Charging - what else?

[Rjs104]

Hi All,

First of all a disclaimer - I realise I'm probably worrying too much, and should just get on with charging whenever...but...

My takeaway summary of best practice for charging the Mach E from reading the manual and various forum and online posts is:

- Best to use slow chargers where possible
- The batteries like it best around the 50% mark - which is why this is the "long term storage" sweet spot
- Best to run the batteries on broad cycles between 20% and 80% (or 85% or 90% depending on your charge-religion!)
- Only top up to 100% if a long road trip is ahead
- Best to leave a delay before charging commences after a drive (to allow batteries to cool somewhat)
- Best to be plugged in for pre-conditioning, so that the grid power can be used for this rather than the batteries.


So trying to put all this together into a method of working for myself I hit a few conundrums. My life is very ad hoc - I'm a freelancer and as such my work patterns are never regular.

Most of the time, working between 20% and 85% charge is fine for me - I rarely will have a trip over 100 miles in a day, for instance.

But I like the idea of the car being pre-conditioned before leaving, both for my comfort and for the benefit of the batteries.

I can't see a way to turn off charging completely if the car is plugged in...

What I'd love to be able to do is have the routine of always plugging my car in when I get home, regardless of its state - and so that it is plugged in ready for pre-conditioning.

And then to set some logic - if the battery is (say) between 30% and 85%, do nothing, but if it has dropped to 30% then start charging - but with a 30 minute delay after plugging in (which could be any time - I literally finish work some days at 1700, others at two in the morning).

I wonder, with a tie in with something like Home Assistant, there might be a way to engage this logic - so I'm not constantly updating schedules, etc.)

Has anyone out there achieved such a mission? Or has no-one worried about it to this degree!!

Many thanks,

Richard.

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[Maquis]

I don’t think “broad cycles” has much benefit. 50 to 80 twice = 20 to 80 once as far as battery life is concerned.

Your other points are spot-on, IMO.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I can't see a way to turn off charging completely if the car is plugged in...

What I'd love to be able to do is have the routine of always plugging my car in when I get home, regardless of its state - and so that it is plugged in ready for pre-conditioning.

And then to set some logic - if the battery is (say) between 30% and 85%, do nothing, but if it has dropped to 30% then start charging - but with a 30 minute delay after plugging in (which could be any time - I literally finish work some days at 1700, others at two in the morning).

I wonder, with a tie in with something like Home Assistant, there might be a way to engage this logic - so I'm not constantly updating schedules, etc.)

Has anyone out there achieved such a mission? Or has no-one worried about it to this degree!!

Plug it in when you get home, set it to charge only at night, and set the charge limit to 50%. If you need to go further, then you'll have to remember to hit the charge to 100% button. I think that's the best you can do with the setup.

 

[AKgrampy]

Hi All,

First of all a disclaimer - I realise I'm probably worrying too much, and should just get on with charging whenever...but...

My takeaway summary of best practice for charging the Mach E from reading the manual and various forum and online posts is:

- Best to use slow chargers where possible
- The batteries like it best around the 50% mark - which is why this is the "long term storage" sweet spot
- Best to run the batteries on broad cycles between 20% and 80% (or 85% or 90% depending on your charge-religion!)
- Only top up to 100% if a long road trip is ahead
- Best to leave a delay before charging commences after a drive (to allow batteries to cool somewhat)
- Best to be plugged in for pre-conditioning, so that the grid power can be used for this rather than the batteries.


So trying to put all this together into a method of working for myself I hit a few conundrums. My life is very ad hoc - I'm a freelancer and as such my work patterns are never regular.

Most of the time, working between 20% and 85% charge is fine for me - I rarely will have a trip over 100 miles in a day, for instance.

But I like the idea of the car being pre-conditioned before leaving, both for my comfort and for the benefit of the batteries.

I can't see a way to turn off charging completely if the car is plugged in...

What I'd love to be able to do is have the routine of always plugging my car in when I get home, regardless of its state - and so that it is plugged in ready for pre-conditioning.

And then to set some logic - if the battery is (say) between 30% and 85%, do nothing, but if it has dropped to 30% then start charging - but with a 30 minute delay after plugging in (which could be any time - I literally finish work some days at 1700, others at two in the morning).

I wonder, with a tie in with something like Home Assistant, there might be a way to engage this logic - so I'm not constantly updating schedules, etc.)

Has anyone out there achieved such a mission? Or has no-one worried about it to this degree!!

Many thanks,

Richard.

It really does not save much battery life-wise to not go ahead and plug in daily and have a charge limit set to 90%. Of course if you have a TOU rate then you would want to program your car or EVSE to only allow charging during that window. Preconditioning does help out with the battery and improves range but unless you can program a certain time to leave preconditioning is not a strategy you can use. In the winter I plug in each night as range is considerably less so my Mach is at 90% in the morning. It is in a heated (50F) garage so no need for preconditioning but I am retired so do not leave at any set time daily. In the summer I plug in every few days but could plug in daily just as I do in the winter. I do take my car down to 50% when I leave home for more than a week but I doubt it causes much degradation if I did not.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

You could worry about it that much, in which case you may want to find a "smart" EVSE that can help.

I'm also a freelancer and don't worry about it that much. I set the battery to 85% maximum charge in the summer and 90% or 100% maximum charge in the winter. I leave it plugged in all the time, unless I forget when I come home from running errands. I don't worry about waiting to plug in after a road trip; the battery will not warm up enough to matter from a short (<100 mile) drive. I have my charge times set for 8:00 PM to 3:00 PM to avoid the grid peak usage from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM, but otherwise don't worry. My partner has an AM departure time set for the gym with a "warm cabin" setting.

You could set a preferred charge time for your home location to be something like 0:00 to 10:00 with a maximum charge of whatever you feel comfortable with (50% ish).

But some of the concerns noted aren't all that big of a deal.

If you're leaving the battery for a long time (a month or more), sitting at 50% is better than 85%, sure. But if you're using it regularly, the 50% idea isn't really relevant. If you want to worry about it, you can set the charge limit so 50% is kind of the average of your daily use and the max SOC. For example, if you use about 20% of the battery on most days, set the maximum SOC to 60%, so for any given day you'll float between about 40% and 60%. The battery lifetime won't change much if you charge to 85% instead of 50% unless it's also sitting in >45 C temperatures for long periods of time (without the active cooling available to it). I don't believe London has a season with such high temperatures?

The preconditioning of the battery doesn't matter much for local trips. The automated battery preconditioning will only happen if you set a departure time and the car is plugged in to an L2 EVSE. You can condition the cabin with the Start button in the Ford Pass app, but this does not condition the battery. If you have a long trip coming up, you can manually precondition the battery (if you have an L2 EVSE) by going into the car, turning it on, and setting a destination of a DCFC within about 18 miles, and asking the car to navigate there. Do this about 30-45 minutes before you leave.

 

[JohnnyForensic]

Everyone will have their own data points, but for me, I generally leave it plugged in all the time, and I have it set to 90%. I drive it maybe a couple of times a week for 20 or 30%, and then it goes back to 90. I have about 22,000 miles on the car and after almost two years of ownership, my battery health value is still 100%.

So in short, you probably have more pressing things in your life to worry about than this.

 

[Susanne76]

I get up really early so my routine is to charge for a few hours almost every morning when everything is nice and cool. Kind of like a coffee and charging routine. I don’t let the battery get much below 40% and usually charge to 85%. With the driving I do this has been working well.

Where I live (SoCal) electricity is ridiculously expensive so the TOU plans don’t make a dent. It’s a manual approach but I guess I feel more comfortable with it than leaving the car plugged in. Maybe in time I will experiment with that but this works for my schedule as of now.

 

[dmastro]

probably worrying too much

Charge it when you want/need to suit your lifestyle and it'll be fine.

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