How much power does Mach-E draw when plugged in but not charging?

timbop

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If anyone’s curious, showing 180 miles of range at 100%
:rolleyes:

No, the GOM is not interesting. Mine is telling me my ER RWD only has a 200 mile range even though the tripometer is showing an average of 3.5 mi/kwh over the last 175 miles. What mi/kwh are you getting on drives longer than 25 miles?
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Been sitting for 7 days plugged in to 240V and has not been above 0 oC (32 oF) with -25 oC (-13 oF) once one morning. Been warmer here so far.

I have seen it drawing power for around an hour with the SOC at set schedule and no increase. When it does the app states PREPARING FOR DRIVE all caps. Not sure what it is doing for an hour or how much it is drawing? The length varies and can be short. It can be out of schedule and random or I have not seen a pattern to date.

Here hydro take my $20/month to maintain my car when below freezing. My donation to more chargers ;) Not maintaining it to extend its useful life may be less green and/or more expensive to the owner. I think when it gets cold/hot it should be aware of it. It can absolutely not be charging batteries that are frozen or letting them fry I would think. That will take power. When at 68 oF that draw should be close to nothing one would think.
 

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:rolleyes:

No, the GOM is not interesting. Mine is telling me my ER RWD only has a 200 mile range even though the tripometer is showing an average of 3.5 mi/kwh over the last 175 miles. What mi/kwh are you getting on drives longer than 25 miles?
2.1-2.8. On my daily commute depending If I have fun or not, 15 miles, 50 MPH average, heat on 68, seat and wheel on too. I have seen 3.1 with heat on 65. 16-22F. The fully loaded 150 mile road trip to grandma’s (over the river and through the highway) is this PM, but it will be in the 20’s.

I will have a look at my Trip 1 today, I have not reset since driving off the dealers lot and report back.
 
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Behoff

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My original question was not about battery loss while idle. It was about additional power usage while plugged in but not actively charging. recently every time I turn off the car I see a message saying

Ford Mustang Mach-E How much power does Mach-E draw when plugged in but not charging? 834D5521-B8E9-4EC7-9E83-A9A6A0FCCE84

so why would it be important if it were not going to use energy? In addition, while it is sitting idle I’m my garage there is the sound of some sort of motor running.

So it is definitely using some electricity. Just a question of how much. And since my car spends 12-24 hours a day plugged in, that could add up. Both of the graphs offered display kilowatts, but even a small extra 40 watts for an average 18 hours per day is 21 kWh per month. Not going to break the bank, but I would just like to know.
 

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My original question was not about battery loss while idle. It was about additional power usage while plugged in but not actively charging. recently every time I turn off the car I see a message saying

834D5521-B8E9-4EC7-9E83-A9A6A0FCCE84.jpeg

so why would it be important if it were not going to use energy? In addition, while it is sitting idle I’m my garage there is the sound of some sort of motor running.

So it is definitely using some electricity. Just a question of how much. And since my car spends 12-24 hours a day plugged in, that could add up. Both of the graphs offered display kilowatts, but even a small extra 40 watts for an average 18 hours per day is 21 kWh per month. Not going to break the bank, but I would just like to know.
I think the only easy way to answer the the question would be to put an energy monitor on the 240V line that feeds your charge station (EVSE). There are many types, the easiest would be one that uses clamp on AC current meters. I have both the chargepoint flex with reporting and a whole home sense energy monitor. The chargepoint reporting is probably not sensitive enough to show very low power, but more likely it just comes on once in a while for a short period of time at some few kW, and that would show, but not with much time resolution. Something like the sense has to find and categorize each load by itself. I've given some thought at times to buying another one to be able to place it on just one load at a time, such as the charge station. That has the granularity (excellent resolution in time and power) for sure to answer your question, but they cost some thing like $300, maybe less on sale, each. There are inexpensive imports that can do similar monitoring, you would have to research them.

To get any meaningful data, would probably take weeks of monitoring over variations in ambient temperature (at least for an unheated garage or a car that parks outdoors).
 
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Shayne

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My original question was not about battery loss while idle. It was about additional power usage while plugged in but not actively charging. recently every time I turn off the car I see a message saying

834D5521-B8E9-4EC7-9E83-A9A6A0FCCE84.jpeg

so why would it be important if it were not going to use energy? In addition, while it is sitting idle I’m my garage there is the sound of some sort of motor running.

So it is definitely using some electricity. Just a question of how much. And since my car spends 12-24 hours a day plugged in, that could add up. Both of the graphs offered display kilowatts, but even a small extra 40 watts for an average 18 hours per day is 21 kWh per month. Not going to break the bank, but I would just like to know.
That is what I did answer and it depends what the conditions are. Not sure what your electricity price is but we put 10,000 km on it in the last 10 - 11 months (beginning of February) and we see about $10/month on the bill. It is a whole lot less than at the gas pumps That is if it is maintaining itself or not. You can get a charger to monitor that all for you if you are so inclined.

Coming on to maintain itself is a good thing and I would plug in if it tells you that is a good idea. When you plug the ICE block heater in do you know how much it is using and do you care. It is peanuts here and not something to get too excited about. Watch your bill. If you are not charging it and it sits around most of the time you may not notice a difference at all.
 

RickMachE

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My original question was not about battery loss while idle. It was about additional power usage while plugged in but not actively charging. recently every time I turn off the car I see a message saying

834D5521-B8E9-4EC7-9E83-A9A6A0FCCE84.jpeg

so why would it be important if it were not going to use energy? In addition, while it is sitting idle I’m my garage there is the sound of some sort of motor running.

So it is definitely using some electricity. Just a question of how much. And since my car spends 12-24 hours a day plugged in, that could add up. Both of the graphs offered display kilowatts, but even a small extra 40 watts for an average 18 hours per day is 21 kWh per month. Not going to break the bank, but I would just like to know.
I've only seen that message once so far. I showed how mine charges and then stops almost immediately. I will see what it does in Jan and Feb.
 
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louibluey

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My original question was not about battery loss while idle. It was about additional power usage while plugged in but not actively charging. recently every time I turn off the car I see a message saying

834D5521-B8E9-4EC7-9E83-A9A6A0FCCE84.jpeg

so why would it be important if it were not going to use energy? In addition, while it is sitting idle I’m my garage there is the sound of some sort of motor running.

So it is definitely using some electricity. Just a question of how much. And since my car spends 12-24 hours a day plugged in, that could add up. Both of the graphs offered display kilowatts, but even a small extra 40 watts for an average 18 hours per day is 21 kWh per month. Not going to break the bank, but I would just like to know.
The other aspect is that the EVSE is mostly likely sitting idle most of the time. The noises you hear are mostly 12V (low voltage battery (LVB)) operated equipment cycling on and off. Eventually, if not driven frequently, MME will charge the 12V battery while parked by turning on the DC/DC converter, which will slightly drain the traction battery. The EVSE will likely supply some 240V AC power at that point if MME is plugged in.

So, the EVSE is drawing some small amount of power (probably tiny) 24/7 for its own circuits, but likely MME only sips a slug of power once in a while from the home 240V, as needed.

A related question is what is the parked power consumption of a plugged in MME over some hours when parked in an unheated garage, say at -10 F.

As noted above, most owners do not care. And, it would take time and money to answer the question, more than it costs to charge and maintain MME. For others (guilty as one), it is just one more thing to measure, which as a semi-retired EE, I enjoy. But, I'm off reading LIN bus data for now. Someone will probably do it at some point.
 
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kltye

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My original question was not about battery loss while idle. It was about additional power usage while plugged in but not actively charging. recently every time I turn off the car I see a message saying

834D5521-B8E9-4EC7-9E83-A9A6A0FCCE84.jpeg

so why would it be important if it were not going to use energy? In addition, while it is sitting idle I’m my garage there is the sound of some sort of motor running.

So it is definitely using some electricity. Just a question of how much. And since my car spends 12-24 hours a day plugged in, that could add up. Both of the graphs offered display kilowatts, but even a small extra 40 watts for an average 18 hours per day is 21 kWh per month. Not going to break the bank, but I would just like to know.
I'm not sure what other explanation you wanted. Like I said, it tells you that once external temperatures are < 32F, just in case your pack temperature falls below that temperature. Li-ion cells cannot be charged when they fall below freezing. Since the battery pack has a large thermal mass, it'll take a while for the pack to drop below freezing, so driving the car daily probably won't cause it to heat the pack.

The motor you're hearing is just the pumps running to circulate coolant. They don't run forever, and turn off after a while. Pumps don't take very much energy to run either.
 

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2.1-2.8. On my daily commute depending If I have fun or not, 15 miles, 50 MPH average, heat on 68, seat and wheel on too. I have seen 3.1 with heat on 65. 16-22F. The fully loaded 150 mile road trip to grandma’s (over the river and through the highway) is this PM, but it will be in the 20’s.

I will have a look at my Trip 1 today, I have not reset since driving off the dealers lot and report back.
2.5 mi/kWh since new, 2350 miles. Winter probably average of 28-32F in Maine.
Both trips this weekend were off highway, 50-55 speed zones, precipitation, ice snow and 20-28F ambient. Heat on 65-68, seats on, 2.5 average on both 96 mile trips. 2.5*88*90%(Car reporting error)=198 miles of range or 26.6% loss from EPA.
 

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I've given some thought at times to buying another one to be able to place it on just one load at a time, such as the charge station. That has the granularity (excellent resolution in time and power) for sure to answer your question, but they cost some thing like $300, maybe less on sale, each.
You can get another set of Sense clamp sensors for $50 to monitor branch circuits with your existing monitor.
 

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You can get another set of Sense clamp sensors for $50 to monitor branch circuits with your existing monitor.
That would be great, but it looks like a later model, sense flex. Even it could be done with the base model, mine is already using the aux input for the additional two clamps for the sense solar system monitor, bummer.

Although very pricey, a dedicated sense energy monitor might be the easiest way to answer the question of how often MME draws some power between major charging events. Sense has relatively high resolution in both power and time and very convenient graphs, so it should be easy to see even short periods of time where MME draws some 240V power. Just not sure I'm curious enough yet to spend another $300. Maybe if they have a good sale someday :)

BTW (for possible good sales someday), the Square D Wiser Energy Smart Home Monitor seems to be the same monitor re-branded to Sq D.
 
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RickMachE

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Any intelligent charger shows you this.

We last charged on 12/15. We have used 1.13kWh since then which includes a 30 second remote start. Unchanged from several days ago.
 

louibluey

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Any intelligent charger shows you this.

We last charged on 12/15. We have used 1.13kWh since then which includes a 30 second remote start. Unchanged from several days ago.
yes, to first order. Certainly shows gross power and total energy. The time from point to point is usually 15 or 30 minutes. Most charger logs probably (?) would not pick up a short time use. That is the question, does MME only take long intervals of use, or does it take short sips from time to time? Would a 3 minute use show up on a regular charger log? A high resolution (time and power) logger would show a short use for sure.
Ford Mustang Mach-E How much power does Mach-E draw when plugged in but not charging? Screen Shot 2021-12-26 at 2.18.39 PM
 

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Interesting, so it doesn't draw at all, or at least not unless it is really cold or hot? Or else why would they recommend it be kept plugged in, even if you're not needing to charge it?

Does anyone have any idea how much battery loss you get daily from the car sitting? Like, if you go away for 2 weeks at 50%, when you come back will it be at 50% or 49% or something more drastic like 40%? Unplugged, that is.
They recommend that it be plugged in for at least a couple of reasons, probably more. First, as said, if it gets crazy hot or cold, the Mach-E might do some battery warming or cooling. Second, if you have preconditioning times set to leave for work, for example, if it’s plugged in, it can recoup most of the power used for that from the wall connector. Last, it’s just a better user experience to know that every time you walk out to the car, you have a ‘full tank‘ ready to go. It’s a poor experience to walk out in an emergency and find you only have 20% in the battery and then you have to hope you’re near a DC fast charger, etc. Leaving it plugged in when home avoids all these issues.
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