HVBJB & Cold Garage

[OwenP1]

First, regarding the HVB fail isssue....I have seen a comment that it is not IF, but WHEN it will fail. I know this came about with the 21 MY. Does this apply to ALL Mach E's though? I have a 22 premium ER awd, build date june 22, delivered late July.
Second, I live in a cold winter climate zone and have seen the range drop and I understand why. I have the ability to heat my garage. Will that improve my range if I keep it around 60 when outside drops below 40-45? My early tests indicate the heated garage doesn't make much of a difference in range. It hasn't been all that cold yet. Just wondering if it is worth it to keep the garage tempered. I usually only use the heat if the outside temps drop into the 20's or below.

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[heisnuts]

1) Your MME should have the new updated HVBJB already.
2) Heating you garage probably will not help much with range. If your MME is plugged in and you have your departure time set in the Ford Pass App the car will precondition the inside of the car and battery for your trip, which will help a lot more than heating the garage itself.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Heating the garage will make it easier on your car’s preconditioning system, but more than likely at the added expense of heating the entire garage rather than just having the car heat its HV power circuitry and battery systems. You would probably be ahead by just leaving the garage I heated and having the car precondition itself. ??

 

[AKgrampy]

Heated garage does not improve range that I have noticed. The HVB will be warmer of course and therefore the batteries will not be “throttled back” as is the case when cold. My car might have one grey bar when I leave the garage but will have several when parked outside.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Most of the winter range loss comes from pushing through cold, dense air, and using the heater. Heated garage won't help that, only the initial temperature of the battery.

Preconditioning with set departure times will heat the battery pack and waste less energy than heating the garage all winter since the energy use is targeted. If you want some heat, I recommend setting the garage temp to 40ºF so as to melt snow without wasting too much energy.

The battery wants to be between 32ºF and 95ºF while in operation FYI.

 

[noway]

Even if it does not show on the indicator, heating the interior might make a "huge" difference in actual range because heating the ambient air will heat the battery pack itself, and by that reason giving more kWh and less battery heating from battery resistance during the driving. By power bill on the other hand it probably will be much more economic to not heat it and just use the cold battery pack.

(but this has nothing to do with the HVBJB, it is related to the actual battery cells)

Another thing.. and this is a controversial topic, but heating the parking space will cause more rust and corrosion on the car if the car is used in salty conditions, since the snow will melt, causing just water and salt to remain in contact with the metal frame, and after a while just high humidity and salt in crystal form (= high consentrated eletrolyte), so on total reliability it might be better to just keep it cold also

 

[RickMachE]

Even if it does not show on the indicator, heating the interior might make a "huge" difference in actual range because heating the ambient air will heat the battery pack itself, and by that reason giving more kWh and less battery heating from battery resistance during the driving. By power bill on the other hand it probably will be much more economic to not heat it and just use the cold battery pack.

(but this has nothing to do with the HVBJB, it is related to the actual battery cells)

Another thing.. and this is a controversial topic, but heating the parking space will cause more rust and corrosion on the car if the car is used in salty conditions, since the snow will melt, causing just water and salt to remain in contact with the metal frame, and after a while just high humidity and salt in crystal form (= high consentrated eletrolyte), so on total reliability it might be better to just keep it cold also

Nothing controversial about it - heating a garage in winter in a snowy environment clearly causes the issues you described.

That's a big reason why in the winter I do wash my car at times, but I don't obsess about it. If you are constantly washing your car, you're liquifying the salt, and of course it's not all coming off in the nooks and crannies. That's why I had a great looking Explorer at 15 years old, and other vehicles.

As to heating the garage instead of conditioning the battery with a departure time, or leaving it plugged in to warm as needed, it's not even necessary to do math.

Last year, a departure time used something like 4.x kilowatts. Let's say it was 5. I pay 15 cents, so that's 75 cents. What's the cost to heat a garage to say $50? FREAKING HUGE.

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