Ford Navigation Rant...*Now* can we have a Pre-Condition Button?

[kltye]

Here's the Use Case: It's January, -15c, my car has been sitting in a parking lot for 6 hours and I need to charge at a DCFC not listed in Ford Navigation.
please.

Obviously Ford Nav needs to have every single DCFC in the nation listed. And obviously you should only ever use Ford Nav, instead of any other navigation option (including a human copilot).

ETA: Also, Ford's preconditioning algorithm is kinda shit as it is, even if the DCFC location is in the nav. It only starts preconditioning about 20 miles from the charger, which at highway speeds, can often be inadequate time to get up to optimum temperature. So I'd like to be able to hit that button when I know I'm x number of miles or minutes away so I can arrive with the correct pack temperature.

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[Mache_Nor]

Oh my yes, please! It took two years for them to add a 16-stall chargers close to my home, and even when it now is visible in the nav the address is both wrong and it claims it’s located on a gravel road… sigh.

Stop holding the precondition as hostage, we are not troglodytes @Ford Motor Company ?

 

[VindictivePantz]

A "button" would've been useful for me this past weekend.

I DCFC'd once when the temp was greater than 60F; I had to DCFC again later and the temp was 49F and the car had been driven approximately 30 minutes at mostly highway speeds.

The second session took longer by approx 15 minutes than the first and there was a smaller gap to get to 80%.

If I had a button, I could've started the vehicle earlier and/or taken a hit on cabin heat so the battery didn't take a beating.

I rarely DCFC, but once I saw the temperature drop, I knew I would have to put faith in the car that it'd protect the battery the best it could.

I know the heater is not great, but it was a perfect situation where a "button" would've been nice.

Ironically, charged at a Ford Dealership both times, using the same charger, same port.

 

[medriver]

Nobody has made any compelling arguments for a button yet, but you have made compelling arguments for either updating ford navigation or allowing an alternative like AA or CP which they did and will do a precon on the way to a DCFC.

Please everyone make me a list of EV's that have on demand battery preconditioning.

Just think about the implementation that currently exists, scheduled preconditioning (so you can be plugged in) or preconditioning when your on your way to a charger.

Why might a carmaker want to know your on the way to a charger? What factors of preconditioning process would go into that decision? Why do we even do preconditioning, what's the purpose of it? What would the downsides of a preconditioning button be?

Why would the worlds second largest carmaker release their first new EV without any concept of preconditioning if it was a critical procedure.

 

[medriver]

I give up on this forum.
Let me paint you a picture.

Your 100 miles from the nearest charger, you have 100 miles of range, does ford want you to hit the manual preconditioning button, why might they want to know you are 100 miles from the nearest charger.

Hope this helps, you could die on the side of the road in the -20 degree weather, or not precondition on-route and use the charger.

 

[MellowJohnny]

I give up on this forum.
Let me paint you a picture.

Your 100 miles from the nearest charger, you have 100 miles of range, does ford want you to hit the manual preconditioning button, why might they want to know you are 100 miles from the nearest charger.

Hope this helps, you could die on the side of the road in the -20 degree weather, or not precondition on-route and use the charger.

In the implementation I suggested the pre-condition action is a request, not a demand, for exactly this scenario. The car still calls the shots, but we have the option of letting it know what I'd like to do. Car overrides if needed.

And if you go back and read the rant again (yes, I feel better now) I'm asking out loud why some pretty big-name charging networks are missing. So I suggested if that's the case, and they will always be missing, then gimme a button and let me do it.

I don't actually expect Ford to give me a button, but I'd really like the Navigation app to include some big-name networks which are currently missing. Especially since that's the only way to pre-condition. Even better, let Apple Maps / Google Maps / ABRP also trigger pre-conditioning. I just want simple, not fumbling with multiple Apps while driving.

 

[medriver]

In the implementation I suggested the pre-condition action is a request, not a demand, for exactly this scenario. The car still calls the shots, but we have the option of letting it know what I'd like to do. Car overrides if needed.

And if you go back and read the rant again (yes, I feel better now) I'm asking out loud why some pretty big-name charging networks are missing. So I suggested if that's the case, and they will always be missing, then gimme a button and let me do it.

I don't actually expect Ford to give me a button, but I'd really like the Navigation app to include some big-name networks which are currently missing. Especially since that's the only way to pre-condition. Even better, let Apple Maps / Google Maps / ABRP also trigger pre-conditioning. I just want simple, not fumbling with multiple Apps while driving.

If your sync is updated Google maps for me now has access to the soc and others report on route preconditioning works.

The problem with requesting the precon without knowing the situation is complex. If it's very cold and your driving convective cooling is substantial especially if your driving fast, it could use a significant amount of energy (or none at all unless it abandoned the cabin) without having endpoint such as a destination, and in the end if you have the small heater it's not even going to be able to keep up the cabin and battery if it's cold enough.

Getting back to it, the solution would be to update the maps to allow for a precon to try it's best if possible on the way to a destination.

 

[kltye]

It's obvious that @medriver has no idea what he's talking about, so into the Ignore bin he goes. Some people are just contrarians and have their head so far up their ass they can't figure out left from right.

To the rest of you, thank you for keeping up the good fight for a precondition button I doubt we'd ever see it, but we can always dream..

 

[CarsIMBwife]

My last trip to Illinois from WNC, I used EA. I pre-loaded the locations into Ford Nav as favorites, and about a half hour before the charging destination I shut off Apple Maps and switched to Ford nav using the favorite as the destination. The charging times were noticeably faster. My upcoming trip to NJ I won’t have that luxury since the route will include either Circle K or Tesla. So even if I route to them a half hour before with Ford Nav, no pre-conditioning will occur.
Side note, I’ve used EA previously for this trip, but part of my route is changed because of roads closed by Helene, and other locations were not very convenient to get to from the highway … I’m looking at you, Carlisle, PA ?

 

[Mache_Nor]

@medriver It’s not the one or the other. The precondition by NAV navigation is fine, it’s just that we really need a second optional option. User cases:
1) NAV is not updated with latest chargers, leads to almost double charging times if below 0 celcius temperatures.
2) NAV have excluded all Tesla chargers, even though most of them are open in Europe for all brands since we all use same charging connector (CCS) - again no precondition.
3) If on highway and below 0 degrees, the 20 mile precondition is not enough to heat up the battery. Results in abysmal charging speeds.
4) If you don’t have NAV - which all of you Americans will not have if you don’t subscribe to the navigation package / connected services, you cannot precondition at all. There was this user that tested it in this forum, and it’s not just a matter of outdated maps.

Forgot to mention, the precondition through Google maps ONLY works if you have sync version 10+ and using android auto. Using Apple Maps or any of the maps in car play, then no precondition.

 

[woody]

CONDITION is the term.
conditioning brings something to a desired state
precondition means something that must be preformed in order to move to the next step or before something else can happen.
With or without conditioning the vehicle/process will function.

 

[Mache_Nor]

While I can agree on its function, it’s just the way it has been labeled in the industry now. From my understand (as non native English speaker) is that it puts the battery in a desired state before the charging event, hence the pre as before, or a prefix instead of a suffix. Not important for me, just wanted to point out that it is used by people and industry now.

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