Cold weather under performing

[bvelderman]

For people that drive a lot and have installed a level 2 so they can roll into the garage and plug in sure. I park in a driveway and if I charge the cord is run under the door out to my car.
If someone can convince me there is a long term reason to plug in every night, but if it's just battery efficiency, that's unreasonable. Plenty of us live in cold states without charging most of the places we work. If I drove to a job it would sit for 8 hours in 14 degree weather in a parking lot. How is that different than leaving it in my driveway over night?

I think the point is, that if you want to drive longer distances the way to optimize is the keep it plugged in before the trip.

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[sglewiswl]

I think the point is, that if you want to drive longer distances the way to optimize is the keep it plugged in before the trip.

That I understand. If I drove 40-50 miles a day, in cold weather, keeping it plugged in overnight would make the most sense.
I drive a freakishly low amount, but the L1 is perfectly capable and extremely convenient for light charging. Those of us in cold weather states are going to have many scenarios where a car sits for 8-12 hours or even days in single or double digit temps without access to a L1 or L2 charger.

 

[DK922]

Unfortunately, Ford didn't add a heat pump until the 2025 models.

 

[jmcbrew]

I do not know why fast charging takes longer. Both the significant drop in range and the increase in time to fast charge surprised me.

Multiple responses have addressed this, but I’m not sure you acknowledged it, so I will add to the discussion:

Your battery is too cold to receive a full speed charge. Your Mach-E can start heating the battery when you are on the way to a charger, but it needs to know that you are in the way to a charger.

The way it knows you are on the way to a charger is that you must enter it to the navigation system. It will take about 20-30 minutes or so to make a difference, so try to enter it into the nav system well ahead of your arrival. Ford doesn’t give us an easy way to see that this is happening. You’ll need an OBDII dongle and an appropriate app to view this data.

I do wish Ford would give us a manual battery conditioning button and a status display like some other EV manufacturers have done. There have been times when I wanted to charge, but couldn’t find the charger in the nav system — especially while driving.

 

[dmc23]

Wisconsin driver here - '23 premium with extended battery. I completely relate. I drive 80 mi (~130km) round trip to work Tue, Wed, and Thu. I don't like to leave the house with the range less than 1.5X my round trip distance. In summer, I can charge the car to 80 or 90% once or twice a week, but in winter, it's on the plug almost constantly and set to charge to 100%, with departure times set so that the battery pre-conditions.

Interestingly, I grew up and started my family/career in Montreal. Given my current experience in Wisconsin, I'm not sure I'd own an EV in Montreal TBH, even though your electricity rates are a fraction of mine.

 

[TheRock]

Wisconsin driver here - '23 premium with extended battery. I completely relate. I drive 80 mi (~130km) round trip to work Tue, Wed, and Thu. I don't like to leave the house with the range less than 1.5X my round trip distance. In summer, I can charge the car to 80 or 90% once or twice a week, but in winter, it's on the plug almost constantly and set to charge to 100%, with departure times set so that the battery pre-conditions.

Interestingly, I grew up and started my family/career in Montreal. Given my current experience in Wisconsin, I'm not sure I'd own an EV in Montreal TBH, even though your electricity rates are a fraction of mine.

I'm on the south shore of MTL. No issues with an EV for short, long or very long drives. We have charging infrastructure everywhere. Even up to Natashquan if you know where that is.

I don't know why would owning an EV in MTL would be an issue.

 

[Sikkun]

I don't' heat the cabin and the battery charges albeit slowly. I work from home and drive maybe 50 miles a week. I just took the longest trip so far in the Mach-E, 66 miles round trip. On my 66 mile trip is was snowing and 20 degrees. I had the temp at 74 and the passenger seat heater on, wipers running, on the freeway. I ran another trip when I got back and the car was at 52% charge. Level 1 is the most convenient way for me to charge and I'm not sure I've seen a compelling reason or in my own case any downside. I'm not convinced I need to plug it in every night when it is cold, but if I do it would be level 1.

If your longest trip is 66 miles I don’t think that battery temps are going to affect you much ever unless you live in much colder climate.

 

[dmc23]

I'm on the south shore of MTL. No issues with an EV for short, long or very long drives. We have charging infrastructure everywhere. Even up to Natashquan if you know where that is.

I don't know why would owning an EV in MTL would be an issue.

Glad to hear it. Most of the charging infra by me is owned by a certain soon to be trillionaire, so I charge exclusively (and much more cheaply) at home

 

[TheRock]

Glad to hear it. Most of the charging infra by me is owned by a certain soon to be trillionaire, so I charge exclusively (and much more cheaply) at home

Tesla makes it right and whenever possible and charging infrastructure is somewhat sparse, I use the Superchargers.

 

[sglewiswl]

If your longest trip is 66 miles I don’t think that battery temps are going to affect you much ever unless you live in much colder climate.

I think people need to be cognizant that there are many ways to charge an EV. I have a 240 charger for an emergency but I had to use a combo of adapters and put a hole on the wall. 120v works if your trips are are small. I just did 2 trips and my car is at 90% and 151 miles. This time of year I'll plug it in once a week and be OK.

 

[Tyler]

Looking forward to going back to gas engine in August 2-year lease ends - I started car shopping ;-) I have learned so much (the hard way) how bad FORD and this Mach-E is from this cold weather snap and the range suck it has on this POS. Does anybody on this forum have real-world proven advise (not that FORD manual recommends) on getting the most milage out of this poorly engineered car battery? My FORD dealer techs and sales staff know jack-nothing about this topic.

 

[Billyk24]

Thanks for all your responses. Just to let you know, Norway’s climate is milder than Ottawa and Montreal Canada.

I did not have the heat blasting. It was at 16 C. I think at temps below- 12 c EV performance just really drops. It would be nice if Ford had some curves(on how much range performance drops) on this to help in trip planning. I just need to take that in consideration on future trips. I think the only thing I could have done is taking it easier( slow down) and perhaps found a charger to precondition.

I do not know why fast charging takes longer. Both the significant drop in range and the increase in time to fast charge surprised me.

Fast charging takes longer because the battery is not warm. Preconditioning enroute to a dcfc in bitter cold winter weather while driving on divided 4 lane highways will fail to warm the battery pack enough. All this can be seen on car scanner pro app

 

[devmach-e]

Looking forward to going back to gas engine in August 2-year lease ends - I started car shopping ;-) I have learned so much (the hard way) how bad FORD and this Mach-E is from this cold weather snap and the range suck it has on this POS. Does anybody on this forum have real-world proven advise (not that FORD manual recommends) on getting the most milage out of this poorly engineered car battery? My FORD dealer techs and sales staff know jack-nothing about this topic.

With that sort of attitude, no one is going to want to give you advice on a car you admit you aren't keeping. Why invest the time with winter ending soon, too?

 

[Maquis]

With that sort of attitude, no one is going to want to give you advice on a car you admit you aren't keeping. Why invest the time with winter ending soon, too?

He’s just pissed because he bought a car without doing his homework.

 

[sglewiswl]

He’s just pissed because he bought a car without doing his homework.

The biggest problem in the US is that the local dealers don't want to sell EVs and unless you know someone who owns one it's all FUD. If you don't have a home charger or drive more than a 100 miles a day an EV probably isn't a good choice without a robust charging infrastructure.
This cold snap has lowered my range by the expected amount and the Mach-E's cold weather behavior has been pretty consistent. I'd say mine has been %60 of the moderate temp's range. I just read something about the new Chinese sold state batteries being around 72% cold weather capacity.

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