Good Preconditioning Habits

jwhamlin244

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Hello all, sorry for the basic questions here, this is my first EV.

Ford is pushing the departure times feature as a way to maximize your battery life.
Is this just so it is drawing from the grid for air-conditioning/heating, or is the car doing something under the hood with the batteries as well that is important for mileage? Is it bad for the battery to run on cold cells if you leave it outside on a cold winters day while out for dinner and don't prestart the car while you're paying the check?

I don't have a set schedule so the departure times isn't really useful to me, but I need to know how important it is to remote start my car before I'm leaving. Will you see the effects 8 years down the road if you habitually don't precondition the car?
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67 Stang Convertible

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Hello all, sorry for the basic questions here, this is my first EV.

Ford is pushing the departure times feature as a way to maximize your battery life.
Is this just so it is drawing from the grid for air-conditioning/heating, or is the car doing something under the hood with the batteries as well that is important for mileage? Is it bad for the battery to run on cold cells if you leave it outside on a cold winters day while out for dinner and don't prestart the car while you're paying the check?

I don't have a set schedule so the departure times isn't really useful to me, but I need to know how important it is to remote start my car before I'm leaving. Will you see the effects 8 years down the road if you habitually don't precondition the car?
I doubt that it will matter that much in the long term. Probably bigger deal for battery health is not charging to 100% on a regular basis. Or not letting it drain down to Zero.
 

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I'm fairly certain they take normal driving habits into consideration when designing an EV and it's battery.

They produce TV commercials that show us how to use their cars. It always looks like you just unplug and drive away.
 

67 Stang Convertible

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I don't leave the office at a consistent time either during the week. So looking at it from a comfort perspective if I'm leaving a lot earlier or later than my scheduled departure time; how do I cool down the cabin? Is it as simple as starting the car with the App 5-10 before I'm ready to leave?
 

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I don't leave the office at a consistent time either during the week. So looking at it from a comfort perspective if I'm leaving a lot earlier or later than my scheduled departure time; how do I cool down the cabin? Is it as simple as starting the car with the App 5-10 before I'm ready to leave?
Yeah, although tbh the ac works so fast you really only need to start it a minute or two beforehand.
 


JohnnyForensic

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Hello all, sorry for the basic questions here, this is my first EV.

Ford is pushing the departure times feature as a way to maximize your battery life.
Is this just so it is drawing from the grid for air-conditioning/heating, or is the car doing something under the hood with the batteries as well that is important for mileage? Is it bad for the battery to run on cold cells if you leave it outside on a cold winters day while out for dinner and don't prestart the car while you're paying the check?

I don't have a set schedule so the departure times isn't really useful to me, but I need to know how important it is to remote start my car before I'm leaving. Will you see the effects 8 years down the road if you habitually don't precondition the car?
This is mostly to make sure you have the most range per driving session, especially in the colder months.

Yes, preconditioning sets the cabin to a comfortable temperature using the power from your house (because you're always plugged in when you're not driving at home, right?) to do it. It also cools/warms the batteries to get them to a happier temperature to give you better range.

Let's say it's cold out. If your range is normally 270 (for sake of argument), and it's freezing outside, if you let the preconditioning happen, you'll leave with a comfortably warm car and warmish batteries. It will take less energy to keep the cabin warm than it does to make the cabin warm from a cold start, and the same goes for the batteries. Therefore, maybe your range on this cold day will be more like 230 or 240. If you don't let the preconditioning happen and you just get in your car and go, well now the car has to heat itself from battery power alone taking a not insignificant draw of energy, and it will also warm the batteries as much as it can, also from your on-board power. Now your 270 for the day is maybe going to look more like 180 or 190.

It's more about range than it is about overall battery longevity.
 
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BMT1071

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Hello all, sorry for the basic questions here, this is my first EV.

Ford is pushing the departure times feature as a way to maximize your battery life.
Is this just so it is drawing from the grid for air-conditioning/heating, or is the car doing something under the hood with the batteries as well that is important for mileage? Is it bad for the battery to run on cold cells if you leave it outside on a cold winters day while out for dinner and don't prestart the car while you're paying the check?

I don't have a set schedule so the departure times isn't really useful to me, but I need to know how important it is to remote start my car before I'm leaving. Will you see the effects 8 years down the road if you habitually don't precondition the car?
Setting departure times in the app only takes a minute. I've been using them every time I know I'm going out. I also set one so my car is cool when my plane lands. You can always remote start if you are leaving shortly. If you live in a cold climate preconditioning will ease the range hit you'll take.
If you need to just jump in and go you're not hurting anything but I would always do some preconditioning if possible.
 

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I don't leave the office at a consistent time either during the week. So looking at it from a comfort perspective if I'm leaving a lot earlier or later than my scheduled departure time; how do I cool down the cabin? Is it as simple as starting the car with the App 5-10 before I'm ready to leave?
If you can see it and are safe you can drop the windows first to left the hot air out and then remote start it when they are back up. Basically what I did when I got in only now remotely.
 

JohnnyForensic

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Setting departure times in the app only takes a minute. I've been using them every time I know I'm going out. I also set one so my car is cool when my plane lands. You can always remote start if you are leaving shortly. If you live in a cold climate preconditioning will ease the range hit you'll take.
If you need to just jump in and go you're not hurting anything but I would always do some preconditioning if possible.
BMT, is this something you're doing by just changing the day in the schedule for when you land? Like if you normally had a 9A/5P schedule for work (for example), you're changing Wednesday's 5P to like 7:15P for the day you arrive back and then change it back again to a normal value, or is there some kind of one-time override I haven't read about?
 

BMT1071

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BMT, is this something you're doing by just changing the day in the schedule for when you land? Like if you normally had a 9A/5P schedule for work (for example), you're changing Wednesday's 5P to like 7:15P for the day you arrive back and then change it back again to a normal value, or is there some kind of one-time override I haven't read about?
I don't have a regular schedule so I just set the times as needed.
 

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I found this thread very helpful, thanks OP and all those who answered. I don't commute and also don't drive at any consistent time.

On a similar note, is it bad if you're not plugged in all night most nights? If the battery is consistently in, say 50-90% percent window, but the car is not constantly plugged in at night (or not at all/almost never). I live in a very temperate area, it might get below freezing at night sometimes but not often (and never snows or anything like that). We also don't have too many days of extreme heat in summer.
 

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I feel like this may have been answered in some thread or another, I searched precondition 120, but does pre conditioning work at all over 120v? If Iā€™m fully charged to whatever I set, say 80% and I have it set to precondition in the AM, will the 120v be enough to keep me at 80% state of charge?
 

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I found this thread very helpful, thanks OP and all those who answered. I don't commute and also don't drive at any consistent time.

On a similar note, is it bad if you're not plugged in all night most nights? If the battery is consistently in, say 50-90% percent window, but the car is not constantly plugged in at night (or not at all/almost never). I live in a very temperate area, it might get below freezing at night sometimes but not often (and never snows or anything like that). We also don't have too many days of extreme heat in summer.
I don't believe you need to charge every night. I've read a lot of things over the last several years that say the battery has only so many cycles (charges) to it's life. So, I've only had the car for a few weeks now. But I'm only charging once I get around 60%. I find it 2 or 3 nights a week is fine for me.

As for the 120v. My GUESS is it is enough to keep you charge leveled. But good question and it would only take the experiment of one morning to find out. Let us know.
 

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My garage is under my house in a drive out basement. Therefore, even though I donā€™t heat or cool the basement, the basement temperature isnā€™t more or less than 10 degrees from our house temp setting of 68 degrees. Therefore, for my situation, is preconditioning necessary?
 

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My garage is under my house in a drive out basement. Therefore, even though I donā€™t heat or cool the basement, the basement temperature isnā€™t more or less than 10 degrees from our house temp setting of 68 degrees. Therefore, for my situation, is preconditioning necessary?
No, if the garage always stays between 32-104ĀŗF then the battery is happy. You'd only do it for your own comfort or if you needed an extra few miles of range.
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