Heat and Charging

[AtXRRMachE]

Hey Texas Mach-E Family, we have had our vehicle for a little over a month now. Yesterday when we got home after the vehicle being out in the sun all day when we plugged it in, it started up like a force to be reckoned with. Alright, it wasn't that loud, but I assume it's all good that it's in an enclosed garage running fans like that when it's over 100 degrees in the garage.

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[RickMachE]

It's doing exactly what it should be doing.

However, if you read your manual, you will see that Ford recommends waiting for your battery to cool before plugging in.

Allowing your battery to cool before charging and setting the maximum state of charge to 90% for everyday usage improves longevity of your high voltage battery.

In reality, had you plugged in but not charged, it's possible that the cooling fans would have run off of house power to aid in cooling, then shut off and waited for the charging period.

No harm, just one of the measures you can take to better preserve your battery life.

 

[AtXRRMachE]

It's doing exactly what it should be doing.

However, if you read your manual, you will see that Ford recommends waiting for your battery to cool before plugging in.

Allowing your battery to cool before charging and setting the maximum state of charge to 90% for everyday usage improves longevity of your high voltage battery.

In reality, had you plugged in but not charged, it's possible that the cooling fans would have run off of house power to aid in cooling, then shut off and waited for the charging period.

No harm, just one of the measures you can take to better preserve your battery life.

Hey that's what we thought, we have charging set to only go to 90%, but we don't have reduced rates during different times of the day so I didn't really think much of it to set up specific charge times. So when we got home around 6, it got plugged in like normal and that's when we noticed the fan noise.

 

[RickMachE]

In the future, if you're been on a long drive, or it's very, very hot out, simply wait a few hours and then plug in.

 

[roamtheworld]

It's doing exactly what it should be doing.

However, if you read your manual, you will see that Ford recommends waiting for your battery to cool before plugging in.

Allowing your battery to cool before charging and setting the maximum state of charge to 90% for everyday usage improves longevity of your high voltage battery.

In reality, had you plugged in but not charged, it's possible that the cooling fans would have run off of house power to aid in cooling, then shut off and waited for the charging period.

No harm, just one of the measures you can take to better preserve your battery life.

Before the recent heat wave this happened after driving all day. Waited a couple of hours and all the fans a such stopped.
during the summer we are going to plug in late evening to avoid the extra stress.

 

[RickMachE]

Before the recent heat wave this happened after driving all day. Waited a couple of hours and all the fans a such stopped.
during the summer we are going to plug in late evening to avoid the extra stress.

Or, set your charging hours to begin late evening and plug in earlier.

 

[roamtheworld]

Or, set your charging hours to begin last evening and plug in earlier.

While on vacation this past week during the record heat we did not leave the car plugged since we figured we would loose power and possibly get spikes. We got both several circuit breakers where flipped upon return. Of course if we are here we have charging times set for off peak start.

 

[SolarAB]

Interesting. I had not heard this warning not to plug in the car after a long drive.

 

[noway]

That thing about not charging when it is hot is probably mostly non-valid. First of all, the battery does not heat up by driving, it just is way too efficient for for that. It might heat up just a little bit, but mostly it will cool itself by driving. It is even possible the battery will heat up more by not driving when sun is heating the car and there is no air flow passively cooling the battery case.

Second, the cooling fan running while AC charging has nothing to do with the battery itself, it has to do with the electronics in the AC charger module. The electronics for the AC charger and motor drivers/inverters are shared with the motors themselves. The motors are actually getting hot while driving, and since the coolant loop is shared with the electronics it will try to reduce the temperature on that coolant to provide coolant for the AC charger module. This coolant loop is the only loop which has an actual radiator at the front, so it uses the coolant fans directly to cool it. As soon as it has cooled somewhat it only needs to run the coolant pump(s), not the fans to just distribute the heat away from the AC charger.

The battery itself is cooled only by 1) Passing heat into the cabin or 2) By using the air conditioning compressor. It will normally do second. The car seems to do a great job with this, but it will use some energy as there is no direct path to just transfer that heat into the air, it has to either go into the cabin (really inefficient) or directly into the air conditioning system. If the battery is hot enough that it needs to be cooled for AC charging, it is also hot enough that it should not be sitting with no cooling. AC charging provides so little heat that there is no way it needs to actively cool the battery because of the AC charging, it would be because of the environment requires it in the first place. This means it is better to charge when it is hot than not to charge, since charging will trigger the cooling, which will let the battery last a little bit longer by not sitting for a long time at high temperature.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Hey that's what we thought, we have charging set to only go to 90%, but we don't have reduced rates during different times of the day so I didn't really think much of it to set up specific charge times. So when we got home around 6, it got plugged in like normal and that's when we noticed the fan noise.

I'd still recommend setting your charging hours to 10PM-8AM so the car charges at night. It will waste less energy on cooling demands that way. It's better for the power grid too, so you aren't overheating your step-down transformer durning the peak heat of the day.

4-7 PM is the worst time of day to charge your car, hottest part of the day and when peak grid demands are occurring. If everyone did that regularly the grid will go down on overload and our electric rates will skyrocket. Unless you like rate increases charge at night!

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