Apple Maps Preconditioning

[Ford Motor Company]

@Ford Motor Company needs to add a manual preconditioning function. Make it happen!

Agreed. This would be supr helpful. I personally can't "make it happen", but I can tell those that do.

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[ChrisO]

But that’s 30 minutes using your car battery while you’re also using your car battery to drive your car. I gotta believe that a high power DCFC will heat the battery a little (or a lot) quicker.

It won't because the battery management won't let that happen, not to mention if it did it would be bad for the battery.

When thinking about this one has to understand why there is charge curve in the first place.
Yes, there is an underline battery "driving it", but it is more complicated than just "push as much power in as you can".

The battery management system is controlling that charge curve. It is monitoring different things like the battery temperature and regulating the amount of power based on the information it has.

In the case of the battery being outside of the range for charging, it will first draw power to get the battery into that range by heating or cooling it, before it will send power to the battery.

The battery has a lot of mass that has to be heated/cooled, and the heater/air condition has its limits. Not to mention it is better heat/cool things slowly as not to cause a shock to the system.

So, there isn't any "DCFC heating" (or not very much) going on to get the battery up to the right temperature.

 

[AZBill]

But that’s 30 minutes using your car battery while you’re also using your car battery to drive your car. I gotta believe that a high power DCFC will heat the battery a little (or a lot) quicker.

The power source does not matter it is the resistive heater that is used to heat a cold battery, or the HVAC system to cool a hot battery.

Check out this video of fast charging a fully cold soaked battery, it was below freezing and coudl not charge at all until warmed up.

 

[ex2bot]

Y'all could solve this by walking away from apple. Buy a pixel for hundreds less, buy an android tablet for hundreds less. Unless you work in graphic design and need an apple you are just hampering yourself.

Or keep paying a premium for less service.

This isn't 2010, Apple products aren't doing anything the competition can't.

THATS OUTRAGEOUS! Me, a long-time Apple user buying ANDROID???????? Are you out of your goddamm mind? *

I actually did just buy a used Pixel 7 so I can play with Android Auto. It’s a nice phone.

* Is joke!

 

[Tampamike]

The power source does not matter it is the resistive heater that is used to heat a cold battery, or the HVAC system to cool a hot battery.

Check out this video of fast charging a fully cold soaked battery, it was below freezing and coudl not charge at all until warmed up.

Don’t feel like watching it. Can you give me the cliff notes and tell me how long it took to heat up before it started charging? Resistive heaters heat faster with more amps, no? Maybe not but i was alluding to the situation where, while the car is driving down the road, there’s X amount of power available to both drive and heat while at the DCFC there’s probably much more available to heat first then charge. If in fact, if the heater only runs at a fixed power level then, yeah, it doesn’t matter the source as long as it’s at least that much.

 

[Tampamike]

It won't because the battery management won't let that happen, not to mention if it did it would be bad for the battery.

When thinking about this one has to understand why there is charge curve in the first place.
Yes, there is an underline battery "driving it", but it is more complicated than just "push as much power in as you can".

The battery management system is controlling that charge curve. It is monitoring different things like the battery temperature and regulating the amount of power based on the information it has.

In the case of the battery being outside of the range for charging, it will first draw power to get the battery into that range by heating or cooling it, before it will send power to the battery.

The battery has a lot of mass that has to be heated/cooled, and the heater/air condition has its limits. Not to mention it is better heat/cool things slowly as not to cause a shock to the system.

So, there isn't any "DCFC heating" (or not very much) going on to get the battery up to the right temperature.

It won't because the battery management won't let that happen, not to mention if it did it would be bad for the battery.

When thinking about this one has to understand why there is charge curve in the first place.
Yes, there is an underline battery "driving it", but it is more complicated than just "push as much power in as you can".

The battery management system is controlling that charge curve. It is monitoring different things like the battery temperature and regulating the amount of power based on the information it has.

In the case of the battery being outside of the range for charging, it will first draw power to get the battery into that range by heating or cooling it, before it will send power to the battery.

The battery has a lot of mass that has to be heated/cooled, and the heater/air condition has its limits. Not to mention it is better heat/cool things slowly as not to cause a shock to the system.

So, there isn't any "DCFC heating" (or not very much) going on to get the battery up to the right temperature.

The charge curve is the charge curve. The heater is the heater and I doubt it has any curve other than on and off. When the battery is below 0C (I’m guessing), the heater has to turn and heat the battery above that before the BMS will accept the charge current. There has to be DCFC heating or else the car won’t accept a charge u til the spring.

Your example doesn’t really help much for us. It wasn’t very cold and we can’t even do but 150kw for a just a short time before it drops. I guess I’d like to know how much time it really saves to pre-condition vs not pre-condition on a cold (-5C) day for our car.

Truth be told, this ain’t a big deal to me - just an academic discussion. I have very little occasion to worry about it. Just seems like they’re are a lot of people here and elsewhere that think it’s a huge deal and i was just curious about how much it really matters.

 

[ChrisO]

The charge curve is the charge curve. The heater is the heater and I doubt it has any curve other than on and off. When the battery is below 0C (I’m guessing), the heater has to turn and heat the battery above that before the BMS will accept the charge current. There has to be DCFC heating or else the car won’t accept a charge u til the spring.

Your example doesn’t really help much for us. It wasn’t very cold and we can’t even do but 150kw for a just a short time before it drops. I guess I’d like to know how much time it really saves to pre-condition vs not pre-condition on a cold (-5C) day for our car.

Truth be told, this ain’t a big deal to me - just an academic discussion. I have very little occasion to worry about it. Just seems like they’re are a lot of people here and elsewhere that think it’s a huge deal and i was just curious about how much it really matters.

The point was that you have a charge curve because things are controlled by the BMS it isn’t going to allow “DCFC heating’’ until it deems it safe to allow the current to flow to the battery. Now you pointed out that you believe that given it is getting power from the charger it might heat faster. Well, I don’t know if that would be true or not.

In the above video it took 45 minutes before it even started to charge the battery and even then it started at 20 Kw.

 

[spamnchips]

Does pre-conditioning really save any time? I don’t have any experiential evidence to introduce but it seems to me it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. You’re driving down the road and the battery heater has to use electrons from the battery to heat the battery. You arrive at the charger with less electrons than if it didn’t heat the battery thus requiring longer to charge to replenish the greater amount of lost electrons. If you don’t pre-condition, you arrive at the charger with more electrons and a cold battery requiring the charger to supply the electrons to first heat the battery. As I see it, the amount of electrons needed for heat and charge is the same no matter where it comes from or in what order they’re produced. So, I’m thinking the DCFC produces those electrons faster than the battery does for the heat portion and thus the net result is a faster charge without pre-conditioning.

Am I crazy? Or has this been proven that pre-conditioning leads to a faster charge?

Just spitballin’.

Yes, you are using some of the energy to heat the battery. If you charge at home and are headed to a public charger then there is a cost implication. If you arrive at the charger and need to pre heat the battery before it will take on a charge or charge at a higher rate then you are paying a higher price for those electrons and sitting longer on the charger than necessary. Tesla's automatically start to precondition the battery if necessary about 30 minutes distance from the charger if the destination is set as a charging station. This now happens with the Mach E but only when using Google maps.

 

[Tampamike]

Yes, you are using some of the energy to heat the battery. If you charge at home and are headed to a public charger then there is a cost implication. If you arrive at the charger and need to pre heat the battery before it will take on a charge or charge at a higher rate then you are paying a higher price for those electrons and sitting longer on the charger than necessary. Tesla's automatically start to precondition the battery if necessary about 30 minutes distance from the charger if the destination is set as a charging station. This now happens with the Mach E but only when using Google maps.

It also happens in the Mach E’s native nav.

 

[Tampamike]

The point was that you have a charge curve because things are controlled by the BMS it isn’t going to allow “DCFC heating’’ until it deems it safe to allow the current to flow to the battery. Now you pointed out that you believe that given it is getting power from the charger it might heat faster. Well, I don’t know if that would be true or not.

In the above video it took 45 minutes before it even started to charge the battery and even then it started at 20 Kw.

Ok, then that’s a good data point. But I wonder if our 20 minutes of preconditioning would have even been enough to get the pack above freezing. I wouldn’t think that pre-conditioning while driving would heat the battery any faster than a DCFC would.

Whether it heats faster from the charger while parked than from the battery while driving vs the time it takes to replenish the energy used to heat while driving IS the question I’m raising. I wonder how many kw’s it takes to pre-condition a very cold pack. It would then, of course, take some amount of time on the charger to replenish those kw’s used. Going by what Mach-Lee said, it seems that the extra charging required goes faster than the heating that would be required without pre-conditioning.

 

[RickMachE]

I think the main difference is time. I have heard that pre-conditioning starts anywhere between 30 minutes and a hour before you get to the charger. That is a nice slow warm up/cool down.

But if you have to wait until you get there, it would have to do it faster (if it can even do that) which is not good for the battery or have you sitting there waiting for that time before it even starts to charge. That kind of time can’t be “made up” because of the charge curve.

I’m not sure if it would give priority over starting charging over battery health, but it wouldn’t really work, it would charge must slower because the battery wouldn’t be able to accept the charge as fast when outside of it ideal temperature range.

I think it is interesting to note the charge curve. When you do something that the battery doesn’t like it can slow down much more than any kind linear manner. Charging 90% to 100% can take over double the time it takes from 10% to 80%.

It starts 30km, 18.6 miles before. It is not time based.

 

[RickMachE]

It won't because the battery management won't let that happen, not to mention if it did it would be bad for the battery.

When thinking about this one has to understand why there is charge curve in the first place.
Yes, there is an underline battery "driving it", but it is more complicated than just "push as much power in as you can".

The battery management system is controlling that charge curve. It is monitoring different things like the battery temperature and regulating the amount of power based on the information it has.

In the case of the battery being outside of the range for charging, it will first draw power to get the battery into that range by heating or cooling it, before it will send power to the battery.

The battery has a lot of mass that has to be heated/cooled, and the heater/air condition has its limits. Not to mention it is better heat/cool things slowly as not to cause a shock to the system.

So, there isn't any "DCFC heating" (or not very much) going on to get the battery up to the right temperature.

The point was that you have a charge curve because things are controlled by the BMS it isn’t going to allow “DCFC heating’’ until it deems it safe to allow the current to flow to the battery. Now you pointed out that you believe that given it is getting power from the charger it might heat faster. Well, I don’t know if that would be true or not.

In the above video it took 45 minutes before it even started to charge the battery and even then it started at 20 Kw.

To be clear, if the battery is cold, the vehicle will crank the heat to the battery, and the charge speed will be reduced, while the battery comes to temperature. 8n addition, if one is running the vehicle heater at the time, it will take even longer.

 

[dan_meh]

Ok, then that’s a good data point. But I wonder if our 20 minutes of preconditioning would have even been enough to get the pack above freezing. I wouldn’t think that pre-conditioning while driving would heat the battery any faster than a DCFC would.

This would be an interesting experiment. You could get an OBD dongle and do the math. Probably wouldn’t make sense in Tampa, though. You’d have to move northward to get the conditions that matter.

 

[Mache_Nor]

Only thing I know is that I when cold, my car charges at max 70 or so kWh. When warm - 159 kWh initially and above 100 kWh for a long time. It’s not a far fetched assumption that it is close to twice the charge time when cold (20-80%), hence if you use a handful of % of battery to precondition it still is faster to do those extra % of charging than doing a cold charge.

 

[Tampamike]

This would be an interesting experiment. You could get an OBD dongle and do the math. Probably wouldn’t make sense in Tampa, though. You’d have to move northward to get the conditions that matter.

I envision:
two of the same cars
parked overnight in the same place so starting battery temps are identical
100% starting charge
coldish weather
arrive at the same Tesla SC at the same time
one has been navigating to a very nearby EA in order to initiate pre-conditioning and one hasn’t (no pre-conditioning)

What would be the difference in arriving charge level?
What would be the difference in time to 80%?

Maybe this experiment has already been done -probably …

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