ChasingCoral

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I'll give you a very real use case of how this would have been deeply helpful for me a few days ago.

Was driving up the Alaska Highway and stopped for the night in Fort Nelson, BC. No EV charger at the hotel, and couldn't leave on the single local fast charger overnight with a $0.40/min idle fee. Had I known this trick, when I got up in the morning I could have pre-conditioned the battery for the fast charger and not had to endure 30 minutes of sub-50kW charging on a 180kW DCFC (temp was about 10 below F)
That is a great application!
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Ralph Malph

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I live north of Calgary AB and use the precondition feature on the app every time we go some place (when its below 5C), worked very well all last winter. Lately it doesn't seem to be coming on as programmed, works good on just the batery after work but when pugged in at home won't kick in. Wife and I loved this, never got into a cold car.

Anyone know what the issue may be? WHen I add a new time in it's like it doesn't accept it, main page still reads: next departre Thursday 4 pm, I wanted it warm to get to work first.
 

dbsb3233

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I would hazard that it is dependent on the length of the leg you’re traveling. Since it will be 3-5 KWh of power drawn, you will be killing the equivalent number of miles based on your fuel consumption. My guess is that it will be a loss for a leg less than 90 miles for most people. ?‍♂?
A common example for me is a hotel stop during a long road trip, which means the next leg is usually 100-150 miles. I don't care a lot about the impact on charging speed. If the hotel doesn't have L2, I'll usually DCFC in the evening to be ready in the morning anyway. It's really more about range/efficiency. There have been cold mornings when I set a departure schedule, and others where I forget. I really don't notice much difference in the (poor) MPK the next morning whether I burn a few% to precon or not. I'll always preheat the cabin though, which is probably most of that.

And the jury still seems out on how much (or little) just driving the car warms up the battery. The MPK does tend to slowly creep up by the 2nd hour of the leg, but it's hard to know if that's really the battery warming up, or just a combo of the weather warming up through the morning, plus the effect of lots of cabin heat being used to initially warm up the car.

Honestly, I rarely precondition and simply just get in and drive. Setting a departure time is annoying because you can't do a one-timer. Gotta schedule it weekly, then I forget to undo it when I get home. Plus I don't use Ford nav, just AA, and my 2021 still hasn't gotten the update yet that does AA precon.
 


HuntingPudel

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Lee, have you confirmed that the car must not be on plug for this? ?‍♂?
 

YeOldeTraveller

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In extreme cold, this should reduce the time before you can cabin heat after you start driving.

IIRC, if the battery is cold, the heat available will go to the battery before it is sent to the cabin.
 

Jerrytball

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Since Ford still doesn't have a dang battery precondition button...I had a hunch. For those of you with the remote climate control settings showing up in FordPass, there is a way to use the remote controls to heat the battery. The car must be parked in below-freezing conditions; otherwise the A/C will run instead.

Once you start climate control with the fan button, tap on the climate settings box and set the cabin temp to LO. Make sure defrost is off. You can turn on heated seat/wheel if desired. When you accept the setting, the temp shown may change from LO to 59ÂşF, just ignore that.

IMG_0346.jpg


The LO setting is sort of special because it disables cabin heat regardless of temperature. With no cabin heat demand, the powertrain strategy will allow battery heating instead if the battery is cold (also works while driving).

The only negative is the fan will blow raw outside air into the cabin. But if the car is already bone cold, it doesn't really matter.

In my test, the battery temperature was raised +8ÂşC in the 15-minute remote climate period. Since you get two climate activations, you could then do a subsequent remote climate and change the temp to 72ÂşF or whatever to actually warm up the cabin the second time.


If you do not have the remote climate controls in FordPass, you can also do this by changing your remote start settings to "last setting" instead of AUTO on the main screen, and shutting off HVAC before you leave the car. Then start remote climate. Not nearly as convenient, but it works if really necessary.
Yeah, when I had my car, I wondered where those controls were then I decided to hit the button that said extend and then they showed up.
 

moog

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Nice find!

Legit proof that preconditioning the battery on demand is possible.

Now the question we all keep asking: If it "can" be done through "app gymnastic", why won't Ford just make it simple and provide a precondition battery on demand "button"?
 

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Nice find!

Now the question we all keep asking: If it "can" be done through "app gymnastic", why won't Ford just make it simple and provide a precondition battery on demand "button"?
Someone posted a very plausible response to that question in another thread.

They could very well provide that button. Some percentage of owners would have the knowledge and critical thinking skills to use it appropriately AND understand the tradeoffs.

Ford may have concluded the complaints for NOT having the button are far less taxing than the complaints if the button existed.
 

redgrandam

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I just tested this with my 2023.5 SR that had been plugged in all night and currently plugged in. It is -6C outside

Turning on climate remotely with heat set at 18C and the battery inlet temp stays below 0.
When I turned the climate set temp all the way down the battery inlet temp suddenly went up. But the heater stayed on full power.

I can’t figure out the logic of this. Why doesn’t it just sent some heat to the battery at any set temp. Is this just a bug in the system?

this does show I think that it will do what you described even when plugged in at least as well.
 

dabois89

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This will be very helpful on nights when i close and its below zero.
 

Deleted member 19354

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Nice find!

Legit proof that preconditioning the battery on demand is possible.

Now the question we all keep asking: If it "can" be done through "app gymnastic", why won't Ford just make it simple and provide a precondition battery on demand "button"?
Don’t be silly that would make total sense ??
 

Zardoz

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... (also works while driving) ...
If it isn't asking too much, could you elaborate? I just took a road trip and had some issues with getting the battery per-conditioned before DCFC as I don't have all the latest updates.
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