MME Charging Curve Data Collection

[ChasingCoral]

There can be many reasons why a BEV is not charging very fast or as fast as it was designed to.

Now that deliveries are about to happen, there will be more photos/videos of MMEs plugged in. If you see a Mach-E plugged into a DCFC, take a picture of the charger's screen, not of the car. We know what the car looks like. Be sure to capture battery %, kWs/Amps, time plugged in, and the maximum rating for that charger if you can.

Collecting video's and photographs will allow us to build (an estimate of) the optimal charging curve for the Mach-E (in real-world conditions).
Post them here. Keep debates on other threads, please.

Date	Speed	SoC	Temp.	charger max	battery size
6- 2020	81 kW	61%	warm	unknown	88kWh
11-2020	121 kW	42%	unknown	unknown	88kWh

Clarification: Would you like this post to only cover DCFC data or also L1/L2 charging curves?

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[ajmartineau]

Clarification: Would you like this post to only cover DCFC data or also L1/L2 charging curves?

Post whatever you like. I gave up on trying to keep this thread focused.

I am not going to keep track of L2 charging. It also appears that people are under the impression (false IMO) that the preproduction curve is not accurate or will change right away. ...I am not interested in online debates.

Any data points are appreciated though.

 

[agoldman]

Should we be concerned about this? Hopefully this can be easily software fixed, but I still don't like the sound of this article below. There are plenty of reasons not to follow Tesla's path of quality control, etc, but this isn't one of them.

I would have been thrilled to pay anything for a fast top-off when I pulled the Mustang Mach-E Premium AWD — with 60 miles of remaining range — into a Target store in Clifton, N.J., on a miserable, rainy night in December. It’s one of nearly a dozen Electrify America (EA) stations in New Jersey, as the Volkswagen-owned EA expands a DC network whose chargers range from 50 kilowatts to a mighty 350 kilowatts. I drove miles out of my way just to check out one of EA’s 150-kilowatt machines, eager to see if the ‘Stang SUV (with an official 270-mile range) could really add 47 miles of range in just 10 minutes on the plug. Ford claims a Mach-E in rear-drive, 300-mile-range form will juice even faster, adding 61 miles in 10 minutes.

The reality at this Target was so wildly off-target that I might as well have gone inside to load up shopping carts with housewares and snacks. Pulling up, I was met with one of the most impressive-looking (non-Tesla) charging arrays I’ve seen in America: Six tall, Electrify America chargers stood sentry, each brandishing two plug-in arms, for a total of 12 DC outlets. (One was out of commission, so make that 10 outlets). Their user-friendly touchscreens flashed ads for Ewan MacGregor’s latest motorcycling adventure. I stuck the charger’s heavy, bulky cord into the Mach-E’s fender-mounted port. The station instantly recognized a “Ford owner” with FordPass, and the charge initiated automatically, without me having to futz with a thing. My phone’s FordPass app began tracking the charge. This is going to be great, I thought: Child’s play, just like charging a Tesla.

If only. Working on my laptop in the driver’s seat, I looked up after 10 minutes, and realized (according to both the app and the Mach-E’s driver’s display) that I’d only added nine miles of range to its 88 kWh, 376-cell lithium-ion battery — nowhere near the 47 miles in 10 minutes that Ford is touting via these 150-kilowatt, Supercharger-style stations.

Hopping from the driver’s seat, I saw the charger screen insisting electricity was being delivered at 74.2 kilowatts. That was only about half the 150-kilowatt rate touted on the machine’s placard, and I would have happily taken it. The actual trickle of juice going into the Ford was 20 kilowatts at best; a fraction of the expected rate, and only about twice as fast as a piddling, 11-kilowatt Level 2 home charger. Ambient temps were in the 40s, and there are always some transmission losses from electrical resistance and heat (typically on the order of 10 to 20 percent) but this was ridiculous.

I plugged into another outlet. Then I moved the Mach-E to another charger further down the row. Next, I called EA’s customer service, where a rep named Justine — working out of Auburn Hills, Mich., the former site of VW’s North American HQ — couldn’t have been more helpful. Justine even rebooted one of the chargers to see if we could pick up the glacial pace. But no dice, fuzzy or otherwise. Justine couldn’t offer any real explanation on what was up, instead promising to get the tech department on the case.

My reporter’s curiosity piqued, I eventually plugged the Mach-E into five of the 10 working outlets, hopping back-and-forth from the driver’s seat into a steady rain, and becoming steadily more frustrated. No matter which plug I tried, the alleged “fast charger” delivered the same weak stream, adding about one mile of range for every minute on the plug. The convenience-factored price of 43 cents per kWh was stiff as well, more than three times the national-average rate of 13.2 cents per kWh for home electricity. If I had hung around long enough, adding 220 miles to the Ford’s “tank” would have cost about $30, more than the price of unleaded gasoline in an SUV that slurps at 20 mpg.
Ultimately, I cut my losses after more than 90 minutes (including time wasted switching plugs), five outlets and a pathetic 76 miles of added range, barely enough to drive for an hour on the highway. I pulled out of Target with the Ford’s battery boosted by 40 percent, showing 136 miles of range — plenty for my trip home to Brooklyn, but again, nowhere near Ford’s claim of a charge from 10% to 80% in 45 minutes.
Of course, one driver’s experience at one bank of chargers isn’t an indictment of the entire network that Ford has partnered with, rather than going the Tesla route and building one of their own. But while I’ve had good experiences at both ChargePoint and EA chargers, I’ve encountered a distressing number of their chargers that are out of service, unable to initiate a charge, or underperforming in charging rates. In contrast, though I’m hardly a regular user, I’ve never plugged into a Tesla Supercharger that didn’t work, first time, every time.
As I wrote in my review, the Mustang Mach-E is one impressive EV, one that stands tall against the Tesla Model Y in most competitive measures. But Tesla’s foresight and investment in its own proprietary network remains a key competitive advantage, right up there with its edge in electric efficiency and range.

While I was standing in the rain at Target, twiddling my thumbs, I had ample time to mull that over — and realize that Ford and the rest still have some catching up to do.

 

[ajmartineau]

Every EV owner, including Tesla owners, will have this happen at some point or maybe everytime it’s really hot or really cold.

There are many things wrong with this article.
“After 10 minute of working..” Was it really 10 minutes? Why wasn't he just watching the screen from inside the car with the wipers on?
This article was discussed on a different thread also.

Maybe the battery was too cold.
Maybe EA de-rated the charging station to 50kW for some reason (it happens).
Maybe there is an issue with the power grid supplying the station.

What else could he have done to fix the issue?
I would have turned the heat to max for five minutes to warm the battery and see if the rate increased.
After doing everything possible, I would have charged enough to get to the next station and moved on.

I am not concerned about this.
This isn't a quality control issue.
I don't see this as an easy software fix. Although software can make it happen less often.

 

[silverelan]

Every EV owner, including Tesla owners, will have this happen at some point or maybe everytime it’s really hot or really cold.

There are many things wrong with this article.
“After 10 minute of working..” Was it really 10 minutes? Why wasn't he just watching the screen from inside the car with the wipers on?
This article was discussed on a different thread also.

Maybe the battery was too cold.
Maybe EA de-rated the charging station to 50kW for some reason (it happens).
Maybe there is an issue with the power grid supplying the station.

What else could he have done to fix the issue?
I would have turned the heat to max for five minutes to warm the battery and see if the rate increased.
After doing everything possible, I would have charged enough to get to the next station and moved on.

I am not concerned about this.
This isn't a quality control issue.
I don't see this as an easy software fix. Although software can make it happen less often.

It's certainly a data point on the MME (not a positive one). I'm not super worried about the charging curve as yet since OTA tweaks will certainly come over time. Usually those tweaks are for the better but sometimes they're worse. Ask any DC nerfed 75/85/90 owner and they'll tell you all about it.

The charger's screen said 74kW at 20-30% SoC (60mi remaining) but the car's internal time to charge metric wasn't reflecting that. Definitely weird but it's an outlier for now. We'll have a LOT more data points in the next month.

 

[ajmartineau]

For the first 6-months to 1 year, you should assume that after a few minutes the MME will level off at 100kW and stay close to that until near 80%.
If it is better/faster, be happy about it. You are not talking about that much of a time difference.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Should we be concerned about this? Hopefully this can be easily software fixed, but I still don't like the sound of this article below. There are plenty of reasons not to follow Tesla's path of quality control, etc, but this isn't one of them.

I pulled out of Target with the Ford’s battery boosted by 40 percent, showing 136 miles of range — plenty for my trip home to Brooklyn, but again, nowhere near Ford’s claim of a charge from 10% to 80% in 45 minutes.
Of course, one driver’s experience at one bank of chargers isn’t an indictment of the entire network that Ford has partnered with, rather than going the Tesla route and building one of their own. But while I’ve had good experiences at both ChargePoint and EA chargers, I’ve encountered a distressing number of their chargers that are out of service, unable to initiate a charge, or underperforming in charging rates. In contrast, though I’m hardly a regular user, I’ve never plugged into a Tesla Supercharger that didn’t work, first time, every time.
As I wrote in my review, the Mustang Mach-E is one impressive EV, one that stands tall against the Tesla Model Y in most competitive measures. But Tesla’s foresight and investment in its own proprietary network remains a key competitive advantage, right up there with its edge in electric efficiency and range.

While I was standing in the rain at Target, twiddling my thumbs, I had ample time to mull that over — and realize that Ford and the rest still have some catching up to do.

Concerned, yes. Worried or disappointed? Not yet. Let's see what happens with full production models running updated charging software.

Of course, knowing EV reviewers were going to test the charging, I would have thought Ford would have made sure the cars used for reviews had the latest, fastest charging software.

 

[ajmartineau]

Concerned, yes. Worried or disappointed? Not yet. Let's see what happens with full production models running updated charging software.

Of course, knowing EV reviewers were going to test the charging, I would have thought Ford would have made sure the cars used for reviews had the latest, fastest charging software.

Exactly my thoughts about the software. They have been testing for a while. What you see is what we will get.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

Concerned, yes. Worried or disappointed? Not yet. Let's see what happens with full production models running updated charging software.

Of course, knowing EV reviewers were going to test the charging, I would have thought Ford would have made sure the cars used for reviews had the latest, fastest charging software.

There are 2 possibilities (at least): Ford either made sure it had the (then) latest software and charging capabilities, or they didn't.

In the latter case, someone miscalculated. Someone somewhere was bound to DCFC at some point during a weekend test. They're (mostly) automotive reporters after all.

In the former case, there are at least two possibilities. First, the car charged as designed. That's not a good thing and rather unlikely IMO. Second EA had the chargers at that station throttled down to 50 kW. It wouldn't be the first time they've done that without notice. This could also occur in the first case above. Third, there were grid supply problems causing suboptimal power to be available. That's also a possibility for the first case above. Fourth, the installed software glitched.

The big problem here is that instead of charging to an acceptable level and heading to another DCFC location, the author didn't/. So we have no idea which of the numerous scenarios are the culprit in the "Case of the Dismal Kilowatt."

Personally, I think it's far more likely to be an EA issue or a glitch in the "not intended for release software." It's unlikely Ford would intentionally, show off a vehicle that can't make the touted 10% to 80% in 45 minutes claims. It's more probable there was an external error imo than Ford "getting caught."

 

[JamieGeek]

There is another possibility: It was a fluke.

Perhaps the software in all those chargers didn't like the software in the Mach-E.

 

[JamieGeek]

There is another possibility: It was a fluke.

Perhaps the software in all those chargers didn't like the software in the Mach-E.

Ok look; here is my take:

This issue is a one-off until it happens to other people (and gets reported). As of right now its just that one report (that is getting repeated everywhere). We also have tons of articles and videos of reviewers fast charging the Mach-E without that issue.

There are so many reasons why that could have happened: Perhaps there was a problem with the electricity supply that couldn't source more than 20kW or whatever (that would explain all the chargers behaving the same)--maybe that happens in the rain at that location? don't know but until someone else reports an issue like that I'm not going to give it another thought.

 

[agoldman]

I just hope that this doesn't become an "oh well whatever" thing with Ford. I don't think it will, but they do need to step up their game in certain areas, and I think they already have, so I'm hopeful they keep up with the trends, and all aspects of the competition.

 

[ajmartineau]

I feel like the most likely scenario is that he picked up the car cold and took it straight to the charger. Cold batteries charge slow.

 

[Shayne]

I feel like the most likely scenario is that he picked up the car cold and took it straight to the charger. Cold batteries charge slow.

In which they never gave it a chance to ramp up. 5 chargers in 90 minutes, moving around in the rain, read like a story of impatiences not an accurate charging test. Not sure you can count on that story for a data point.

 

[dbsb3233]

Is it unhealthy for the battery to push high kw into it when you go above 80%

High kW, yes. Like 100 kW or something. Not so much 50 kW though. Most charge curves for high-power charging BEVs (like 125+ kW peak) appear to bottom out closer to 50 kW. Hoping the production MME improves that last 20% SOC number to get up near that level.

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