Mach-E charging info from Ford engineer, including Preconditioning / Pre-warming update possibly coming

[stangmatt21]

Thanks for the info, I recently received all the new SW updates from the Dealer, but still could not get a SW ver displayed for either Sync or System. It showed up at the dealership, but no luck at home. I did confirm that I am connected to home wifi.

But today I went to start and got this unpleasant black screen.

After about 20 min of letting the car sit plugged in and off. I went to try and now have Sync SW listed and System SW ready to receive updates when available. I was glad that I was at home when this happened.
Has any one had this happen? I was thinking the car received an update?

There is no "one" SW version for Mustang Mach-E, like Tesla. Mustang Mach-E runs over 2 dozen computers (aka modules) and they must all be updated individually and have their own, individual software versions. Ford has chosen instead to number the updates, which are a collection of changes to those various computers.

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[Logal727]

I had an very interesting run in at a Electrify America charger Monday. I have only seen two Mach e in the wild since I bought the car in October. This time I pulled up and there is a grey premium charging and the driver sitting in the car. The temp outside was 10 degrees so very cold. I plug in and get back in my car. A couple minutes later he knocks on my window and introduced himself as a ford engineer working on the MachE charging. He asked me a few questions. He looked at my 40kwh charging rate and asked was I running the heat and I was not. He said good because that will reduce the charge rate even more. He asked if I was running the heat prior to charging and my reply was not for the last 20 miles or so because I was down to 16%.

He asked if he could Hook up a OBD, which I allowed.

Here is what I learned

1. He is working on and possible update, which will allow the battery pack to Start Pre-warming during cold weather if you route to a charger using the built in navigation.

2. In order to receive higher charging rates the pack needs to be warmed up to over 70%

3. The OTA updates are delivered in groups based on the following in this order:
A. most sold trim level
B. build dates and equipment list
Even though all the MachE were 2021’s they used different parts for cars as build dates aged.
So premiums are first, then selects and last GT’s

I asked why they drop the charge rate so drastically at 80% and the real truth is very simple. Warranty, Ford is not trying to replace $15k battery packs that degrade faster than the 7 year guarantee.

He also stated that you do not want to run your battery down to below 12% anything below that will divert power from your 12 volt battery and could kill it. The sweet spot for a long battery life is 12% to 80% so shoot for those ranges if possible.

So I am looking forward to the pre-warm update because sitting in a cold car charging at such a slow rate sucked.

And that man's name? Bill Murray.

 

[SWO]

I had an very interesting run in at a Electrify America charger Monday. I have only seen two Mach e in the wild since I bought the car in October. This time I pulled up and there is a grey premium charging and the driver sitting in the car. The temp outside was 10 degrees so very cold. I plug in and get back in my car. A couple minutes later he knocks on my window and introduced himself as a ford engineer working on the MachE charging. He asked me a few questions. He looked at my 40kwh charging rate and asked was I running the heat and I was not. He said good because that will reduce the charge rate even more. He asked if I was running the heat prior to charging and my reply was not for the last 20 miles or so because I was down to 16%.

He asked if he could Hook up a OBD, which I allowed.

Here is what I learned

1. He is working on and possible update, which will allow the battery pack to Start Pre-warming during cold weather if you route to a charger using the built in navigation.

2. In order to receive higher charging rates the pack needs to be warmed up to over 70%

3. The OTA updates are delivered in groups based on the following in this order:
A. most sold trim level
B. build dates and equipment list
Even though all the MachE were 2021’s they used different parts for cars as build dates aged.
So premiums are first, then selects and last GT’s

I asked why they drop the charge rate so drastically at 80% and the real truth is very simple. Warranty, Ford is not trying to replace $15k battery packs that degrade faster than the 7 year guarantee.

He also stated that you do not want to run your battery down to below 12% anything below that will divert power from your 12 volt battery and could kill it. The sweet spot for a long battery life is 12% to 80% so shoot for those ranges if possible.

So I am looking forward to the pre-warm update because sitting in a cold car charging at such a slow rate sucked.

Thanks for passing along.

The update I'm hoping for is is a "precondition" button on the Fordpass app.

 

[SWO]

Just recently put in my MME order, but if this was indeed a @Ford Motor Company employee its nice to see they're acknowledging they're only selling us 66% of what we expect. My ID.4 has essentially the same warranty, with three years of free EA fast-charging, and no cumbersome charge curve. They could at least offer a more lenient curve until you've exceeded a threshold, then a warning, etc.

Based on track record, I'd trust Ford over VW to provide a charge curve that keeps the battery healthy beyond the warranty. German cars in general sometimes appear designed to mechanically total themselves a month outside of warranty.

 

[mkhuffman]

I had an very interesting run in at a Electrify America charger Monday. I have only seen two Mach e in the wild since I bought the car in October. This time I pulled up and there is a grey premium charging and the driver sitting in the car. The temp outside was 10 degrees so very cold. I plug in and get back in my car. A couple minutes later he knocks on my window and introduced himself as a ford engineer working on the MachE charging. He asked me a few questions. He looked at my 40kwh charging rate and asked was I running the heat and I was not. He said good because that will reduce the charge rate even more. He asked if I was running the heat prior to charging and my reply was not for the last 20 miles or so because I was down to 16%.

He asked if he could Hook up a OBD, which I allowed.

Here is what I learned

1. He is working on and possible update, which will allow the battery pack to Start Pre-warming during cold weather if you route to a charger using the built in navigation.

2. In order to receive higher charging rates the pack needs to be warmed up to over 70%

3. The OTA updates are delivered in groups based on the following in this order:
A. most sold trim level
B. build dates and equipment list
Even though all the MachE were 2021’s they used different parts for cars as build dates aged.
So premiums are first, then selects and last GT’s

I asked why they drop the charge rate so drastically at 80% and the real truth is very simple. Warranty, Ford is not trying to replace $15k battery packs that degrade faster than the 7 year guarantee.

He also stated that you do not want to run your battery down to below 12% anything below that will divert power from your 12 volt battery and could kill it. The sweet spot for a long battery life is 12% to 80% so shoot for those ranges if possible.

So I am looking forward to the pre-warm update because sitting in a cold car charging at such a slow rate sucked.

This is great information but did the Ford engineer specify if 12% and 80% are actual, or displayed? Because on some cars 92 kWh is 100% displayed, and most cars 88 kWh is 100 % displayed. And full battery capacity is 99 kWh, so did he mean 80% of full capacity, or displayed capacity?

 

[middleview]

I had an very interesting run in at a Electrify America charger Monday. I have only seen two Mach e in the wild since I bought the car in October. This time I pulled up and there is a grey premium charging and the driver sitting in the car. The temp outside was 10 degrees so very cold. I plug in and get back in my car. A couple minutes later he knocks on my window and introduced himself as a ford engineer working on the MachE charging. He asked me a few questions. He looked at my 40kwh charging rate and asked was I running the heat and I was not. He said good because that will reduce the charge rate even more. He asked if I was running the heat prior to charging and my reply was not for the last 20 miles or so because I was down to 16%.

He asked if he could Hook up a OBD, which I allowed.

Here is what I learned

1. He is working on and possible update, which will allow the battery pack to Start Pre-warming during cold weather if you route to a charger using the built in navigation.

2. In order to receive higher charging rates the pack needs to be warmed up to over 70%

3. The OTA updates are delivered in groups based on the following in this order:
A. most sold trim level
B. build dates and equipment list
Even though all the MachE were 2021’s they used different parts for cars as build dates aged.
So premiums are first, then selects and last GT’s

I asked why they drop the charge rate so drastically at 80% and the real truth is very simple. Warranty, Ford is not trying to replace $15k battery packs that degrade faster than the 7 year guarantee.

He also stated that you do not want to run your battery down to below 12% anything below that will divert power from your 12 volt battery and could kill it. The sweet spot for a long battery life is 12% to 80% so shoot for those ranges if possible.

So I am looking forward to the pre-warm update because sitting in a cold car charging at such a slow rate sucked.

Appreciate your update. My wife's been driving a Tesla S since Dec 2016. The car today is NOTHING like the car it was on day one - it's 200% better. That's the business model Ford needs to follow to be competitive in the EV market.

With experience they will be able to optimize the battery life. I took my wife's car in for it's one and only "annual service" the following year and they made sure all the moving parts (a couple of dozen) were tight. They told me they "uncorked it"... what? The car, advertised as a 5.2 sec/100km car turned into a 4.2 sec/100km car with a software update! Gaauddd.

After five years of honestly light driving the car has lost roughly 5 miles of range. But it has never guessed its winter range correctly. It thinks it can go 360km on 90% and it goes 220-240. It's consistent that way, but the MACH-E is much better at estimating range in the winter.

I've had the Mach-E for 3 weeks of the coldest weather Montreal has seen in 20 years. It has had some issues at -20 to -30C but at -10C it's normalized and it can keep up with the heating. I did buy and OBD-II reader to watch what it's doing - didn't expect that to be top of the line idea with a new car, but I recognize the local dealer won't have enough experience with the few cars in this fleet to troubleshoot my experience for me. That's the other advantage Tesla has - they sell 4 models. And that's all they service. With massive telemetry coming off the car onto their servers so they can optimize software. They don't need an OBD reader

Still, I bought a MACH-E because I like the build, the looks and the fun factor it brings.

 

[kindofblue]

"He is working on and possible update, which will allow the battery pack to Start Pre-warming during cold weather if you route to a charger using the built in navigation."

That's precisely what Tesla does when you specify that you're navigating to a charger.

 

[GABAR]

The X Files….

Was he a real Ford engineer?

Was he an engineer from the competition / GM driving and testing the Mach-E?

Perhaps he said that to gain the drivers trust.

Who knows what he might have downloaded when he plugged into the OBD port.

No way would I have allowed him to plug into the OBD port.

?

 

[GABAR]

Appreciate your update. My wife's been driving a Tesla S since Dec 2016. The car today is NOTHING like the car it was on day one - it's 200% better. That's the business model Ford needs to follow to be competitive in the EV market.

With experience they will be able to optimize the battery life. I took my wife's car in for it's one and only "annual service" the following year and they made sure all the moving parts (a couple of dozen) were tight. They told me they "uncorked it"... what? The car, advertised as a 5.2 sec/100km car turned into a 4.2 sec/100km car with a software update! Gaauddd.

After five years of honestly light driving the car has lost roughly 5 miles of range. But it has never guessed its winter range correctly. It thinks it can go 360km on 90% and it goes 220-240. It's consistent that way, but the MACH-E is much better at estimating range in the winter.

I've had the Mach-E for 3 weeks of the coldest weather Montreal has seen in 20 years. It has had some issues at -20 to -30C but at -10C it's normalized and it can keep up with the heating. I did buy and OBD-II reader to watch what it's doing - didn't expect that to be top of the line idea with a new car, but I recognize the local dealer won't have enough experience with the few cars in this fleet to troubleshoot my experience for me. That's the other advantage Tesla has - they sell 4 models. And that's all they service. With massive telemetry coming off the car onto their servers so they can optimize software. They don't need an OBD reader

Still, I bought a MACH-E because I like the build, the looks and the fun factor it brings.

200% Better?
Okay.

 

[leeman]

Sure that you don't do this kind of thing in your garage because if you do you run the risk of having more rodents wanting to hang out in your car.

 

[gduprey]

I would love to see a "precondition" battery feature - ideally one you could manually kick on when the routing stuff doesn't go where you want it to go.

Just last week, was doing an early morning trip back from Philly after a cold night (where the car sat in an unheated parking garage). Because of temps/reduced range, I had to charge and never got over about 37Kw at a 250Kw EA station. This was after about 30 minutes of moderate speed driving, but outside temp was 19F.

A recharge that would normally take 15-20 minutes to finish trip took almost 90.

Partner has a Tesla Model S and it does spin up the battery heater before arriving at a charge station(though on cold days, even that caps out at 80/90Kw even on the gen3 250Kw chargers - in the summer, we'll get 200kw consistantly).

So while cold weather and EVs aren't a super great combo (but work well enough). Preconditioning would be a welcome addition.

 

[kltye]

I would love to see a "precondition" battery feature - ideally one you could manually kick on when the routing stuff doesn't go where you want it to go.

Just last week, was doing an early morning trip back from Philly after a cold night (where the car sat in an unheated parking garage). Because of temps/reduced range, I had to charge and never got over about 37Kw at a 250Kw EA station. This was after about 30 minutes of moderate speed driving, but outside temp was 19F.

A recharge that would normally take 15-20 minutes to finish trip took almost 90.

Partner has a Tesla Model S and it does spin up the battery heater before arriving at a charge station(though on cold days, even that caps out at 80/90Kw even on the gen3 250Kw chargers - in the summer, we'll get 200kw consistantly).

So while cold weather and EVs aren't a super great combo (but work well enough). Preconditioning would be a welcome addition.

This actually sounds like you got a faulty EA charger. Some chargers go into a failsafe mode and can only output 100 amps (instead of 350/500 for 150kW/350kW dispensers). Next time you're stuck at 36 ish kW, try another dispenser. I've extensively watched how long it takes to warm the battery from cold, and how fast it charges - it should charge at 50+kW even when it's pretty cold. Heating the battery takes about 10+ minutes to reach optimal temps.

 

[gduprey]

I did move around as I've run into flaky chargers before with my Bolt. Didn't seem to change anything (I tried 2 at opposite ends of the bank of 8). I suppose the entire install could be having problems and I recognize this is a sample size of 1 (I really never fast charge - charge at home and even this trip, at normal temps, would have been completed on a single charge).

 

[Chicago-E]

At the rate I’ll use the car, I’m looking to come in at about 80,000 in 8 years. If I sell it in 4, hopefully I’ll still have around 85%-90% capacity

Vlogger Alex on autos lost no capacity after 1yr and 10,000mi. He got 1mi (264mi vs 265mi) less during his range test. His testing is good but not perfect.

 

[timbop]

I did move around as I've run into flaky chargers before with my Bolt. Didn't seem to change anything (I tried 2 at opposite ends of the bank of 8). I suppose the entire install could be having problems and I recognize this is a sample size of 1 (I really never fast charge - charge at home and even this trip, at normal temps, would have been completed on a single charge).

What you're seeing is absolutely consistent with the evidence presented by many others, including @OutofSpecKyle and tom moloughney when they previewed the cars more than a year ago. So yes, driving doesn't exercise the battery nearly enough; if you are able to cycle through punching it and then slowing down really quickly with regen many times on the way to the charger that will heat up the battery somewhat, but it still won't be enough and you might get a ticket or cause an accident.

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