Ford app does not capture all charging data?

[Chad]

I have had my 2025 Premium AWD Extended for almost 4 weeks now. Late last week I got a Chargepoint Home Flex (nema 14-50), up to that point I was using the Ford mobile charger.

I started looking at what the charger reports vs what the Ford app reports for energy delivered. I understand that the Ford app reports how much energy is actually delivered to the battery, and that there is some losses, however the difference I am see is much larger than that.

For example I parked on Saturday just before noon, and left it plugged in until Monday at 7:15am. The battery was at 84% when I plugged it in and the charge limit was set to 90%. Between that time I did turn the car on for about 30 minutes to help melt show/ice while I was shovelling on Sunday, and I did schedule the departure for Monday morning so it conditioned the battery and heated the cabin. The ford app shows that 4.8 kWh added, and the Chargepoint app shows 28.7kWh! Even the 4.8kWh seems a little low to me, 6% would be somewhere closer to 5.3kWh.

If you take a look at the graph in the Chargepoint app you can see the initial charging, the preconditioning along with several smaller spikes in between. I assume that these are the car keeping the battery above freezing. It has been reasonably cold here over the weekend, fluctuating between -20c and -5c.

I find it interesting that the for app seems only to report the energy used during the initial charge, and not any energy used after the fact for maintenance and preconditioning. Has anyone else observed similar discrepancies?

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[cheerioboy26]

The Ford App only reports energy added during charging. It doesn't report maintenance or departure time usage (assuming you're not also charging during departure time preparation.)

 

[Sikkun]

In my experience the Ford app makes numbers up and it’s not really worth looking at.

 

[RickMachE]

Those spikes are likely not the car warming the battery, they are too close together, especially the last one. In recent days, my Mach-E warmed at noon, then again at 3AM, then again at 6PM. It used between 1.96 and 2.52kWh per time. My Lightning warmed a few more times, different battery, different algorithm. 7PM, 3AM, 9:30AM, 11PM, 1PM, and 4AM. Never pulled more than 1.95kWh, usually less.

 

[Chad]

Those spikes are likely not the car warming the battery, they are too close together, especially the last one. In recent days, my Mach-E warmed at noon, then again at 3AM, then again at 6PM. It used between 1.96 and 2.52kWh per time. My Lightning warmed a few more times, different battery, different algorithm. 7PM, 3AM, 9:30AM, 11PM, 1PM, and 4AM. Never pulled more than 1.95kWh, usually less.

Interesting. How are you seeing when it warms up the battery? Are you looking at your EVSE data or do you have some other way?

 

[RickMachE]

Interesting. How are you seeing when it warms up the battery? Are you looking at your EVSE data or do you have some other way?

EVSE data.

See if you can find where the ChargePoint data is, showing you it was pulling power from XX to YY, and pulled ZZ.

You should be able to click on the session and get more granular data.

 

[Chad]

EVSE data.

See if you can find where the ChargePoint data is, showing you it was pulling power from XX to YY, and pulled ZZ.

You should be able to click on the session and get more granular data.

It looks like charge point removed the ability to export more granular data. The graph is the best I have. I am working on setting up a Home Assistant server, that will allow me to log better data. I will check back when that is all setup.

 

[Adventureboy]

The power pulling behaviour is highly dependent on the temperature of the battery (obviously impacted by the ambient temperature). Are you parked outside? I'm curious if you have a charge schedule activated during this time? The two close spikes might simply be a standard heating cycle followed by a departure time prep heating cycle that happened to be triggered closer because there are independent triggers. The final spike would be the actual departure time prep.
Unfortunately, Ford doesn't share the details.

 

[Chad]

The power pulling behaviour is highly dependent on the temperature of the battery (obviously impacted by the ambient temperature). Are you parked outside? I'm curious if you have a charge schedule activated during this time? The two close spikes might simply be a standard heating cycle followed by a departure time prep heating cycle that happened to be triggered closer because there are independent triggers. The final spike would be the actual departure time prep.
Unfortunately, Ford doesn't share the details.

Yes, I am parked outside. And I do not have any charge schedule set, I have a flat rate for electricity so I don't really see a reason to charge only at certain times.

For the two spikes very close together, the second one was at 1PM, which is when I went out to shovel and turned on the car. And I guess it just happened that it did a battery heating cycle a couple of hours before that.

Looking at this the graph I posted from over the weekend, and one from overnight Monday night, it seems like it is doing a battery heating cycle roughly every 6 hours (at least at these temperatures). And it seems smart enough to know that if there is a scheduled departure time set a few hours before that 6 hour mark, it will hold off on battery heating for the departure time.

The behaviour is interesting. Not bad, I just enjoy figuring out how the car does everything. I wish Ford gave us more information how it all works, but I guess that is likely ever evolving in updates.

 

[Adventureboy]

Yes, I am parked outside. And I do not have any charge schedule set, I have a flat rate for electricity so I don't really see a reason to charge only at certain times.

For the two spikes very close together, the second one was at 1PM, which is when I went out to shovel and turned on the car. And I guess it just happened that it did a battery heating cycle a couple of hours before that.

Makes sense that the spikes are heat cycles then. The graph doesn't give enough detail to see how much energy each cycle used, but probably a good part of the 'lost' energy was used up front and during the departure prep. I haven't tracked the MME as close, but the Lightning uses between 2.5-5kWh per spike between -15°C and -20°C and I've seen spikes as high as 15kWh when the temp dropped to -27°C and I plugged at target SOC with the battery cold-soaked. I expect the MME would be somewhat less than that; however, I think your graph aligns with what I've seen.

 

[Peugfan]

My JB 40 used to record the energy used during battery heating at lower temperatures when plugged in but not charging, both graphically and raw data. Then VoltiE neutered my charger so I can only charge and change charging amps. No data. Now Ford Pass records the kwh energy for charging, but not the preconditioning. Previously my experience was similar to RickMachE with regard to energy draw and frequency of battery heating intervals. Ford keeps changing the app, adding and subtracting features in the name of “improvement” without letting users know exactly what the changes are. I hate that.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I have had my 2025 Premium AWD Extended for almost 4 weeks now. Late last week I got a Chargepoint Home Flex (nema 14-50), up to that point I was using the Ford mobile charger.

I started looking at what the charger reports vs what the Ford app reports for energy delivered. I understand that the Ford app reports how much energy is actually delivered to the battery, and that there is some losses, however the difference I am see is much larger than that.

For example I parked on Saturday just before noon, and left it plugged in until Monday at 7:15am. The battery was at 84% when I plugged it in and the charge limit was set to 90%. Between that time I did turn the car on for about 30 minutes to help melt show/ice while I was shovelling on Sunday, and I did schedule the departure for Monday morning so it conditioned the battery and heated the cabin. The ford app shows that 4.8 kWh added, and the Chargepoint app shows 28.7kWh! Even the 4.8kWh seems a little low to me, 6% would be somewhere closer to 5.3kWh.

If you take a look at the graph in the Chargepoint app you can see the initial charging, the preconditioning along with several smaller spikes in between. I assume that these are the car keeping the battery above freezing. It has been reasonably cold here over the weekend, fluctuating between -20c and -5c.

I find it interesting that the for app seems only to report the energy used during the initial charge, and not any energy used after the fact for maintenance and preconditioning. Has anyone else observed similar discrepancies?

The Ford app only reports energy added to the battery. If the car is drawing power for heating, that's not battery charging and won't be included in the Ford app total. Whereas ChargePoint measures any electricity used. It's a difference in how usage is measured.

Those do look like regular battery heating events, combined with turning on the car. Each event is around 3 kWh in my experience.

The frequency of the heating events is proportional to how cold of environment the car is parked in and the wind speed (or roughly proportional to the wind chill). If you are parked outside in extreme -40º temps, it might have to heat a dozen times a day.

If you want less battery heating events, park in a garage, or change your charging hours. The battery will only heat during preferred charging hours.

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