in 2022!!!

If you are not planning on keeping your EV for a very long time don't worry about the battery... short of a outright failure the battery will be perfectly fine for the average car loan/lease (3-6 years).

Wait a minute! Your wife is saying you should get a GT in 2022? Did you instantly file divorce papers?

 

[mkhuffman]

20-80% is the "golden range" for the batteries. If you keep the state of charge in that range then the battery will practically last forever.

The highest amount of stress on the battery is when it is either near full or near empty. You could do 10-90% and still be fine. But if you don't need 10-90, then 20-80 is technically just a little bit friendlier to the battery. The batteries are happiest when they are in the middle ranges and if you need to store the car for an extended period then Ford recommends you store it with batteries at about 50% state of charge.

Freezing temps is bad for the batteries. The car will nag you to plug-in when temperatures are very cold. Do this even if you do not need a charge. It will use the AC power from the charger to to maintain the battery temperature.

When I'm done using the car for the day, I plug it in... whether it needs a charge or not. Since I limit the charge to 80% ... which is not stressful to the batteries at all ... there's no problem doing this.

And just to re-emphasize the point: 90% charge is 80% of the 98.8 kWh battery capacity. That is why I am charging to 90% for regular charges at home. (100% before a long trip, of course.)

 

[Peugfan]

Freezing temps is bad for the batteries. The car will nag you to plug-in when temperatures are very cold. Do this even if you do not need a charge. It will use the AC power from the charger to to maintain the battery temperature.

When I'm done using the car for the day, I plug it in... whether it needs a charge or not. Since I limit the charge to 80% ... which is not stressful to the batteries at all ... there's no problem doing this.

For the colder months I started doing just what you describe for plug in. Have you seen evidence that the car will warm the battery when the car does not need a charge to get to your max charge setting? It's only been 2 days setting and my garage temp was probably 35-40, but I see no activity of juice flowing from my Juice Box to keep the battery warm. I'm curious how Ford has set this logic up. Will it warm the battery occasionally when I do NOT have any preconditioning set up? I do have the charge settings to charge anytime.

 

[ClaudeMach-E]

Why only charge to 90%? I charge to 100% every single time and have with all three of my previous EVs.

That is a recommandation from Ford

 

[RickMachE]

When the vehicle wants a charge, it will take one, assuming it's plugged in. I've read on here that it will ask to be plugged in in cold weather, therefore it's logical that it will start charging if plugged in and that "prompt" happens.

For those that park in a garage at home, with the charger readily accessible, and live in a hot or cold climate, I guess I'm mystified at the reason to now plug in every night. There is zero difference between charging from 40 to 90% in one session, and charging from 80 to 90% (i.e. after each use) 5 times, except that if the vehicle wants a charge, it will take one.

My JuiceBox sends me alerts when it is charging. It only can charge in off-peak hours, i.e. 7PM - 11AM Mon-Fri, and all weekends. It charged for 1 min and 36 seconds on Saturday morning, then another 2 minutes and 11 seconds shortly thereafter. Then I used it, and it charged for 19 minutes and 5 seconds from that. A little later it charged for 21 seconds. The next evening it charged for 47 seconds. None of these are likely "I'm cold", but more likely "PAAK woke me up".

My wife just left to run errands. I remoted started it and it pulled a tad over 1kw to remain at 90% and warm up. 12 cents worth doing.

 

[JohnnyForensic]

That is a recommandation from Ford

Yup. It’s in the MME Manual. Charge to 100% when you need it before a day of heavy driving, but charge to 90% on your daily driving.

As for this whole thread, I pretty much subscribe to the ABC theory of “Always Be Charging.” I come home, I plug in, max charge is set to 90% unless I need to do something big soon. That way the MME can use its thermal management most effectively to handle both the hot summers and cold winters we get in Virginia, but if it’s at 90% and not doing anything, it’s shutting off charging itself. I figure I’m not going to be smarter than the Ford engineers who designed the charging for it, so I’m going to do what they say. Set to 90 and leave it plugged in when at home, and only DCFC when necessary, not as a habit.

 

[Kabish]

Man my stupid GoM is still SOOOOOOO incredibly far off from what its supposed to be after resetting it this past Friday. I would had thought it would had gotten a little more realistic by now, its not even in the ballpark.

Far as my driving history, 4,678 miles almost 24hrs and my average is 3.9 mi/kWh. So its not like I drive the car like I stole it. I actually drive really conservatively, and to be honest that 4,678 miles has me stomping on the accelerator a lot cause it was new and fun I don't really punch it much anymore.

 

[timbop]

Man my stupid GoM is still SOOOOOOO incredibly far off from what its supposed to be after resetting it this past Friday. I would had thought it would had gotten a little more realistic by now, its not even in the ballpark.

Far as my driving history, 4,678 miles almost 24hrs and my average is 3.9 mi/kWh. So its not like I drive the car like I stole it. I actually drive really conservatively, and to be honest that 4,678 miles has me stomping on the accelerator a lot cause it was new and fun I don't really punch it much anymore.

Has the trip2 mi/kwh ever shown anything other than 3.9? The reason I ask is that there's a bug in it; if you hit the "reset" button and it doesn't change the displayed mi/kwh to 99.9 then the value it does display is "stuck" there. Also, the clock value never goes over 23:59, it just rolls over to 00:00 because it doesn't display number of days. Sorry to rain on your parade, but it's likely neither of those "lifetime" values is correct.

 

[Kabish]

I drive about 43 miles to work each day about 50/50 freeway side streets. On the freeway I have the car set to 75. A large majority of the time when I get to work I’m sitting around 4kWh sometimes I get up in the mid 5.

Where I’ve not tried resetting it, I feel pretty confident it’s accurate just from my daily current trip stats. That said, I know even that can be wrong sometimes, but I get pretty constant numbers. Guess I need to just charge it to 100% and track the mileage and see.

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