Mach-E battery tray and cell teardown - by Sandy Munro

[eStang]

The bigger issue is what to do with the packs when they are finally unusable as even a powerwall module. Cutting open and recycling thousands of individual epoxied-together little batteries is going to make recycling a lot harder compared to cutting open a couple hundred pouch cells.

This is why these devices were invented:
(2) Car engine&reducer shredder with hydraulic system/Car Engine Shredder/Scrap Car Shredding Machine - YouTube

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[Mathington]

I don't agree. This design have been through the furnace and torture tested for 12+ years on the Volt. It is interesting you think there maybe hot spots, would the heat transfer paste not mitigate that. The coolant flow is a lot more substantial as MachE uses a separate coolant with heat exchange from refrigerant. Almost no issues. The cooling plates have proven to be very effective. The MachE is based on this Volt design for good reasons. It is very very reliable. This is a big part of the reason I bought it. For this pedigree.

Now the Bolt is under a recall for fires, but looks like they may have pushed the top reserve too low . Esp. the 2017-2019 models. 62kwh nominal with 60kwh usable. Compare to the Volt with 16kwh nominal with 10 kwh usable 2010 model. and the MachE ER with 98kwh and 88kwh usable.

I'm curious to see if Ford unlocks more battery of the battery capacity in the future, that would be pretty great.

 

[EELinneman]

This is why these devices were invented:
(2) Car engine&reducer shredder with hydraulic system/Car Engine Shredder/Scrap Car Shredding Machine - YouTube

I swear, this is the quarterly stack ranking process that I experienced at Microsoft when I worked there! ?

 

[theo1000]

What are your thoughts on the HV battery issues several have experienced especially in hotter regions like Texas?

That's a very pointed question. Are you having issues?

From what I have seen the battery itself does not appear to be the issue. Some combination of software, electronics and motors seems to the way folks are leaning. Lets see what comes of it. Ford seems to know what the culprit is. The Software and motor for sure are not from the volt.

The front motor is from the 2010 Ford Focus EV. I almost got a Fucus EV rather than the Volt. AFAIK that front motor has not had a history of failure in heat with over 10 years of torture testing. Its got to be the back motor.

Personally I would try to run the car cooler and park inside garage or shade where possible for now. I never let my volt experience the hellish temperatures folks are putting the MachE through. What wrong with you people. Its 50k car there. Death Valley really, your car encounters death, in the death valley at peak temps 130f and folks are surprised. Most got thru with no issues which astonishes me. All those endless rows for folks with ICE cars with steaming radiators and burnt brakes does not warn you....

 

[Scooby24]

That's a very pointed question. Are you having issues?

From what I have seen the battery itself does not appear to be the issue. Some combination of software, electronics and motors seems to the way folks are leaning. Lets see what comes of it. Ford seems to know what the culprit is. The Software and motor for sure are not from the volt.

The front motor is from the 2010 Ford Focus EV. I almost got a Fucus EV rather than the Volt. AFAIK that front motor has not had a history of failure in heat with over 10 years of torture testing. Its got to be the back motor.

Personally I would try to run the car cooler and park inside garage or shade where possible for now. I never let my volt experience the hellish temperatures folks are putting the MachE through. What wrong with you people. Its 50k car there. Death Valley really, your car encounters death, in the death valley at peak temps 130f and folks are surprised. Most got thru with no issues which astonishes me. All those endless rows for folks with ICE cars with steaming radiators and burnt brakes does not warn you....

Nope just hearing several examples of folks with battery failures and dealers candidly noting they've had to address this for multiple vehicles at the same dealership with some specific packs having problems.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...he-dreaded-turtle-wrench-and-error-icon.7085/

 

[kikibop]

can't wait to seem them make the best of best and congromerate them together.

 

[Raymondjram]

The bigger issue is what to do with the packs when they are finally unusable as even a powerwall module. Cutting open and recycling thousands of individual epoxied-together little batteries is going to make recycling a lot harder compared to cutting open a couple hundred pouch cells.

Actually there are many guys recycling Tesla cells on eBay, selling single cells for as much as $15 each. They are adding the recycling work to the true cell cost.

 

[theo1000]

Nope just hearing several examples of folks with battery failures and dealers candidly noting they've had to address this for multiple vehicles at the same dealership with some specific packs having problems.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...he-dreaded-turtle-wrench-and-error-icon.7085/

Hmm that's a new one for me. Hadn't heard of that in my area. Maybe a bad batch of cells. Pouch cells on the Volt if they failed, failed early. So the older your car gets the fewer cell failures it should see.

 

[buzznwood]

Personally I would try to run the car cooler and park inside garage or shade where possible for now. I never let my volt experience the hellish temperatures folks are putting the MachE through. What wrong with you people. Its 50k car there. Death Valley really, your car encounters death, in the death valley at peak temps 130f and folks are surprised. Most got thru with no issues which astonishes me. All those endless rows for folks with ICE cars with steaming radiators and burnt brakes does not warn you....

Death valley is used as a testing ground for a lot of vehicle manufactures and is also a very enjoyable scenic route to Las Vegas compared to the boredom that is the i15, so while death valley does gets nice and toasty so does a large surrounding areas with temps not much lower.

There is a quite a few metro areas that people reside in that have daily 100+ temps for much of the summer, so if the mach-e can't work in those temps I would class it as useless the same as I would any ICE vehicle that couldn't handle it.

 

[SJ_Okay]

So almost identical to the Bolt… the same Bolt that’s just had a massive recall due to fires… ?

 

[BadgerGreg]

So almost identical to the Bolt… the same Bolt that’s just had a massive recall due to fires… ?

I initially thought the same thing when I saw Sandy place the MME battery cell next to a Bolt battery cell. However, my guess is that the problem may have something more to do with the actual battery system (not necessarily the individual cells). The battery system, which includes the connectors, internal wiring, heat transfer, and coolant system, likely has more to do with whether a battery pack can cause a fire than the LG-manufactured cells. That, and Ford limits the usable portion of the battery pack to a safer range than Bolt (and even Tesla).

My guess is that the MME's battery system (as a whole) is very different than the Bolt's battery system. Although they share a component (LG cells), everything beyond that is different engineering. That makes me sleep a bit better at night.

 

[hybrid2bev]

I initially thought the same thing when I saw Sandy place the MME battery cell next to a Bolt battery cell. However, my guess is that the problem may have something more to do with the actual battery system (not necessarily the individual cells). The battery system, which includes the connectors, internal wiring, heat transfer, and coolant system, likely has more to do with whether a battery pack can cause a fire than the LG-manufactured cells. That, and Ford limits the usable portion of the battery pack to a safer range than Bolt (and even Tesla).

My guess is that the MME's battery system (as a whole) is very different than the Bolt's battery system. Although they share a component (LG cells), everything beyond that is different engineering. That makes me sleep a bit better at night.

And the LG cells for the Bolt are from a different factory/country than the Mach-E LG cells. Bolts are from South Korea. Mach-E cells are from Poland.

 

[eStang]

And the LG cells for the Bolt are from a different factory/country than the Mach-E LG cells. Bolts are from South Korea. Mach-E cells are from Poland.

Yeah, but the they have the same color tape... So watch out! ?

 

[theo1000]

Death valley is used as a testing ground for a lot of vehicle manufactures and is also a very enjoyable scenic route to Las Vegas compared to the boredom that is the i15, so while death valley does gets nice and toasty so does a large surrounding areas with temps not much lower.

There is a quite a few metro areas that people reside in that have daily 100+ temps for much of the summer, so if the mach-e can't work in those temps I would class it as useless the same as I would any ICE vehicle that couldn't handle it.

I was being a little tongue in cheek there. Sorry it came across poorly. 100f-110f is not too bad but folks were driving there in 130f! Yikes!

Yeah! the car has been tested for that climate but putting your car through it ages your car. It ages any car. Can you you do it, sure, should you do it regularly, not recommended. I bet you 1000 miles through death valley is like 5,467.396 normal miles . You will see the effect in 3-5 years. Same happed with the Volt. The Arizona folks charging and driving in 120f type garages definitely saw accelerated aging.

Its like those offroad Utes. Are they engineered to go offroad. Sure. But you do that regularly and they won't make 100,000 miles either.

Just for reference I have approx, 220,000 miles on my 2010 Volt and I still get 38 miles of EV range on a original 33 miles range rating.... ...so yeah I baby my EV's....

 

[ericNdfw]

Same happed with the Volt. The Arizona folks charging and driving in 120f type garages definitely saw accelerated aging.

Really? As a long time Volt driver here in Texas and an avid reader of the gm-volt.com forums or years, I don’t remember hearing of any range loss comments in Arizona Volt owners. The Nissan Leaf definitely had that issue but that’s a whole other issue.

Entirely possible I missed those conversations though.

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