Charging FAIL & GREAT Surprise When We Compare The Model Y & Mach-E On The World’s Toughest EV Test!

malba2366

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Don't confuse the WARRANTY with what you will see. Keep in mid the 11% buffer means that the first 11% of degradation will be invisible to you. Ford's batteries are a commodity chemistry that is well known, and historical data suggests that after 8 years the battery will only lose 10% or so with proper battery management.
Exactly. The $1300 or so they spent on that 11 kWh buffer is their insurance policy against battery warranty replacements. I know some believe they will unlock that buffer, but I don't see it happening.
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malba2366

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They will only unlock buffer if the battery suffers enough degradation to otherwise trigger a warranty claim, so as to keep the battery at 70% of advertised capacity. I meant to say that they won't just unlock the buffer at some point in the future for everyone as some people believe.
 

timbop

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I misspoke in my previous post. I implied that you'll never see degradation, which isn't correct. It doesn't work that way I implied. The battery is made of many cells charged in parallel. It doesn't set aside 10% of the cells, it only allows you to charge each cell up to a percentage of overall capacity, and only discharge to some level above 0%. The most damage to the batteries occurs at the very top and bottom of the scale; by not allowing you to access those portions it prevents you from doing the most damage to the battery. So, you'll still see some loss of overall charging capacity, but by keeping you from hitting the extremes where damage occurs quickly they extend the overall life of the cells.
 

dbsb3233

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So a worst case 30% drop is quite significant, won't you say? I was guessing 10%.
Absolutely. Warranty replacement is just for the extreme cases. They surely don't expect 30% degradation on more than a tiny% of vehicles (if even that), because they surely don't want to going through warranty expense on most MMEs.

Your 10% number sounds about right for what to expect for typical degradation over 8 years of use.
 

timbop

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There isn't anything to "unlock" at that point. If the SR AWD car is showing that it can only hold enough of a charge to get 150 miles, then the cells are already limited to being able to hold a combined charge of 48.5 kwh. There isn't anything to "unlock", except perhaps the small amount at the bottom. Discharging a Li-ion cell too low can permanently destroy the cell, so it would be crazy to allow the car to use that cushion at the bottom.

HOWEVER, this is a very unlikely case. 10% is about the worst you should expect over the 8 years of ownership
 


dbsb3233

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Exactly. The $1300 or so they spent on that 11 kWh buffer is their insurance policy against battery warranty replacements. I know some believe they will unlock that buffer, but I don't see it happening.
Maybe. But there's competitive forces at work as well. Most other BEVs don't have a buffer that large. That means Ford is adding cost for more battery without gaining the selling-point of more range for it. If that proves to be truly unnecessary, it makes little sense to for them to waste that much of the battery. Logically, they would do what Tesla did -- add range later via OTA when it's determined if/when they can do so.

But that just depends on what Ford determines with data collection and further testing. If they determine that drivers are generating more damaging heat than they expected, then they'll probably keep the buffer where it is. But if the data collection shows the batteries are doing fine and their cautious approach (vs what makers of other BEVs have been doing) proved to be unnecessary, it makes sense they would unlock a portion of that very conservative reserve.

I think the best way to sum it up is that no one really knows, Ford included (yet).
 

SteveUk

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Why should they give you more range and risk burning out the battery when you have had the car and paid for it. That logic makes no sense. It would only be for new customers and sold as an improvement and probably in addition to a battery improvement too. Once they have delivered the car there is no reason to increase the range. That is delusional to expect to happen.
 

dbsb3233

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Why should they give you more range and risk burning out the battery when you have had the car and paid for it. That logic makes no sense. It would only be for new customers and sold as an improvement and probably in addition to a battery improvement too. Once they have delivered the car there is no reason to increase the range. That is delusional to expect to happen.
You could say that about all OTA updates. Why include OTA at all if they have no intention of ever pushing out updates/improvements?

I do agree though that if they determine there's significant risk to the battery, they'll just keep the buffer where it is. Probably yet to be determined though.
 
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Woeo

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They promised a charging curve? I've only seen reference to peak charging rate.
Yes. Watch the times Palmer has spoken about this vehicle. The webinars. SEMA. The informative journalist walk thrus he was part of. The Mustang club visit. Read @trutolife27 on this forum. Read/watch the engineers (Ron Heiser?) available comments.

They have promised a state of the art technology laden vehicle without worries. They have promised the vehicle everyone wants. Buy this car and Ford will meet all our EV needs. Plug it in and don’t worry. It’ll have plenty of range. The car will direct us where to go and when to charge. This is the EV for first time users. Trust. Have faith.

Implicit in all that has been Ford’s message is that the charge rate will reasonably charge nearer 115/150 kW than the speeds managed by a Chademo restricted air cooled Leaf. Implicit in those messages meant to encourage buyers to have faith in this first effort is that DCFC won’t deliver L2 home garage rates of charge the moment capacity hits 80.1%.
 
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Woeo

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Why should they give you more range and risk burning out the battery when you have had the car and paid for it. That logic makes no sense.
This car will not be a success on global terms with millions of sales over the years without the first 50,000 owners proselytizing its attributes. That is Ford’s incentive.
 

dbsb3233

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Buy this car and Ford will meet all our needs.
Well, no, that's going a bit overboard.

Reasonable expectations, yes. Unreasonable ones, no.
 

Metv707

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Don’t know much about electric vehicles however, a 10% in 8 years battery degradation sounds more than acceptable. 29% is a little scary
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