No more OTA performance or battery improvements?

[silverelan]

I was hoping by now we'd have seen some performance upgrades and maybe a few minutes shaved off the 80% charging times but so far nothing. Is anybody else wondering if Ford has orphaned the MME drivetrain hardware & battery pack so that all the vehicles prior to the eventual mid-cycle refresh won't see any improvements to things such as acceleration, or charging times?

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[sotek2345]

Well, we did get the charge curve improvement between 80 and 90 percent. Some cars also got the extra 3 percent of the battery unlocked for a little more range.

 

[kltye]

I was hoping by now we'd have seen some performance upgrades and maybe a few minutes shaved off the 80% charging times but so far nothing. Is anybody else wondering if Ford has orphaned the MME drivetrain hardware & battery pack so that all the vehicles prior to the eventual mid-cycle refresh won't see any improvements to things such as acceleration, or charging times?

I think the combination of weak HVBJB and small busbars have all but doomed us early adopters to relatively slow charging speeds and low performance numbers. I was as bit hopeful that we'd get a Polestar-style perf upgrade by paying Ford money, but I don't think that's happening now that we know the HVBJB sucks.

 

[Logal727]

I was hoping by now we'd have seen some performance upgrades and maybe a few minutes shaved off the 80% charging times but so far nothing. Is anybody else wondering if Ford has orphaned the MME drivetrain hardware & battery pack so that all the vehicles prior to the eventual mid-cycle refresh won't see any improvements to things such as acceleration, or charging times?

What do you mean, nothing? They quadrupled the charging speed between 80 and 90 percent.

 

[kltye]

What do you mean, nothing? They quadrupled the charging speed between 80 and 90 percent.

They did, but only because it was so abysmal to begin with and it didn't need to throttle so hard at 80%.
I'm not even asking for 170kW+ charging speeds - just staying closer to 150kW across more of the curve would be really, really nice. Shaving off 10 ish minutes per charge session across a long roadtrip that requires 3+ charges is a lot of time saved. And for people who might take longer per stop (kids, pets, etc.), offer them a "standard" charge rate, and offer the rest of us impatient folks a "turbo" speed or whatever.

 

[silverelan]

What do you mean, nothing? They quadrupled the charging speed between 80 and 90 percent.

First of all, i specified 80%. Secondly, when the car was originally revealed and subsequently marketed at various car shows, we were told that there would be future OTA performance enhancements.

So yeah, i mean nothing. I'd love to see the OTA performance enhancements that we were told about and it'd sure be cool if Ford was able to tweak the charge times between 10% to 80%. I'm wondering if our cars have been orphaned already with no slated improvements.

 

[Jimrpa]

V1.0

 

[silverelan]

I think the combination of weak HVBJB and small busbars have all but doomed us early adopters to relatively slow charging speeds and low performance numbers. I was as bit hopeful that we'd get a Polestar-style perf upgrade by paying Ford money, but I don't think that's happening now that we know the HVBJB sucks.

Yeah, i think you're right. I've got my skepticism that Ford will offer any OTA performance upgrades for the 4X and GT because the hardware is already either maxed out or being used out of spec, e.g. HVBJB. It doesn't negate the fact that Ford told us that OTA performance enhancements were a thing to expect.

I am confused why the charge times to 80% haven't dropped yet. Right now we're at about 41 minutes or so from 10-80% with room to improve. Overheating isn't a problem as we see in Bjorn's video that temps peak at a relatively low 36C in the MME ER pack (ID.5 GTX is 50C and Model Y is 61C).

 

[dtbaker61]

I was hoping by now we'd have seen some performance upgrades and maybe a few minutes shaved off the 80% charging times but so far nothing. Is anybody else wondering if Ford has orphaned the MME drivetrain hardware & battery pack so that all the vehicles prior to the eventual mid-cycle refresh won't see any improvements to things such as acceleration, or charging times?

current performance is killing HVBJB .... how can they get more performance without fixing that and adding better internal cooling first?

 

[silverelan]

current performance is killing HVBJB .... how can they get more performance without fixing that and adding better internal cooling first?

So...we're orphaned?

 

[dtbaker61]

So...we're orphaned?

who is 'we' ?

I am a current owner trying as hard as I can to get Ford to restore original performance output to my vehicle with a KNOWN re-designed part to resolve a KNOWN faulty design. They haven't done that yet, so yes I feel that the first 51k Mach-e are somewhat orphaned by the insanely poor recall/replacement policies and lack of required parts at designated Service centers.

If you mean 'people who want performance enhancements to get rid of the 5-sec output cap', I'd say you aren't even a glimmer in eye of Engineering until the replacement HVBJB have all been rolled out physically.

The only hope for solving BOTH these issues is if Ford Engineering comes up with another version of the HVBJB that goes one step further and adds some 'chill plates' to the HVBJB to keep it about the same temp as the battery tray.... Once that is taken care of, and 'quick cooling' of the motors and inverters is improved, the time at WOT might be extended.

Software OTA cannot possibly make any substantial improvements in output performance or battery capacity.

 

[dtbaker61]

Yeah, i think you're right. I've got my skepticism that Ford will offer any OTA performance upgrades for the 4X and GT because the hardware is already either maxed out or being used out of spec, e.g. HVBJB. It doesn't negate the fact that Ford told us that OTA performance enhancements were a thing to expect.

I am confused why the charge times to 80% haven't dropped yet. Right now we're at about 41 minutes or so from 10-80% with room to improve. Overheating isn't a problem as we see in Bjorn's video that temps peak at a relatively low 36C in the MME ER pack (ID.5 GTX is 50C and Model Y is 61C).

overheating in the battery tray might not be a problem, but it absolutely is a problem in the (sealed) HVBJB and at the Charger Connectors because there are no 'chill plates' under the connectors and main bus bars from connectors, thru (sealed) contactors, to actual battery tray.

 

[RickMachE]

I was hoping by now we'd have seen some performance upgrades and maybe a few minutes shaved off the 80% charging times but so far nothing. Is anybody else wondering if Ford has orphaned the MME drivetrain hardware & battery pack so that all the vehicles prior to the eventual mid-cycle refresh won't see any improvements to things such as acceleration, or charging times?

You keep using the word "orphaned", probably because you're trying to get responses. Totally unfounded.

No, I do not think that Ford has remotely considered "orphaning" the 2021 or 2022 Mach-Es. I expect to see future performance enhancements including charging curve updates.

Hope that helps.

 

[MacherAWD]

Do I think our cars will get faster or more powerful, NO, as stated above by HVBJB failures. Do I think we will get those cool new bluecruise features, lane changing and what not, YES, and that can be considered performance improvements.

 

[kltye]

I am confused why the charge times to 80% haven't dropped yet. Right now we're at about 41 minutes or so from 10-80% with room to improve. Overheating isn't a problem as we see in Bjorn's video that temps peak at a relatively low 36C in the MME ER pack (ID.5 GTX is 50C and Model Y is 61C).

I cannot stress how much I agree with this - the whole crappy charge curve has nothing to do with pack cooling; I suspect the HVBJB isn't able/designed/tested to handle so much current over a period of time. Since there aren't any temperature sensors there, the engineers simply modeled how much heat the contactors are able to dissipate over a period of time and that's where we get the "total number of amp-hours over time" charging curve. I don't know how much contactors cost, but this is the #1 place where I'm disappointed with this car - surely it doesn't cost much more to have beefier contactors. Plus, beefier contactors mean less resistance in the circuit, which would improve power efficiency...

Heck at this point I'd even be happy to pay a good amount of money for an upgraded HVBJB out of pocket if it allows faster DCFC and higher performance out of RWD models.

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