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benk016

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Setting min charge makes no sense. And why 50%? It's just an arbitrary number. The only reasonable number for an unpredictable situation is something close to 100%, which makes this whole feature useless.
So for you, I'd set it to like 70%, and your max to 90%.

If you plugged in, and have a time of day plan, it will try and get you to 90% during off peak hours. But if your rates go up before it hit 90, but had at least 70%, it will stop until it's cheap again. If you're under 70% it would still charge even at higher rates until it got to 70%. Then after your rates lower again it would finish charging to 90%.
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macchiaz-o

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Now that it's getting hotter in my garage, the EVSE is actively adjusting the power output limits because it's overheating.

PXL_20210602_065627603.jpg
Rather than watch my mobile charger degrade further as the garage gets hotter and hotter into this summer, I decided to take action right away.

Some of my local dealers actually had inventory of the FCCS. So I hung this on the wall after work today.

Ford Mustang Mach-E {Early Access Feature} Ford Intelligent Charging PXL_20210603_051327845
 

JamieGeek

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Setting min charge makes no sense. And why 50%? It's just an arbitrary number. The only reasonable number for an unpredictable situation is something close to 100%, which makes this whole feature useless.
My car has a range of 300+ miles at 100% I cannot fathom an emergency situation where I would need 300 miles of range. Even at 50% I would have 150 miles...more than enough to make it to and back from several local hospitals. (If you say "Hurricane Evacuation" well, for one you have several days notice for that, and for another we would also bug out in the RV ;)--and finally I'm in Michigan if we get a hurricane we're all in trouble.)

Now when I had the Focus Electric with its paltry 70 mile range...yes 100% every night.
 

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I agree that setting a minimum charge should generally avoid any bad situations, but I still don’t see the utility of this feature. If you have time of day metering, that’s why you set a charging schedule. It’s easy. So the benefit is….
1. Less energy loss from overcharging the battery? Highly unlikely that this will improve that at all.
2. Prolong battery life? Maaaaaybe. But I’d like some data from Ford on that.

In exchange for these dubious benefits, you have to plug your car in every time you get back to the garage. (Well you don’t have to, but the feature doesn’t fully “work” without that). And you never know what charge will await you the next time you drive.

Weird. I’m trying to imagine how this went down at Ford. I mean, do “smart” phones have this feature? When I plug in my iPhone, it charges until I unplug it or it reaches 100%. And Apple is pretty great at design. It’s been doing it for over a decade, and no engineer at Apple ever thought - “hey, let’s figure out how much to actually charge a phone based on how much we think the user will need.”

How about some real enhancements? Like being able to use the volume knob to adjust temp and fan speed? Or being able to more easily trigger 360 cam when parking? Or displaying charging status on the infotainment screen? Or any other number of useful features we’ve been discussing here.
 

Murse-In-Airy

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I’m really hoping “minimum range” will mitigate the charging outside my Voluntary Time of Use cheap electricity window. Like, my max charge is 90%. But under current charge logic, if I plug in at 20%, the car won’t reach 90% during my 8 hour charge window, so it charges outside my window. My hope is the car will say, “I can’t reach 90% but I can reach a minimum charge setting of 50%, so I’ll wait and charge during the VTOU window. I’ll finish to 90% tomorrow night.”
That being said, I was able to enroll one of the cars in the Intelligent Charging trial and not the other. (Which is OK since I only have one level 2 charger at home so far). But it charged to 100% last night including the last hour being outside my VTOU window. I’m going to let it keep doing it’s thing and hopefully it will learn and / or I can give constructive feedback.
 


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Weird. I’m trying to imagine how this went down at Ford. I mean, do “smart” phones have this feature? When I plug in my iPhone, it charges until I unplug it or it reaches 100%. And Apple is pretty great at design. It’s been doing it for over a decade, and no engineer at Apple ever thought - “hey, let’s figure out how much to actually charge a phone based on how much we think the user will need.”
Apple does have delayed / optimized charging on both the iPhone and Mac OS. A little different than charging a car, but motivation is to prolong battery life vs. time-of-day discounts.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512
Like a lot of things from Apple, it works so well you don't even notice what its doing.
 

Jimrpa

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I don’t think everyone in early access has gotten this (yet?)
 

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Apple does have delayed / optimized charging on both the iPhone and Mac OS. A little different than charging a car, but motivation is to prolong battery life vs. time-of-day discounts.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512
Like a lot of things from Apple, it works so well you don't even notice what its doing.
Wow. I had no idea. I went and checked my iPhone and, sure enough, this is enabled. But I have never seen this in action. The way I think it is supposed to work is that the phone learns when you will be connected to the charger for a long period of time (like overnight while sleeping), and delays charging to 100% until you are expected to wake up and start using the phone again. The theory being that sitting at 100% for long periods of time isn’t good for the battery health. But the weird thing is, this iPhone feature when enabled is supposed to give you an “Optimized Battery Charging” notification on the Lock Screen that says when the phone will be fully charged. And I have never gotten that notification.

Ok so back to the car, maybe this feature really can optimize battery life. Or maybe you can accomplish pretty much the same thing by not charging to 100%? I dunno.
 

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Same here in NC with Duke
I started to set this up, but my electric provider doesn't do any kind of time of day programs or anything so I don't know that this feature will do much for me specifically. But If you do have special rates this might be a great way to take advantage of it.
 

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Apple does have delayed / optimized charging on both the iPhone and Mac OS. A little different than charging a car, but motivation is to prolong battery life vs. time-of-day discounts.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512
Like a lot of things from Apple, it works so well you don't even notice what its doing.
It does, but it only works if you have a regular charging schedule, ie plug it in every night around the same time. What would be more helpful would just be a manually configurable charge limit for both Android and iOS devices.

For Ford Pass currently, simply because of how the utility here structured off-peak timing to be one continuous band of time every day, I just set it up to only charge during the off-peak time. For more complex utility rates that would be a huge boost. What I’d like to see is the ability to set a manual, one-off departure time (not a recurring one) and for the car to charge to 100% right before leaving. That would help with leaving on a road trip.
 

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What I’d like to see is the ability to set a manual, one-off departure time (not a recurring one) and for the car to charge to 100% right before leaving. That would help with leaving on a road trip.
YES!! Exactly what I would like to do as well.
Doesn't even have to be for a roadtrip, just a button in FordPass that you tell the car the next time you plan to leave and what charge level you want (if different from regular home setting). My schedule is variable, so setting up the days-of-the-week thing doesn't work at all.
 

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How about "intelligent" bug fixes? geeze.... frustrating as hell..
Amen! I wish that they would fix the presets, so they stay as set. The horn is driving me crazy(crazier). Most of us have figured out how to charge based on our preferences but those with the warped presets can't turn off the damn walk-away "chirp. It's not a chirp, it's a loud annoying startling disruptive HORN. Please someone from Ford tell someone else at Ford to PLEASE FIX THE HONKING HORN issue or disable the walk-away "chirp" until it's fixed!


Also, folks in the early access program agreed to a quasi-NDA when you signed up for the program and accepted the incentives. So, thanks for telling us what you're not supposed to be telling us.
 

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Amen! I wish that they would fix the presets, so they stay as set. The horn is driving me crazy(crazier). Most of us have figured out how to charge based on our preferences but those with the warped presets can't turn off the damn walk-away "chirp. It's not a chirp, it's a loud annoying startling disruptive HORN. Please someone from Ford tell someone else at Ford to PLEASE FIX THE HONKING HORN issue or disable the walk-away "chirp" until it's fixed!


Also, folks in the early access program agreed to a quasi-NDA when you signed up for the program and accepted the incentives. So, thanks for telling us what you're not supposed to be telling us.
What honking horn issue?

also, when I registered, there was no NDA presented at the time of registration. I haven’t had any features activated, nor have I been asked any specific questions. My expectation is that any needed NDAs will be presented individually prior to the applicable feature being activated or the specific survey being presented. Being in the early access program essentially was just saying “yes” when they asked for “volunteers”. I think they may go to a specific subset of that pool for different features or surveys, based on need and / or user demographics.
 

IL_Vet

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What honking horn issue?

also, when I registered, there was no NDA presented at the time of registration. I haven’t had any features activated, nor have I been asked any specific questions. My expectation is that any needed NDAs will be presented individually prior to the applicable feature being activated or the specific survey being presented. Being in the early access program essentially was just saying “yes” when they asked for “volunteers”. I think they may go to a specific subset of that pool for different features or surveys, based on need and / or user demographics.
Search for "honking horn" on this forum.

Ford Mustang Mach-E {Early Access Feature} Ford Intelligent Charging Honking Horn.JPG
 

Austin

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I agree that setting a minimum charge should generally avoid any bad situations, but I still don’t see the utility of this feature. If you have time of day metering, that’s why you set a charging schedule. It’s easy. So the benefit is….
1. Less energy loss from overcharging the battery? Highly unlikely that this will improve that at all.
2. Prolong battery life? Maaaaaybe. But I’d like some data from Ford on that.
Let me give you a real example:

1. You receive a discount in TOD metering schemes, but outside of those hours, the rate is very expensive. My weekday hours are 11 PM to 9 AM.
2. I arrived home from a trip a couple of days ago with 10% charge. My normal charge maximum is 90% (AWD ER).
3. When I plugged in for my overnight charge, the car started charging immediately (at the expensive rates). I was confused as the car is only supposed to charge at home during preferred rates.
4. It turns out that the car would have been unable to charge to 90% during the allotted off-peak hours, so it was gobbling expensive energy to try to get to 90% by 9 AM.
5. I had to manually adjust the max charge to 75%; then the next night went back to 90%.

So this feature would have enabled all of this automatically and prevented any charging at the higher rates.
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