Excellent Q&A with Ford/Mach-E Electric Vehicle Engineer

[macchiaz-o]

Hmm, good points about the GT performance. I wonder if they get to some point where they decide to liquid cool the wires to achieve higher performance without adding a ton of extra copper.

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[Gforcemurphy]

I would have had a dedicated question on whether or not we will be able to remove those fiddly hook door handle thingys! ?

 

[dbsb3233]

What do you guys make of his answer to this question about high powered charging?

do you really think that anyone would put that much extra copper wire in a car to support 350kW and not use it? DCFC rates destroy batteries, and Tesla is pretty much the only vehicle OEM that has as much parallel cell structure to avoid catastrophic damage from DCFC rates like that.

I read it two ways. Either they aren't going to go more than 150kW because it'll kill the batteries or they've wired it to handle 350kW but may be conservative in winding up the wattage.

Which way do you read it?

By wiring it to handle up to 350, they must think that at some point the vehicle could have battery packs that can handle significantly more than 150.

Whether that means they may be expecting improved performance out of the EXISTING battery packs (via fine tuning) vs just planning for future battery packs is unclear. My guess is the latter. While fine-tuning may squeeze a little more out, seems unlikely that would produce quantum leaps. That would probably require a whole new (future) battery pack. Which he hints at with "as much parallel cell structure to avoid catastrophic damage from DCFC rates like that."

That also reinforces that it's probably not a good idea to rely on a lot of DCFC charging. In other words, it's probably not a good vehicle choice if you don't have dependable L2 charging for the vast majority of your charging (typically overnight at home). At least until better battery architecture comes along that doesn't gradually cause "catastrophic damage ".

That's what's tricky about being an early adopter. In a few years, the battery packs Ford puts in could be much better.

 

[1pt21Gigawatts]

By wiring it to handle up to 350, they must think that at some point the vehicle could have battery packs that can handle significantly more than 150.

Whether that means they may be expecting improved performance out of the EXISTING battery packs (via fine tuning) vs just planning for future battery packs is unclear. My guess is the latter. While fine-tuning may squeeze a little more out, seems unlikely that would produce quantum leaps. That would probably require a whole new (future) battery pack. Which he hints at with "as much parallel cell structure to avoid catastrophic damage from DCFC rates like that."

That also reinforces that it's probably not a good idea to rely on a lot of DCFC charging. In other words, it's probably not a good vehicle choice if you don't have dependable L2 charging for the vast majority of your charging (typically overnight at home). At least until better battery architecture comes along that doesn't gradually cause "catastrophic damage ".

That's what's tricky about being an early adopter. In a few years, the battery packs Ford puts in could be much better.

I mean, I work on the car too and this is just poor phrasing. DCFC is bad for any battery, hell Tesla even tells customers to keep the car charged below 80%.
It’s 150kW, that’s published on the site. It’s not going to kill your battery to DCFC but for any lithium battery including Tesla’s it’s a lot better to charge the vehicle slower and to less than 80% SOC.

There may be some things that I’m not aware of that this person is talking about, but I do the charging equipment and this idea that the battery isn’t up to DCFC just isn’t true

 

[dbsb3233]

Q: 1.) I know that ground clearance is closer to that of a sedan, but how is the ride height? Are you sitting any higher because it’s a crossover?

Answer:

1. EVs tend to have lower ride height because the battery contribution to the curb weight and the fact that the aerodynamics are such a high requirement and lower ride heights help that. Our ride heights are published, it's around 6" if I recall. Slightly lower on GT.

I was disappointed that he seemed to misinterpret this question. The Q was really asking about sitting height, not ground clearance. But he answered the question as GC. 6" is the GC, not the sitting height.

Darn. Was hoping for a real answer on sitting height (i.e. how high is the driver seat off the ground).

 

[1pt21Gigawatts]

I was disappointed that he seemed to misinterpret this question. The Q was really asking about sitting height, not ground clearance. But he answered the question as GC. 6" is the GC, not the sitting height.

Darn. Was hoping for a real answer on sitting height (i.e. how high is the driver seat off the ground).

Oh it’s low, the whole vehicle is really low if you check out the videos. Much closer to the coupe than a sedan. I haven’t sat in it yet myself but we see them drive around all the time. The roofline only goes up to my shoulders.

 

[dbsb3233]

I mean, I work on the car too and this is just poor phrasing. DCFC is bad for any battery, hell Tesla even tells customers to keep the car charged below 80%.
It’s 150kW, that’s published on the site. It’s not going to kill your battery to DCFC but for any lithium battery including Tesla’s it’s a lot better to charge the vehicle slower and to less than 80% SOC.

There may be some things that I’m not aware of that this person is talking about, but I do the charging equipment and this idea that the battery isn’t up to DCFC just isn’t true

That's what I figured too, that "catastrophic" was a bad choice of words that implied it was much worse than it really is. But OTOH, I suspect it does mean "significantly worse" than L1/L2 charging. It would be really helpful to see that quantified. Are we talking like 30% range reduction over 5 years if mostly DCFC charging? Or just 5%? It's hard to use Tesla as a benchmark for this because they have the more advanced battery architecture (as he alluded to).

 

[dbsb3233]

Oh it’s low, the whole vehicle is really low if you check out the videos. Much closer to the coupe than a sedan. I haven’t sat in it yet myself but we see them drive around all the time. The roofline only goes up to my shoulders.

That would suck (for my tastes). I hate crawling down into and out of low-seat cars. "Groaners", I call them.

I've tried to estimate it based on Ford's specs, measuring from the top. It says the vehicle height is 63", and that headroom is 40.5 with the glass roof. Since the peak height of the Mach-e appears to be right over the driver seat, that should put the driver seat at 22" off the ground by my estimates (figuring 1/2" for the glass).

I did the same exercise for my 2013 Escape and it's at 23". So only an inch difference. I could live with that. But if it's way down at 15-20", that's a deal-breaker for me. I'm hoping (assuming) that the battery back in the floor offsets that low ground clearance and gives it a more typical crossover-like seat height.

 

[zhackwyatt]

That would suck (for my tastes). I hate crawling down into and out of low-seat cars. "Groaners", I call them.

I've tried to estimate it based on Ford's specs, measuring from the top. It says the vehicle height is 63", and that headroom is 40.5 with the glass roof. Since the peak height of the Mach-e appears to be right over the driver seat, that should put the driver seat at 22" off the ground by my estimates (figuring 1/2" for the glass).

I did the same exercise for my 2013 Escape and it's at 23". So only an inch difference. I could live with that. But if it's way down at 15-20", that's a deal-breaker for me. I'm hoping (assuming) that the battery back in the floor offsets that low ground clearance and gives it a more typical crossover-like seat height.

I would guess its close to the C-Max. Which is definitely easier to get in and an out of than a sedan.

 

[J Duce]

That would suck (for my tastes). I hate crawling down into and out of low-seat cars. "Groaners", I call them.

I've tried to estimate it based on Ford's specs, measuring from the top. It says the vehicle height is 63", and that headroom is 40.5 with the glass roof. Since the peak height of the Mach-e appears to be right over the driver seat, that should put the driver seat at 22" off the ground by my estimates (figuring 1/2" for the glass).

I did the same exercise for my 2013 Escape and it's at 23". So only an inch difference. I could live with that. But if it's way down at 15-20", that's a deal-breaker for me. I'm hoping (assuming) that the battery back in the floor offsets that low ground clearance and gives it a more typical crossover-like seat height.

I am with you on ground clearance from the seating or sitting position. The published dimensions of this car is similar to the BMW X4 or Audi Q5 with both being about an inch taller. This seems good to me as someone used to driving an Explorer. Until I see it in person, I plan to go to both Ford and BMW to sit in similar spec cars to get a feel of the height off the ground.

 

[Whatstreet]

That was pretty amazing. Things like keeping the Mustang name alive with EVs and the example of GM and the camero was something I hadnt thought or heard about. This really builds excitement for the vehicle and gives a good perspective on it rather than people guessing on a message board without actually trying it out.

I can't see how redefining the name by using it for a CUV is keeping it alive, it just makes it mean something else. Also, he implied future Mustang coupes would be ICE. This strategy is not sustainable. At some point, I think there is a place in the market for an EV sport coupe. Wouldn't it have made more sense to reserve the name for that car?

GM may discontinue the Camaro due to some regulations and demand. However, discontinued cars do not always stay discontinued as with the Ford Bronco. I think GM is laying back for now because they have already accrued their tax incentives, though ZEV credits remain. GM will produce more EVs in the future and may produce an EV Camaro sport coupe without any confusion to what a Camaro is.

 

[Whatstreet]

Who was asking the questions during the interview? I did not see any identification other than Q and it appeared to be multiple people.

 

[macchiaz-o]

This was from a Reddit post. Many different users were asking the questions, and the person who identified himself as a mechanical engineer who's been with Ford for five years was providing his responses.

 

[Machemark]

Q: Extremely excited to see the mach-e in person. Will you be getting one as your everyday driver?

Answer:
I'm strongly considering it! I've got my reservation right now and am trying to figure out if I want it not or if I want to save up for the GT. The benefit for working here is you get to see what's coming next too, so sometimes it can get really tempting!

That last sentence makes me wonder!

To be fair, it's pretty clear that the EV space will explode in the next 5-10 years. Greater leaps will be made and cars will have cooler features, go faster, charge faster and have longer ranges.

ICE, although it's had it's efficiency upped in the past few years, in part to smaller engines, hybrids and things like start/stop technologies, it's essentially reached a limit.

When he says that, it just reaffirms those facts, and if anything makes one wonder if we should just be leasing this generation of EV, especially if cars turn out to be more like cell phones.

However if EVs can keep their semi-modularity like ICE has now, and we can mod them to add quicker charging, or to hack the cars firmware then I can't wait for the future.

 

[dbsb3233]

Q: Two more battery-related questions:

What battery capacity is reserved on the Mach-E? Is it 80% usable? 90% usable? Or, is that still being determined?

Is the DCFC rate ever going to be increased or is the 150kW max based on wiring sizes?

Answer: Oh man if there wasn't a question that I was less allowed to answer. Suffice to say that Tesla is famous for and even previously sued for advertising too much usable capacity. We are MUCH more conservative than that. We're still calibrating and figuring it our for a few more months.And, to answer the second without answering the second, do you really think that anyone would put that much extra copper wire in a car to support 350kW and not use it? DCFC rates destroy batteries, and Tesla is pretty much the only vehicle OEM that has as much parallel cell structure to avoid catastrophic damage from DCFC rates like that.

I assume "MUCH more conservative" is referring to where they set the 0% and 100% set points within the real range of the batteries. Sounds like Tesla usually sets that quite liberally in order to advertise greater range, but at what cost? Maybe their more advanced battery architecture can handle more with less "damage"?

I guess we'll just have to see, but it would be nice to find out more details so as to have an idea of what true practical range is on the Mach-e. By that, I mean is it significantly damaging to charge to 100% and run it to 0%? Or have they already built so much buffer into those 0% and 100% set points that we shouldn't even bother trying to limit it to 10%-80% most of the time?

Also, will it go below 0% at all? If yes, how far (est), and how damaging is it? While we certainly wouldn't plan to go below that, knowing it's there goes a long way to determining how much practical range there is. Same way in a gas car. If I know there's a 2 gallon (~50 mile) reserve when the tank reads E, I'm willing to take it to E. If not, the practical bottom is more like 1/8th.

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