TheVirtualTim
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Tim
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2020
- Threads
- 26
- Messages
- 1,215
- Reaction score
- 2,196
- Location
- Dearborn, MI
- Vehicles
- Mach-E First Edition, Escape Hybrid
I agree. My other half wants to make sure the car can only charge during off-peak (to save on the electric bill). But I'm thinking ... this First Edition is basically a $60k car (more if you count the taxes, registration, etc.) Do I really want to risk the complications of allowing my 12v battery to go low because I want to save a few pennies per day by forcing the moderate amount of 12v battery maintenance charging to only happen at night? I'm fine waiting to off-peak to charge the big battery ... but I want the little battery to be maintained whenever the car wants to charge it.This is why I’ve not been a fan of allowing the charging stations to control the timing of the charge (instead of the EV controlling charge timing) - the EV periodically needs juice to warm up HVB, charge the LVB, etc.... In my view, it’s best to have the juice ready/supplied by the charging station.
A lot of important stuff relies on the health of that 12v battery. The car puts most stuff to sleep when you shut it off. But a few things have to keep running (cellular modem, bluetooth radio, alarm, battery management, etc.)
If Ford sends an OTA update, the computer responsible for managing the update runs on that 12v battery. I wouldn't want the 12v battery to have insufficient power to complete an OTA update.
When you connect the car to a wall charger, the car has to talk to the charger to learn how much power it is allowed to draw before it begins charging. The computer responsible for that runs on that 12v battery. This means if the 12v battery were allowed to get so low that the computer can't operate... plugging the car in would mean it would not charge (until you manually charge the 12v battery by opening the frunk and connecting an AGM battery charger).
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