Odds were a LOT higher of that happening pre-Elon.
You wouldn't manually activate it. It will automatically activate when you set a DCFC station as your destination or a waypoint in the Nav. In the Ioniq 5, it will only activate if you're within 30 miles of the DCFC station and your SOC is above 20%. Hopefully, Ford's implementation won't be quite as restrictive. And I sure hope they're planning to have some kind of indicator that shows when it's operating.
I thought the Ford Navigation was included in the purchase of the car. It's the navigation connected services (weather, traffic, parking info, basically any real time status info etc.) that is covered by a subscription. Just using the onboard Nav as a GPS should always work even without connected services subscription.
Do we know if the warmer battery makes a significant difference in efficiency too? I'm guessing it probably does some, but not enough to fully offset the energy used to warm it up (otherwise Ford would automatically be doing it more than they already do).
That's my understanding as well, though you won't get status updates from the DCFC stations without connected services. Let's hope that preconditioning isn't tied to that subscription.
I believe you're correct.
You're probably right. I really don't know what features will disable when the trial ends. I'm guessing it will somewhat mimic the way it's worked in Ford cars for years (where you get a static map but then they try to sell you $149 updates). But not sure.
Ford Connected Built-In Navigation is a 3 year trial (Ford's words) of navigation services. After completion of trial, if not renewed it will revert to the embedded offline navigation. Features include "accurate maps, thoughtful points of interest, charge locations, real-time traffic and road condition updates, almost instant rerouting options". Note that the connected navigation updates full map yearly and "home zone" quarterly. It also provides navigation in "cellular dead zones".
If "charge locations" are completely removed after the trial ends, that would certainly kill preconditioning. But the bigger loss would be route planning with charging stops.
The laws of thermodynamics dictate it must be a net loss . This method is a trade of energy for faster charging times. The value depends on how much you value your time.
Right. That will always be the case if the power to warm the battery is coming from the battery itself. If you can get the power from somewhere else (like when plugged into Level 2), you can increase efficiency without losing any battery power. That's why setting a departure time while plugged in will get you better range.
I don't think that's accurate, otherwise Ford wouldn't have a BMS system that warms/cools the battery pack at all if it were always a net loss to warm/cool it.
I don't think it's a simple 1:1 correlation like that though for this case. That would be the case if we were just adding/subtracting electricity alone, but in this case we're talking about how some heating/cooling of the battery physically allows the electrons to flow better within it. There likely is a point where some heating/cooling produces a net gain (thus why there's a BMS and fluid running through the battery pack to keep it within a temperature range). But they've surely already optimized that for us via the BMS.
