Mach-Lee's Mach-E Cold Weather Testing [Taking Requests]

[louc757]

Did you intentionally limit the preconditioning time to 45 minutes, or is that what the car normally does? I am wondering if a longer preconditioning would have helped.

Mine took about 45 min as well. New MME owner, picked it up Sat 12/17, so I am still learning about this vehicle, my EVSE, and the Car Scanner app. This is great info!

I preconditioned for the first time yesterday, set up for an 8:30 departure, battery was at 59 deg, cabin was toasty, and got my cabin nice and toasty. Temps were mild compared to you guys, it was about 28 deg F outside, 40 deg F in the garage. My EVSE said it took 44 min, and 2.53 kWh. At my rate of $0.1134, it cost $0.29 to do this. Well worth the price of preconditioning!

Battery Temp

EVSE data

 

[mkhuffman]

Mine took about 45 min as well. New MME owner, picked it up Sat 12/17, so I am still learning about this vehicle, my EVSE, and the Car Scanner app. This is great info!

I preconditioned for the first time yesterday, set up for an 8:30 departure, battery was at 59 deg, cabin was toasty, and got my cabin nice and toasty. Temps were mild compared to you guys, it was about 28 deg F outside, 40 deg F in the garage. My EVSE said it took 44 min, and 2.53 kWh. At my rate of $0.1134, it cost $0.29 to do this. Well worth the price of preconditioning!

Battery Temp

EVSE data

Emporia! My EVSE as well.

 

[louc757]

Emporia! My EVSE as well.

Yes Sir! Your comments on my charger thread comparison thread helped me decide on the Emporia EVSE plus their energy monitoring systems.

Temps plummeting here tonight. Going too -3 deg F, no departure time set. I'll be curious to see if it gets cold enough in the unheated garage to heat the battery. Plugging the F150 as well! Its an ICE F150, but with a block heater!

 

[rcechinel]

Awesome thread!
Is there a way to disable regen?

 

[louc757]

Update: Vehicle has been plugged in since last night. Last night was a low of -8 deg F/-22 deg C. The battery heater didn’t kick on until just now. It is sitting at 1 F/-17 C outside currently. Garage is at 27 just now, it had dropped this morning to 19 when i had to get the snowblower out. Battery heater was on at 2:04 PM, off at 2:21 PM, using 1.71 kWh.

It looks like it hearted the battery to in the 53.6 deg F. I didn’t check to see what it was before it started.

EVSE Energy

Car Scanner Info

 

[Mach-Lee]

Awesome thread!
Is there a way to disable regen?

Neutral is the only way I know of that completely disabled regen.

Update: Vehicle has been plugged in since last night. Last night was a low of -8 deg F/-22 deg C. The battery heater didn’t kick on until just now. It is sitting at 1 F/-17 C outside currently. Garage is at 27 just now, it had dropped this morning to 19 when i had to get the snowblower out. Battery heater was on at 2:04 PM, off at 2:21 PM, using 1.71 kWh.

It looks like it hearted the battery to in the 53.6 deg F. I didn’t check to see what it was before it started.

EVSE Energy

Car Scanner Info

Wow, it appears that’s a change with the 2023’s, higher standby temp being maintained on plug. If you precondition does it get much warmer than that?

My car will only heat to 41F on plug, heating to 54F is an improvement.

 

[louc757]

Wow, it appears that’s a change with the 2023’s, higher standby temp being maintained on plug. If you precondition does it get much warmer than that?

My car will only heat to 41F on plug, heating to 54F is an improvement.

When I preconditioned this week, it went to 59 deg. I haven’t driven it and have been driving my truck because of the cold and snow (drivers in Louisville can’t drive well in the snow, I don’t want an accident in my first week!) and will leave it plugged in and see what happens. I’ll keep an eye on the battery temp and when it charges next. Easy to see on the Emporia app the exact time it turns on the heater.

 

[mccdeuce]

So based on my read of your data - if you do not need the range the only benefit to preconditioning the battery is overall health of the battery. I would have thought you would have gotten a lot better efficiency.

Anyone have a guess as to how much better it is for the battery? Or is it worth the added electron use?

 

[Mach-Lee]

Today's tests are regarding 120V battery heating and preconditioning.

120V Battery Heating:

I plugged in 120V while already at my 85% charge limit, and battery heating began. However the coolant heater was limited to only 1.1 kW instead of the normal 6 kW. As a result, the battery heated very SLOWLY. It took 1 hr 15 min for the battery to heat from -6ºC (21ºF) to 2ºC (36ºF) a rate of only 6.4ºC (11.5ºF) per hour. Power used from the wall was 1.55 kWh. The EVSE did not kick in right away, it was about 15 minutes after battery heating began.

The displayed SoC did not change from 85%, but the exact SoC declined very slightly. It's clear it was doing it's best to avoid draining any energy from the pack while battery heating, which is why the heater was limited to only 1.1 kW.

Findings:

• The battery will be heated as needed to stay above 0ºC (must be at or above charge target) while plugged into a 120V EVSE
• The heater will operate at only 1 kW (equal to wall input) so the pack isn't drained.
• 120V pack heating is very SLOW, about 6ºC per hour.
• 120V pack heating setpoint of 2-3ºC is lower than 240V (5ºC).

Conclusions:

• Plugging in if 120V is available is worthwhile in the cold to maintain pack temp
  • Works like an ICE block heater
  • Battery must be finished charging before it will heat
• Heating up a very cold pack with 120V will take a long time, 2-3 hours.
  • L1 charging may take several additional hours in the winter due to heating needs
  • ALWAYS PLUG IN upon arrival to provide enough time for heating and charging
• 1 kW may not be enough to keep the pack warm in extreme cold conditions
• Plugging into a 240V EVSE provides 6x more battery heating power and is strongly recommended for extreme cold climates over 120V.

So in summary, the Mach-E will maintain the battery temp above freezing if plugged into 120V, but it heats VERY SLOWLY, 6x slower than L2. As a result battery heating alone can take HOURS to accomplish, so plan to plug in all the time if using 120V. Preconditioning will be next.

So based on my read of your data - if you do not need the range the only benefit to preconditioning the battery is overall health of the battery. I would have thought you would have gotten a lot better efficiency.

Anyone have a guess as to how much better it is for the battery? Or is it worth the added electron use?

The car is going to use the same amount of energy to drive regardless of the battery condition, therefore efficiency is unchanged. Preconditioning enhances range, power limit, and is long-term better for the pack. I can't really give you numbers on how much better it is for the pack, maybe 5% range improvement over 5 years is a total WAG on my part. Preconditioning is cheap, it will cost most people less than 50¢ to precondition their car. That's totally worth it to me.

 

[Terence Murphy]

So in summary, the Mach-E will maintain the battery temp above freezing if plugged into 120V, but it heats VERY SLOWLY, 6x slower than L2. As a result battery heating alone can take HOURS to accomplish

thanks for this! I have my MME currently sitting in the ~15F garage plugged into 120V (Ford mobile charger). The FordPass app hasn’t reported any extra power draw since it finished charging Fri evening. But maybe my battery isn’t sitting there quite at ambient temp. I hope.

I think it’s time I bought a scanner. Maybe I can find an after Christmas sale.

 

[Mach-Lee]

120V Departure Time Preconditioning:

While still plugged into 120V at my 85% charge limit, I ended up setting two departure times (DTs) in a row, one at 18:30 and one at 20:30, cabin temperature Medium. On all the graphs, the light blue vertical lines represent the departure times as a reference mark. During both departure times, heater power was limited to only 1 kW (same as 120V input power) compared to the usual 5-6 kW, so performance was slow. Both departure times lasted a total of 80 minutes. It's clear departure times are meant to only use energy from the wall rather than taking any energy from the pack. The temporal structure of a departure time program is as follows:

1. Heat battery pack (35 min)
2. Heat cabin (30 min)
3. Departure time
4. Continue to heat cabin (15 min)

The preceding heating times vary depending on how cold it is outside (longer when colder). My garage temp was about 21ºF.

First let's look at cabin temperature performance:

Remember the battery pack is being heated for the first 35 minutes of the DT, so the cabin temperature does not increase until midway through the DT periods (marked in orange). As you can see, the cabin temperature only reached 42ºF at the first 120V departure time, and only 48ºF during the second DT. That's not very warm as a result of the 1 kW heater limitation. The cabin continues to heat for 15 minutes after the DT before turning off. For comparison, I performed a 15 min remote start (RS) immediately after DT #2 lapsed. This time full heater power was used, and you can see the difference in the speed of the temp rise, eventually reaching 76ºF before timing out. Whereas the departure times did not really deplete the battery, the 15 min remote start drained the battery by 1% to 84%. The remote start required 40 minutes of L1 charging afterwards to return to 85%.

Now let's look at battery heating during 120V DTs:

Again, light blue lines mark the set departure times. Red line is the coolant heater power, you can see that's flat at about 1 kW during the entire DT. The green line is the pack coolant inlet temp (CIT), you can see that rising the first ~30 min of the DT as the pack heats. CIT then starts decreasing when heating switches to to the cabin. Just like the previous test, pack heating performance was very poor at only 1 kW. During the first DT pack temp only increased 3ºC, 4ºC during the second DT. It seems the first DT wasn't long enough to get the pack warmed to 5ºC, so it appears to be running into a maximum time constraint.

Next let's look at energy use:

Same red line for heater power. EVSE input is the blue line, you can see that's barely higher than the heater power. Green is the battery power, positive values indicate discharge. A small amount of power was being drawn from the pack at times, with a larger peak around the departure time. I think this is the heated seats and steering wheel turning on. There are also some exterior running light loads that come in as well. The heated seats run full blast for 10 minutes, before dropping down to a lower power.

Last let's look at total battery SoC and energy:

This is somewhat interesting and is a good illustration of why heating the pack helps range. The red line is the estimated total pack energy (kWh) from the BMS, the green line is the the exact SoC. You can see that when heating the pack, the SoC actually goes down 1% while the total energy goes up 3.5 kWh. How does the pack energy go up if the SoC is dropping? The pack holds more energy when warm, and more energy can also be extracted while warm, which explains the trends. Heating the pack does not give you free energy, it just unlocks more available energy that's already in the pack.

If I go back and include the data from the previous test:

• Pack temp increased 11ºC (-6º C to 5ºC)
• Pack energy increased 6 kWh (57.4 to 63.4 kWh)
• Range increased 12 miles

If you extrapolate that to a full winter pack warmup (-15ºC to 15ºC) the effective range increase for warming a cold pack could be up to 40 miles. You will also have a higher power limit (less gray jail bars) and acceleration with a warm pack.

Findings:

• 120V departure time preconditioning DOES heat the pack, albeit VERY SLOWLY
• Departure times do not deplete pack energy
• Heater limited to 1 kW on 120V
• Battery heats up only 3-4ºC per 120V departure time
  • Will not be fully warmed in one cycle
• Cabin warms up only 15ºF per 120V departure time
  • Cabin may not be warm enough
• Remote start heats up the cabin much faster than 120V departure times
  • Uses full heater power and depletes the pack slightly
  • Does not heat the battery

Conclusions:

• 120V departure times DO heat the battery, but barely
• 1kW is not enough power to heat the pack or the cabin in a reasonable amount of time
• The cabin and pack are not fully warmed up after a 120V DT
• A remote start (or two) right after a 120V DT seems to be a good strategy to get the cabin fully warm
  • Set the Departure Time 30 mins before you leave, remote start 15 mins before you leave
• Due to poor 120V heating performance, a 240V EVSE is strongly recommended for winter climates so you get full-power heating.
• Setting a 120V DT is better than nothing, but not by much.

If you use 120V charging, remember to ALWAYS PLUG IN to keep the battery warm in the cold. You need as much time plugged in as you can get.

Merry Christmas!

 

[21st Century Pony]

This is really a great, timely thread!

So I just completed a 2,100+ mile friends & family road trip Tuesday 20 Dec - yesterday night Saturday 24 Dec. The trip was from Louisville KY thru Buffalo NY to Burlington VT, then southern New Hampshire, eastern Massachusetts and back home to Arlington VA.

I pretty much stayed blade-running just ahead of the idiotic storm road conditions throughout, except for the near-zero Fahrenheit road temperatures the final two days since Friday night.

BLUF: Boy oh Boy how this Winter trip validated my decision to pick up an Extended Range Mach E! VERY VERY GLAD for the ER capacity in diminished Winter range conditions. My usual 80+ MPH driving range of about 250+ limes with the Extended Range battery was consistent at just about 200 miles for the length of this trip, although on the final two super cold days I often did sections at 65 MPH just to ensure I got to the next charging location, and to help with potential road black ice patches. Also very glad for All Wheel Drive.

Departure / preconditioning Lessons Learned for cold & super cold temps: although I usually get out of the car and walk around and browse while DC charging, on this trip that often wasn't a fun thing to do with temps in the low teens and a howling wind. So, I often sat in the cabin while DCFC'ing. I discovered that as nice as it can be to listen to music, news etc on auxiliary car power, there is a better way:

1. For the previous 15 minutes before pulling in to the DC spot, heat the cabin so that is has max residual heat.
2. Right after plugging in, when the car charger gives you an estimate of the likely departure when full (I usually DC charged to 85 - 95% on this trip just to be safe, so 45 - 60+ minutes depending on amps provided), choose SETTINGS / CHARGE / DEPARTURE TIME.
3. Set the DEPARTURE TIME for that day and for the likely departure time, or soon after the car thinks it'll reach 80%+ SOC.
4. SAVE and EXIT.
5. Turn off the car completely and let it drink energy and simultaneously precondition.

On some of my DCFC charging sessions, the pre-heating of the cabin would start immediately concurrently with DC charging. At other session times, cabin pre-heating would start about 20 - 30 minutes before the new "departure time" I had just set. Likely this was dependent on the condition of the car at the moment (just after a long driving time, or just after waking up in the morning, etc etc). Obviously, this pre-heating / cabin conditioning energy came, directly or indirectly, from the DC power cable as the car charged up so that was a good thing.

Although I didn't invest in battery monitoring software and I am aware the big battery heats up naturally during DC charging, I think we can safely assume that if any battery pre-conditioning needed to take place, was happening concurrently.

There were at least two times I DC charged right after leaving a friend's house in a freeing morning, because most friends & family except for one nephew didn't have a driveway 240V plug available for overnight charging. So, I think on those mornings when I needed a big charge after leaving someone's house, this action pre-conditioned the still cold battery as well as pre-heating the cabin.

On some days when I did looong multiple sector hops, I would reset that day's DEPARTURE TIME up to five times, at the start of each of my DC charging sessions.

Again, a key point I literally learned by doing: the car seems to ignore the DEPARTURE TIME if the accessory power is on. It only seems to work when the car is completely off. So, no You-tube thru the big screen, etc. while DC charging.

Hope this is useful for other Winter long-distance travelers.

 

[hawkeye3point1]

Although I didn't invest in battery monitoring software and I am aware the big battery heats up naturally during DC charging, I think we can safely assume that if any battery pre-conditioning needed to take place, was happening concurrently.

Some 411 for you, the HVB heater immediately warms battery temp to the low 90s F when DCFC'ing, so setting a departure time will only impact cabin temp., not much point in that. That is why Ford recommends minimizing cabin HVAC for the first 15-20 min of FC. Best to get HVB temp. up as fast as possible to reduce charging time.

So, you could have been watching The 200 Greatest Fails of 2022 the whole time. Why is it, that watching people go flying on icy steps never stops being funny.

 

[21st Century Pony]

Some 411 for you, the HVB heater immediately warms battery temp to the low 90s F when DCFC'ing, so setting a departure time will only impact cabin temp., not much point in that. That is why Ford recommends minimizing cabin HVAC for the first 15-20 min of FC. Best to get HVB temp. up as fast as possible to reduce charging time.

So, you could have been watching The 200 Greatest Fails of 2022 the whole time. Why is it, that watching people go flying on icy steps never stops being funny.

Ummm... yes except not in 12 F. and a strong wind while on a lower-capacity (thus longer juice drinking time) DC station... the cabin gets cold.

 

[21st Century Pony]

Ummm... yes except not in 12 F. and a strong wind while on a lower-capacity (thus longer juice drinking time) DC station... the cabin gets cold.

...and "immediately" is IMHO not instantaneous and not equal across that yuuuge battery, when starting out after a cold overnight soak in these temps (friend's / family house without plug-in capacity). It can't hurt and might well help.

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