Battery Preconditioning: Some measured data.

[Ride_the_lightning]

This is a good question. I'll be running an ~1200 mile trip in the near future and will gather data, but I'm not going to lay out specific testing just to test this (it's a work trip). I'll report back with the data I do gather, though.

I tried it at 99% today. It still preconditioned.

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[Mach-Lee]

But I'm not plugged in at work. I thought we can't warm the battery with a departure time if we're not plugged in.

Ah, I see. Yes that's an issue then. Going from parked while unplugged to DCFC probably isn't a use case they considered. To be fair, I don't know if any of the other EVs have a "Precondition for DCFC" button either.

 

[JLee]

Thank you for sharing all these data and possible techniques on warming up the battery. Any info on how much charging time reduced during a DCFC charging session by following Ford’s instructions? On Ford website, charging time from 10% to 80% may take up to 40 mins. By pre-conditioning the battery via Ford Navigation, I wonder how much time it takes to charge up from 10%to 80% on a 150KW charger going forward?

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Thank you for sharing all these data and possible techniques on warming up the battery. Any info on how much charging time reduced during a DCFC charging session by following Ford’s instructions? On Ford website, charging time from 10% to 80% may take up to 40 mins. By pre-conditioning the battery via Ford Navigation, I wonder how much time it takes to charge up from 10%to 80% on a 150KW charger going forward?

I don't recall timing my charge sessions before this one using CarScanner, but here's the data from when I used the Ford navigation to bring me to a charger.

I started with 30% charge (SOC Displayed) at just before 14:40.
I ended the charge session with 84.5% charge (SOC Displayed) just around 15:14.
So, about 55% added over about 34 minutes.

In the same time, the SOC (actual) went from about 31.5% to about 82%.
And from 27.5 kWh to empty to 76 kWh to empty.

I don't typically stress too much about time spent at a DCFC (this one was at a hiking trail, so we went for a little hike), so I don't know if this is "better" than what others experience.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

And here's the charge curve / power delivered to the battery during that charge. Note that if we had stopped at 80% (around 15:08), the "miles/minute" or "kWh/minute" average charge speed would have been quite a bit higher.

/shrug

 

[Gullwingdmc]

The data in the chart below indicate that giving Ford a DCFC destination will bump up the coolant temperature beyond what it did for me when I just started the car yesterday morning and I suspect that this could be used to condition the battery for driving in the cold.

I may be behind on this, but I was reading through the 4.1.3 thread and Ford commented that preconditioning on the way to a DC Fast Charger came in 3.6.2.

Hey guys, Power-Up 3.6.2 also made some enhancements to help while you’re out on a road trip. If you’re heading toward a DC fast charging station (using your vehicle’s navigation), your battery will now start to warm up within 20 miles of your destination. This allows the battery to accept a charge at a faster rate in cold weather when you have excess heater capacity, getting you back on the road. Remember, you must enter your fast charging station into the Navigation System in order for preheating to work.

Ford Power-Up software updates like this help us make improvements without the inconvenience of asking you to leave home. At Ford we value your satisfaction, and we respect your time.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I may be behind on this, but I was reading through the 4.1.3 thread and Ford commented that preconditioning on the way to a DC Fast Charger came in 3.6.2.

Yes.

The question was: Can you "trick" the car into preconditioning while not driving. Say you have no interest in going to the DCFC, but it's excessively cold out. Can you convince the car that the battery should be warmed up beyond the level that Departure Time warming does? And more importantly, can you do that while still plugged in so that the warming comes from the grid instead of from the battery?

 

[Gullwingdmc]

Yes.

The question was: Can you "trick" the car into preconditioning while not driving. Say you have no interest in going to the DCFC, but it's excessively cold out. Can you convince the car that the battery should be warmed up beyond the level that Departure Time warming does? And more importantly, can you do that while still plugged in so that the warming comes from the grid instead of from the battery?

Ahhh ok. Make sense.

 

[ckt]

You don't need to walk to the car, just set a departure time 30-45 minutes in the future with the app and it will warm the battery+cabin.

While true, in my observations it'll only warm pack to 59F. I think for max range in cold, you'll wanna warm the pack up above 59F by using the work-aound in OP (but at the expense of pull more kwh from the grid). It's neat hacks/work-aound like these that makes the car interesting.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

And this is what it looks like to go in the car and drive with no departure time, no destination, etc., for a 20 minute drive.

There was essentially no heating at all, just an increase of 1 degree from -6 to -5 degrees C over approximately the same time as my other tests. Maximum speed was about 55 mph.

 

[Mach-Lee]

And this is what it looks like to go in the car and drive with no departure time, no destination, etc., for a 20 minute drive.

There was essentially no heating at all, just an increase of 1 degree from -6 to -5 degrees C over approximately the same time as my other tests. Maximum speed was about 55 mph.

Yup, it barely increases temperature while driving normally. Regen will warm it up maybe a couple degrees but that’s not great for it while cold.

 

[hawkeye3point1]

And this is what it looks like to go in the car and drive with no departure time, no destination, etc., for a 20 minute drive.

There was essentially no heating at all, just an increase of 1 degree from -6 to -5 degrees C over approximately the same time as my other tests. Maximum speed was about 55 mph.

What Power Ups have you received? It has finally gotten cold here and my car is heating the HVB (off plug) from low 20Fs to mid 30s as soon as it is started recently. 3.6.2 may have something to do with that.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

What Power Ups have you received? It has finally gotten cold here and my car is heating the HVB (off plug) from low 20Fs to mid 30s as soon as it is started recently. 3.6.2 may have something to do with that.

Honestly, I haven't been paying attention to the Power Ups. I'm on the Early Access program, but haven't spent more than a few seconds looking at the notices. The car tells me I have 4.1.3. The app tells me I'm still missing an HVAC update.

 

[azerik]

Thanks for posting the graphs. Guess I’ll have to start using built in navigation if I’m planning a DCFC stop.

It'd be really nice if the nav could use AA or Apple maps as a preconditioning input. (It is however a double edge sword as if it didn't work properly it'd chew up range and no one would be the wiser to to it being the app calling the preconditioning.) Goes back to the "Just give me a button and precondition for 15 or 30 min" regardless of current vehicle state. Plugged in, not, driving, ambient temps, distance to station, except if under say 25% charge?

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Yup, it barely increases temperature while driving normally. Regen will warm it up maybe a couple degrees but that’s not great for it while cold.

Yeah. This is the trade-off I don't know if I would have signed off on.

No heating when running to the grocery store or whatever...They very nominally and very slightly increase range at the expense of battery life and then they increase battery life at the expense of charge rate at the DCFC and I wonder if this was the best trade. Especially given that a warmer battery is more efficient, heating the battery on these short trips probably wouldn't have decreased range enough to matter while preserving battery life enough that they could probably have saved 10 minutes on a 10-80% charge profile.

Of course, I don't have access to all of their data so I don't know if my guesstimate here is accurate.

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