New Mach-E LFP Battery Specs Revealed

[Mach-Lee]

So, basically what this is saying is that these new batteries are useless in Minnesota as the temps this winter have been as low as -28f air temp with -50f real feal. Very interesting.

I'm hoping the battery heating and thermal isolation will be upgraded to compensate. But if not, they won't be great in Minnesota unless you leave the car plugged in all the time and always use departure times. I'd have concerns parking it outside at work all day when it's below zero and there isn't Level 2 available to keep it warm, the drive home will feel very sluggish.

LFP Teslas in Canada have had reduced acceleration during the cold-spells we have had, and it's generally a safety issue when trying to merge onto the highway. It's also generally annoying to purchase a vehicle that touts performance and get sub-optimal performance for half the year.

Exactly. On ramps could be challenging when the pack is cold.

If they were smart, they wouldn't offer LFP in Canada or northern states except for fleet usage.

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[Blue highway]

And if they do the same for the LFPs, the new batteries will likely have the same 5-10 minute surge of 150 kW and then a sustained charge rate of ~80 kW after that initial surge, with minimal decrease in charge rate up to 80-85% or even up to 100% SOC. This will bump the average charge rate up and the average charge time down considerably.

I wonder what additional measures will be taken to warm the pack... LFP really suffers when it's cold.

 

[Rabidsquirrel22]

I've personally never understood all of the hype these automakers are trying to put behind LFP batteries. I have zero interest in owning a car with them, living in a region with real winters. I'll gladly pay the premium for NCM cells, which are annoying enough to live with in the cold. I can't imagine dealing with worse. They seem like a stop-gap to get OEMs to the battery capacities they want to build EVs in volume but will result in a whole bunch of vehicles that become outdated and undesirable very quickly.

Sure they will be cheaper, but any uneducated first time EV buyer getting a vehicle with LFP cells might be in for a miserable ownership experience and be turned off from EVs forever if they live in a place that freezes.

 

[ARK]

Unless there has been a generational leap for LFP, its low temperature and power output performance is a well-known quantity. The difference is how well Ford has engineered the pack to compensate for the shortcomings - which if past experience is a guide, they'd have done a perfectly cromulent job, but probably nothing outstanding.

I think you are correct that Ford probably will do a decent job with the LFP batteries and will use the experience on the Mach-E to further refine it for the F150 Lightning, a vehicle that they really can't afford to fall short on in any meaningful way.

I'm sure they've already learned a lot from the lithium ion batteries on the Mach-E and the Lightning and they will apply what they've learned to the implementation of the LFP batteries on the Mach-E.

 

[Hammered]

It'd be wrong to assume this is a legacy LFP blend. CATL has been advancing their tech. There's several high C LFP cells on the market. Some are able to peak at 50c. For comparison the mach-e peaks at about 11c (GTPE) for all of 5 seconds. I'd assume they're going to wall off the top 2% / bottom 10% or so of the pack which gives the cells an operating voltage of 3-3.35 per cell where the bulk of the charge is. Here's a capacity / voltage test of a current chemistry LFP cell in a '48v' configuration. As you can see the pack doesn't even reach 48v until there's 10% or so left.

Without ford coming out and stating how many cells are in it, I'd assume nothing, because they could have added another element to change things. If it's current mainstream LFP, that's going to suck real bad in the cold. As such I'd expect it to be a new chemistry that's still LFP, but it's doped to allow charging around -10c to -20c, but capacity will still suck at those temps. Ford may mitigate this with a better environmental scheme including encasing the pack in 'plastic'.

 

[Blue highway]

I've personally never understood all of the hype these automakers are trying to put behind LFP batteries. I have zero interest in owning a car with them, living in a region with real winters. I'll gladly pay the premium for NCM cells, which are annoying enough to live with in the cold. I can't imagine dealing with worse. They seem like a stop-gap to get OEMs to the battery capacities they want to build EVs in volume but will result in a whole bunch of vehicles that become outdated and undesirable very quickly.

Sure they will be cheaper, but any uneducated first time EV buyer getting a vehicle with LFP cells might be in for a miserable ownership experience and be turned off from EVs forever if they live in a place that freezes.

maybe, but the offset of being OK to charge to 100% every day can solve a lot of problems... as does a heat pump.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I wonder what additional measures will be taken to warm the pack... LFP really suffers when it's cold.

Yeah, that's another question. I suspect that if they're updating the battery, they're likely also (at least considering) adding a heat pump into the thermal control loop. They have to redo the thermal control loop within the battery sled itself, so there's no reason not to add more insulation and apply the lessons they've already learned. They probably don't even have to add much in the way of additional components. It shouldn't take much to turn the existing AC unit into a supplementary heat pump for the battery/cabin for when the weather is cold. That said, I have no idea what the rating is on the AC unit so I don't know if it's big enough to heat the battery any appreciable amount.

 

[tomterky]

I'm hoping the battery heating and thermal isolation will be upgraded to compensate. But if not, they won't be great in Minnesota unless you leave the car plugged in all the time and always use departure times. I'd have concerns parking it outside at work all day when it's below zero and there isn't Level 2 available to keep it warm, the drive home will feel very sluggish.



Exactly. On ramps could be challenging when the pack is cold.

If they were smart, they wouldn't offer LFP in Canada or northern states except for fleet usage.

Funny you mention departure times, every since the most recent update my car instead of saying "charging" when it starts at 9pm, it says "preconditioning"....and my departure times also started to screw up with my charger and flipped it on and off. I unplugged and turned off pre-departure and it went back to normal. Something is wonky.

 

[itsthenewdc]

But do we really expect Ford to lower the price of the Mach-Es because of this? People keep saying cheaper, but how much cheaper, and will Ford actually lower prices or keep it the same? They've already mentioned they're losing money on each Mach-E.

Unless they change some things, this just seems like a way for them to get more money while not really adding any benefits? In fact, seems like a step backwards. Worse in cold, slower performance, relatively same pack size (maybe they change charge speed?).

 

[ARK]

But do we really expect Ford to lower the price of the Mach-Es because of this? People keep saying cheaper, but how much cheaper, and will Ford actually lower prices or keep it the same? They've already mentioned they're losing money on each Mach-E.

Unless they change some things, this just seems like a way for them to get more money while not really adding any benefits? In fact, seems like a step backwards. Worse in cold, slower performance, relatively same pack size (maybe they change charge speed?).

That’s the beauty of capitalism, if manufacturers have more profit margin with these batteries, prices will eventually head south as they battle each other for market share.

Or at least, prices will not rise as fast for this variant given the amount of inflation present.

 

[ARK]

maybe, but the offset of being OK to charge to 100% every day can solve a lot of problems... as does a heat pump.

I dunno, we seem to get a fair share of ‘I charge to 100% every day, it always used to say I have 280 miles of range, now it says I have 220 miles in December, how am I supposed to do my 20 mile commute now, worst car ever’ type of posts on here.

I also think at these subzero temperatures that seem to be a concern, a heat pump will not do much.

 

[Socalsp3]

good news more material options is better for everyone. Even if you don't want the LFP, it should help drive down cost of NCM batteries in the long run.

 

[sotek2345]

My worry with manufactures going to LFP batteries is longer term on the used market. None of them seem to be marking the vehicles in any way, so if you are buying a used one where there are winters, you have no good way to know if you are getting an NMC which has issues in the cold, or an LFP, which is horrible in the cold. I guess you could always do a VIN decoder to figure out build dates and then try to figure out what the factory was doing at that time, but how many people will honestly do that?

 

[voxel]

I think the cold weather issues are pure speculation as is the acceleration. We may need to look at Teslas LFP products to get a real sense

Huh? Both are issues. Model 3 RWD (LFP) is slower and heavier than the NCA Standard Range versions. As for cold...known issue and there are detail reviews about it. Tesla does a good job heating up the LFP battery before charging though.

Anyhow the big advantages to LFP are cost (nickel and cobalt are very expensive) and high flashpoint (battery fires will happen less).

 

[voxel]

My worry with manufactures going to LFP batteries is longer term on the used market. None of them seem to be marking the vehicles in any way, so if you are buying a used one where there are winters, you have no good way to know if you are getting an NMC which has issues in the cold, or an LFP, which is horrible in the cold. I guess you could always do a VIN decoder to figure out build dates and then try to figure out what the factory was doing at that time, but how many people will honestly do that?

LFP batteries will last 3x-5x more cycles than NMC/NCA.

The sheer number of 2012-2014 Model S battery failures should hint to people that 8-10 years is about the expected lifetime of NMC/NCA batteries and not much more.

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