BlueMach

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Ive said this quite a few times in other threads, and I got kind of blasted for it. I really believe these EV's do not work well with standard Lead Acid batteries. They need to be AGM. All the electronics in these cars drain the batteries and Lead Acid doesnt hold up well with all these electronics. I might be wrong but I am saying this from personal experience. There no starter, no alternator so the CCA avalable with Lead Acid is not important. What is, is the ability to hold a charge and handle parasitic discharge. AGM batteries do that best.
Tesla had the ssme issues as well and its the reason they switched out all the lead acid and want to convert to Lithium. If there is one thing that I will do if I get the car before this is resolved is ask the dealer to switch to an AGM.
For those who have the car at the dealer checking this issue, Id suggest you do the same.
Mach-E's 12V is AGM.
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MightyJawa

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Especially if you start it in accessory only mode (press start button with foot off the brake). In acc mode it does not turn on the HVB or DC-DC converter.
Do we know this is true for the Mach E?
 

JamieGeek

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Do we know this is true for the Mach E?
Its true for my Mach-E therefore it is likely true for all.

I've sat in my garage with the Mach-E in accessory only mode only to have the HVAC continuously blow cold air at me because the heaters (which are HVB powered) were not on.
 

Shayne

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Good question. I happen to have one of those 12V meters Tim posted about above and plugged it into my Mach-E:
  • Start up Mach-E: 15V
  • Steady state (I'm guessing after it determines that the 12V battery is full): 13.5V (float charge to keep the 12V battery full)
  • Off: Off
  • Plug in to charge: 15V
  • Charging: 13.5V
  • After charging complete: Off
Especially if you start it in accessory only mode (press start button with foot off the brake). In acc mode it does not turn on the HVB or DC-DC converter.
Good info and what I had hoped for. Been starting it up each day to charge the battery until this is fixed. Caught it in time for now and I have been powering it on for the last two days and it has been good so far; no more crazy melt downs. Second cup, few tunes. It has been cold but not when you have a heated seat. Lights were flashing and the stang puddle light was on at 6 am this morning maybe they are working on problems already?

Overall it has been fantastic so far; a couple of problems/misunderstandings but right now all appears to just work really well and the 12v will be fixed. For a while I thought fordpass was sucking more KW's from my iphone than the MME was from its pack. Updated to 3.16 and 14.4 and it has been good today. ?

Fortunately, after I trickle charged mine back to life I didn't get this warning. In fact, I went for an 80 mile spin with no issues at all except for testing the brakes when a doe jumped in front of my Mach E ?
Appears all the females are now after you. Can't blame them when they see you in that shinny new blue vehicle.
I doubt that it’s anything nefarious. If people are going to be playing with the accessories all day and not running the car it’s going to drain the 12v battery.
What do you mean by run the car? You mean push a start button and have it powered on, there is no alternator in this one?
 


hybrid2bev

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Good info and what I had hoped for. Been starting it up each day to charge the battery until this is fixed. Caught it in time for now and I have been powering it on for the last two days and it has been good so far; no more crazy melt downs. Second cup, few tunes. It has been cold but not when you have a heated seat. Lights were flashing and the stang puddle light was on at 6 am this morning maybe they are working on problems already?

Overall it has been fantastic so far; a couple of problems/misunderstandings but right now all appears to just work really well and the 12v will be fixed. For a while I thought fordpass was sucking more KW's from my iphone than the MME was from its pack. Updated to 3.16 and 14.4 and it has been good today. ?


Appears all the females are now after you. Can't blame them when they see you in that shinny new blue vehicle.

What do you mean by run the car? You mean push a start button and have it powered on, there is no alternator in this one?
I mean only turning on accessory only mode. Not having the car actually turned on (able to drive).
 

Shayne

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I mean only turning on accessory only mode. Not having the car actually turned on (able to drive).
Thanks those are my lessons. Sync screens are different when plugged in and when not. There is a different dash screen until you hit the brake. Learning. My old truck never had two clients on my network. Guess if you never have problems you do not learn as much. Too many positives here to dwell too much on a couple of bugs. Snow pack steep incline just lift foot a bit off the accelerator and you have total control of descent speed with no slippage. Just awesome, better than a snow machine in the snow.
 

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Stated by Ford: yes
Appears that way in the wiring diagrams: yes
Tested by one of us: not that I know of.

I know I could have tested this when I had my issues this weekend. I considered it but was short on time.
Link to wiring diagrams? Thanks.
 

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So if u happen to have a portable charger handy, and u you access the 12v, does it then need to trickle charge? There’s nothing to turn over so this isn’t a jump start really, right? Or is it?
 

jeng

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When the first 2013 Ford Cmaxes came out they had battery issues. Ford resolved the issues by a reprogram. I bought a 2014 and never had a problem. So I bet their will be a TSB on this matter of dead batteries.
Right, I remember that recall. Thankfully the 12V battery didn't die on my 2013 C-Max, but it was pretty low and the battery was replaced. Thankfully there were no 12V battery issues after the software patch.
 

SoCalPony

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After watching a lot of YouTube videos while waiting on my MME. It seems that the 12V battery drain issue has been the scourge of electrified vehicles:
Tesla Bjorn video showed him turning on pre-conditioning which also trickle charged the 12v battery. His phone app showed the 12v battery voltage during the test. Does the Ford phone app show the 12v status? So maybe a periodic pre-conditioning helps, but still doesn't explain why the battery got so low to begin with. Maybe sitting around so long with a small drain did damage the 12v batteries. Bjorn said that Tesla's by default automatically trickle charger the 12v even when the car is off, but many other EVs don't do that.

SCPony
 

kdryden99

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I mean...well...um...yup
I've thought about this a bit and here are my thoughts. Obviously we dont know the real cause yet so just take this with a grain of salt and dont flame me on this. Your thoughts and inputs on this are welcome also. But it explains why Tesla wants the 12v to be lithium.
1) If you go lead acid you can apply a higher current to the battery and it'll charge faster, but the battery will die faster also due to all the electronics
2) AGM handles electronics much better but since there is no alternator and you are using an inverter, you have to slow charge the battery. If the current draw from the electronics is higher than the applied charge you wont charge the 12V while driving, you'll be using the HVB current through the inverter to run the electronics. In theory this is great because you're not relying on the small 12v to start the car.
The problem is if the current supplied to the electronics from the inverter is not high enough you'll be pulling from both the LVB and HVB. With such a small LVB, it wont last long.

So how do fix this? You cant increase the current applied to the 12v agm. You can increase current output from the inverter while the car is on to make sure you charge the 12v while you're driving, but this may affect range. (this may be the only solution) You can put a bigger battery but weight will increase and how big is big enough?
You can go lithium but you'll have to reprogram the cars system to understand that it runs at 12v and not 12.8-13.5v. Its the reason why this is such a problem for EV engineers to figure out.
Elon wanting to go lithium makes complete sense but the rest of the car market is not setup for it. We'll see what Ford does.
 
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SoCalPony

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Tesla Bjorn video showed him turning on pre-conditioning which also trickle charged the 12v battery. His phone app showed the 12v battery voltage during the test. Does the Ford phone app show the 12v status? So maybe a periodic pre-conditioning helps, but still doesn't explain why the battery got so low to begin with. Maybe sitting around so long with a small drain did damage the 12v batteries. Bjorn said that Tesla's by default automatically trickle charger the 12v even when the car is off, but many other EVs don't do that.

SCPony
Other thread seems to indicate that the 12v battery is automatically charged by the HVB. Will just have to see what Ford has to say.

SCPony
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