DCFC preconditioning is it coming????

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Johnny572

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I can attest to the fact that leaving with a preconditioned battery, in 20 degree weather, results in a battery around 40 degrees several hours later. Charging is slower at 40 degrees than at the preconditioned temperature, which has been noted as 59. While charging, the battery rose from 40s to around 95. It then dropped back to 40 as I drove.

I did not compare the time to get to a higher sustained charging speed, but we know it's an issue. Preconditioning would save time with DC charging, noticeable time. The stopgap is to turn off your heat for the first 10 to 15 minutes of DC charging as Ford recommends, to let the heater warm the battery and get faster charging.
Itā€™s better for the battery also!
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sotek2345

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Had the battery actually been able to warm up, that trip would have been more on the 3 hour timeframe like it should have been.
How fast do you normally drive!!!!

400 miles in 3 hours is an average of ~133mph!

400 miles in 7 hours is still an average of almost 60mph. Not really bad at all!
 

timbop

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Needs a manual button. More so if it involves turning off the HVAC so it CAN heat the battery. I would expect a LOT of people to lose their cool (see what I did?) or reality lose their heat, in the cabin 30 miles out from a charger in 20 degrees. Wind chill will strip the heat from the windows and that cabin will be COLD before you get there. Coupled with, wait for it, can't use the heat while charing? (Pretty sure I read that somewhere) If this is the case they won't turn on this 'feature' of making it look like the HVAC quit.
You are misremebering what Ford said and getting overly agitated as a result. You absolutely CAN run the heat while charging, but as Phil will tell you the energy to do so has to come from somewhere. Running the heat full blast while charging can take up to 6kw away from the power delivered to the battery, increasing your charge time somewhat. If the car is getting 110kw that isn't much of a difference, but if the battery is frigid and/or the charger sucks you might only be getting 30kw - meaning the heater could increase your charge time by 20%.

As for ALL heat going from the HVAC to the battery during preconditioning: we have NO IDEA how Ford is implementing the preconditioning yet. They might use the resistive heater loop to some degree, or they may do something else to draw current and warm the battery. So again, you're jumping to conclusions based on a guess.
 

benk016

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How fast do you normally drive!!!!

400 miles in 3 hours is an average of ~133mph!

400 miles in 7 hours is still an average of almost 60mph. Not really bad at all!
Haha, it was a typo, it was actually around 300 miles.
 

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400 miles in 3 hours is an average of ~133mph!
Maybe Ben is a FORSCAN expert and hacked the speed limiter all while simultaneously signing the purchase paperwork, writing the check, telling the dealer no to their inflated Ar gas for tires addon, and doing the hack. It's no wonder they wouldn't let him use their L2 charger. :p
 


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Seeing a lot of questions why youā€™d want preconditioning. Warm batteries will take a charge much faster than cold batteries, so you want the batteries to be warm when you reach a DC fast charger so you get a faster charge rate. In winter conditions below freezing, the difference in charge rate can be significant, perhaps as much as 2x faster charging. For the fastest rates you want the battery to be 25-35Ā°C (77-95Ā°F).

In reality, the heater in the Mach-E is limited, so the amount of temperature increase in the pack will be limited. While still running the cabin heat, I estimate the pack will only warm up 5-10Ā°C in 30 minutes. If itā€™s very cold out (less than 5Ā°F) you wonā€™t get any pack heating if the cabin demand is too high. So in reality this will be a modest improvement in charge speeds. The Mach-E would need a separate battery heater to do more.

If you precondition before a trip (which you should when cold), the pack will cool some while driving, so this will be useful to warm it back up again before you reach your charging stop.

In the interim until the OTA is released, remember to turn off HVAC after your plug into the DC charger so the pack can heat.
 

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Something I haven't seen mentioned here yet is the increased battery capacity when it is warm. I charged my extended range 2022 that in the summer has 91 KWH today with an ambient temperature in the 20's and it can only hold about 75 KWH's. if the battery was warm it would not only charge faster but also go further on a charge.
 
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Batteries charge slowly at a DCFC when they're cold. Preconditioning will heat up the battery when the car knows you're on your way to a DCFC so that it's warm when you get there and can charge faster.
Itā€™s better for the battery also!
Mach E DCFC is fine for me during the summer but winter charging is horrible and can be fixed with in route Preconditioning.
Hmmm... good point. But in my use case, I think I'd rather just precondition from the wall in order to maximize my range, rather than wasting battery to keep it warm during the drive just to have a faster session at my destination.

Eventually when DCFC becomes much more plentiful, it might make sense to set a charging route and use enroute preconditioning to speed up sessions, but that only seems important for extended road trips with multiple charging stops.
If you ever did a road trip in the winter and DCFC Its bad! In route preconditioning would help this.
 

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So, Hyundai gives their users a way to charge faster and get on their way, and Ford gives their users YouTube and more games to distract them while having to sit for hours to charge in the cold. šŸ¤”
 

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So, Hyundai gives their users a way to charge faster and get on their way, and Ford gives their users YouTube and more games to distract them while having to sit for hours to charge in the cold. šŸ¤”
someone didn't read the whole thread
 

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What are you talking about? Ford does not have preconditioning.
It will, apparently it's imminent and part of 3.6.2, but not activated yet. Insiders confirmed.
 

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You missed it, not part of 3.6.2. It got pulled into its own update that isn't out yet
Ah ok, not sure where I missed that, thread is off the rails haha, but it is coming* so point stands.

*soon in Ford time
 

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Seeing a lot of questions why youā€™d want preconditioning. Warm batteries will take a charge much faster than cold batteries, so you want the batteries to be warm when you reach a DC fast charger so you get a faster charge rate. In winter conditions below freezing, the difference in charge rate can be significant, perhaps as much as 2x faster charging. For the fastest rates you want the battery to be 25-35Ā°C (77-95Ā°F).
It'll be interesting to see how much difference it really makes in practice after the update. I was still getting ~80kw at 12F yesterday with no en route preconditioning. But I did precondition at the hotel for about 45 minutes 2 hours prior to that. Not sure if there was much left over by then (135 miles later of driving 75 MPH in freezing temps), but I assume not much. Anyway, ~80kw is roughly a third slower than what I would normally get in the summer (~120kw).

Plus, I suspect the charger itself may also be affected by the cold. Even if the battery was warm, I'm not sure I'd have gotten a full ~120 out of a freezing charger and cable.

Other DCFC charges on our trip saw lower power too (80-100kw), but the temps at those were usually 20's and 30's. But no preconditioning.

Everyone is different on their tolerance to slower DCFC, of course. For us, it wasn't all that noticeable. But we're very used to the slower pace of road trips with DCFC charging now. The difference between a 30 minute stop and a 40 minute stop is kinda 'eh' at this point. Plus as Tim noted above, it also uses up some juice to precondition en route, reducing range a bit and requiring a few more kWh to be re-added (which adds a few minutes back to charging time). Not sure the net difference will really be worth it.
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