OTA Mach-E DC Fast Charging speed and threshold increases coming this winter

[harrysiii]

Can someone explain to a non car guy what the heck traps means?

The speed you're traveling when you cross the 1/4-mile race finish line.

Sponsored

 

[Mirak]

Here's the transcript of the details most will be interested it, starting at minute 15, with a few comments....

Yeah so as I mentioned earlier, the car is fully OTA updatable. Every single module – even the shift controller, not sure what we’re going to do with it, but we made it updatable anyway because of things we may add in the future. That includes the entire BMS [Battery Management System?] system and everything to do with it. So we signed off that car [the Mach E], that’s our first ground-up electric vehicle, but that car is signed off, so in any conditions anywhere on the planet, that car will perform well and last for its entire life. [Well, here’s our problem, the car was signed off to work in Antarctica.]

At 8 years, we still guarantee that that battery will still be 70% plus. In reality it will be much more than that because otherwise we’d got a huge warranty bill, so we went in cautious, and that vehicle – our customers can be sure of the resale value of that vehicle – and that’s where we started. Now the thing is, a worst case in Arizona, having just gone up a really tall hill and entering a DC charge station is different from other use cases so, but we started there. Now, we’ve said also, we are working on improving it, and we are listening to customers. We listen to social media. First thing I do every day [me too], and my whole team, we have connected [inaudible] data. We listen to all the podcasts and we engage with customers. This is what matters. Listening and talking to our customers.

So we are already working on charge curve updates, and maximum charge point updates for charging. We’ve been recently hearing [well, we’ve been telling you this for 6mos] those on a longer trip would like to push their charge up higher before they start their trip on a DC – and at the moment our strategy does cut it off, it cuts it off to trickle charge at 80%. Now at first, we saw 95% of customers charging at home and we didn’t have the call for it. Now we’re starting to see a call for it from those customers so we started reacting with – we are working on it – we are going to deploy updates to that. I won’t say timing yet because we’ve got to get through some testing [Q2 2021?] but I’m aiming to get there for the winter season [in which hemisphere?] and to do some updates for customers. So we’re going to change the top charge point let’s say nearer 90 so that if you want to you can push it to 90 because this is one of largest range cars in the world [especially Antarctica] one of only a few, and we want them to be able to make maximum use of it.

If you start from home, you’re 100% anyway and you’ve got it now. But if you want to start from DC then yes it takes a long time to get to 90 today, so we’re going to change that, and we’re going to do it OTA, and we’re going to do it in production with all cars, quite soon. [“Quite Soon 2021!”] And then there’s the curve. The curve is set currently for maximum…. to give you two things: the best we can give you in 15 minutes, that’s why it peaks high at 150 but it does drop down quickly, and then the best we can give you for a full charge 10-80 in about 40 minutes. Um, so that’s what it’s set up for at the moment, and I believe we can push it further by taking your conditions into account: if you’re in a beautiful 20 degrees or 70 degrees area and the battery’s not stressed out, we believe we can give you more. In fact, if you’re a person who’s mainly using the car at home, and then you go on the occasional trip, we can probably push it even further, because you’re a long way from damaging your battery, and that’s what we’re looking out for. We’re making sure that we are looking after your battery for you, you can charge that car to 100% every single day. And I’m even considering, maybe I don’t need to let you charge to 100% every day, because that’s not your exact use case right? So I might even pull that back, say to you “hey we advise you to charge to 80 or 90” and then I could even give you greater EPA range. I’m thinking about that … but I gotta know that customers are not going to charge to 90 every day – 100 every day – because if they did in that case, they would damage their batteries over time, ok? But we see it, we’re working on it now, and this what we’re going to do.

But, there’s a whole series of updates coming now. We’ve been turning on all the modules. You have to turn them on first, and we have to be careful. [Here comes the #SoftwareIsHard bit] We’re going to be updating a million vehicles a year soon, and – every update – and we’ve gotta be careful that it doesn’t cause problems there? So we have an A/B swap, it downloads and then it swaps over so if anything happens it comes back and your car still works. Our system does that.

But we’ve been switching all the modules on, one at a time, that’s what these updates are today. And I can’t drop things in until all the modules are switched on. They’re nearly all done now, and so you’re gonna see BlueCruise coming in now in September and October for the everywhere it is valid, you’ll see it coming into the cars. And with it you’re gonna get games, you’re gonna get puzzles, you’re gonna get fun stuff [like tic tac toe?!], and you’re gonna get range improvements and other improvements as well. The good stuff’s coming now, towards the end of the year. [How about you just finally let us keep the internal motion sensors turned off?]

 

[WWJPD]

Great to hear about changing the charge curve and it definitely sounds like they'll fix the GT issues the forum is seeing. Got me even more excited for me GTPE to come in.

There was also that nugget about "games, puzzles" coming soon.

Awesome he referenced this thread while broadcasting live. They're watching.

 

[BMT1071]

Many encouraging statements in the video. Like the British insideEVs guy said, having a senior executive acknowledge the shortcomings and commit to improvement is huge.

 

[SyNRG]

Great podcast, lots of good stuff coming on the horizon from Darren/Ford, thus really reassuring about the MME and future products.

 

[EELinneman]

Sounds like a whole lot of their strategy is start safe, loosen later. That's potentially good news for with respect to performance as well. (eg: GT trap speed)

I am hearing a different message than you are. He talks about the GT and GT PE having a "face melting" initial acceleration of .93G and how it handles corners. For the quarter mile folks, I just don't think that Ford made this to be that type fo track car, but more of a road course pony. The Unbriudled extended is all about consistent lap times and not just straight line acceleration. I could be wrong, but from what I am hearing, this is where I see the message focused.

 

[physib]

I am hearing a different message than you are. He talks about the GT and GT PE having a "face melting" initial acceleration of .93G and how it handles corners. For the quarter mile folks, I just don't think that Ford made this to be that type fo track car, but more of a road course pony. The Unbriudled extended is all about consistent lap times and not just straight line acceleration. I could be wrong, but from what I am hearing, this is where I see the message focused.

I think it's still a big maybe. No one directly asked the question about top end acceleration, so we still just don't know.

Also, judging from the fact that he personally reads the forum but didn't comment on the matter, I think we won't really know until media release in October.

 

[Iknownothing]

Per Darren Palmer on the InsideEVs Podcast, changes are coming to the Mach-E's charging.

DC fast charging will have the 80% cliff moved higher and the speeds will increase.

Darren says the fast charging increases may be dynamic and depend on current environmental conditions and the long term battery health. So someone who rarely DC fast charges and always keeps their car at 80% may have a superior fast charge experience.

Great interview - the whole thing is fantastic; thanks for sharing!

Though, I think the real question, which nobody has asked yet is:

Darren Palmer, where can I get one of those badass Mach E Mustang shirts? Or a hat with the logo? If it’s sitting in the car when I pick it up (someday), I’d have a huge smile, just FYI!

 

[dbsb3233]

He also said that they might increase the usable percentage of the battery (reduce the buffer) if and when they can trust that owners won't charge their battery to 100% every day. Not sure how they'll ever be able to have trust in that.

Perhaps it's based on the charging history of the specific vehicle. IOW, those vehicles that have a favorable charging history (mostly L2, rarely to 100%, etc) will see a more lenient charge curve, while those that have treated the battery tougher stay on the tighter charge curve? (Almost like a quota system of sorts.)

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

Wait, so folks who were confident that Ford will improve things once they have more data, and that Ford was deliberately being conservative, were right? Huh.

Well, I am sure this will shut all the whiners up. (*)

(*) narrator voice: it will not

 

[Mirak]

I’m not sure I totally understood what he was saying about battery health. I’ve charged up to 100% maybe 5x spread out over my 6mos of ownership. I’ve probably used DCFC 10x during the span. My charging is almost always L2, and I’m typically keeping my battery between 20% and 60% most days, except to head up closer to 80% one day a week. So… this is generally good for the battery health and for Ford giving me an expanded cliff in the rare instances I need it?

Sounded like a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity in that interview, which sounds like any actually changes are a long ways off.

 

[Mirak]

Wait, so folks who were confident that Ford will improve things once they have more data, and that Ford was deliberately being conservative, were right? Huh.

Well, I am sure this will shut all the whiners up. (*)

(*) narrator voice: it will not

Well, obviously, Ford telling us something is coming soon will shut up all those darned whiners. Ford has an excellent track record of delivering on software so far. I mean, FordPass is a gem. The Sistine Chapel’s got nothin’ on Sync. Nearly a year into the rollout and Ford is still “turning on modules.” “Buncha whiners! Ford says cool stuff is coming soon!”

 

[Scooby24]

I’m not sure I totally understood what he was saying about battery health. I’ve charged up to 100% maybe 5x spread out over my 6mos of ownership. I’ve probably used DCFC 10x during the span. My charging is almost always L2, and I’m typically keeping my battery between 20% and 60% most days, except to head up closer to 80% one day a week. So… this is generally good for the battery health and for Ford giving me an expanded cliff in the rare instances I need it?

Sounded like a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity in that interview, which sounds like any actually changes are a long ways off.

I took it as 2 fold...DCFC will not trickle until 90%. They were conservative to account for worst case scenario.

Secondary is expanding range by "unlocking" the extra power that's currently conserved. They didn't because they didn't trust people wouldn't be charging up to 90% every day (true 90% every day, currently understood to be 100%) But that could happen with perhaps some safeguards in place for excessively charging to that 90% target and then allowing a closer to full 100% available for the one offs.

 

[Mirak]

Has anybody ever figured out the optimum charging schedule for battery health? I try to live between 20 and 80% and I only charge maybe 2x per week. Is that good, or should I be charging more frequently to stay between 50 and 80% I kinda assumed that the less I charge, the better.

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

I guess some people charge enough for this to be a priority? I barely have time to eat my tots before the car is ready to go again.

Hey, anyone that eats tots and drives a Mach-E clearly has taste as far as I am concerned!

Sponsored