Pre-conditioning the batteries....how?

[21st Century Pony]

I just tried the "Preparing to Drive" feature. It does work, easily and well. Thanks for alerting me to it.

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[RickMachE]

I just tried the "Preparing to Drive" feature. It does work, easily and well. Thanks for alerting me to it.

There is no Preparing to Drive feature. You set a Departure Time, and it will get the car ready for your set departure time.

 

[21st Century Pony]

I just tried to activate the feature that shows up as "Preparing to Drive" on the app. It does work, easily and well. Thanks for alerting me to it.

 

[noway]

There is another way when connected to AC charger with >5kW available power. If battery is fully charged or close to fully charged if vehicle is manually turned ON while connected to charger (within the car) and then left (doors can be locked and gear selector is locked into park depending on body controller settings, depending on country) it will actually heat the battery, to about 10C. It does not work on DC charger, only on AC.

 

[glenthompson]

When you set a departure time and it pre-conditions the battery, how long does it hold that? Say you planned a departure at 9:00am tomorrow and scheduled that but something came up and delayed your departure to 10 or 11. Would the battery cool down or will it keep it warm from the charger?

 

[Darauk]

Similar to @glenthompson's question, what happens if you set precondition but end up not needing to travel? Is that bad? Should I always edit departure times if my plans change?

 

[hawkeye3point1]

Similar to @glenthompson's question, what happens if you set precondition but end up not needing to travel? Is that bad? Should I always edit departure times if my plans change?

Not bad for anything, it just uses your HVB heater and adds some kWhs to your electric bill unnecessarily. The colder it is, the more of each.

 

[johnmark]

I really wish the app were a bit more reliable, though. In my testing, it only saves the departure time perhaps half the times I've tried to set it.

This problem is "solved" by my app being unable to fetch or set any departure times, thus forcing me to set the times from the car. I guess I at least don't have to worry about my app failing to set a departure time lol

 

[johnmark]

I just tried to activate the feature that shows up as "Preparing to Drive" on the app. It does work, easily and well. Thanks for alerting me to it.

What? Where is this?

 

[21st Century Pony]

What? Where is this?

This works for me: I set a departure time and also make sure I have the car plugged into the house 240V charging circuit some time prior. Then, my FordPass app shows "Preparing to drive" for some time before the departure time. The time this starts prior to driving off seems to vary with the outside temperature.

In Virginia where I have a special charging deal partly financed by the State (a State-provided 2d house electric meter only for EV charging with a TOU schedule) I just plug the car into my secondary 20-amp 240 EVSE after it's charged on the TOU EVSE, when I remember haha. At my son's house in Kentucky, we just keep our two cars plugged in all the time.

This warms up the cabin nicely and I assume also warms up the battery.

 

[Darauk]

This problem is "solved" by my app being unable to fetch or set any departure times, thus forcing me to set the times from the car. I guess I at least don't have to worry about my app failing to set a departure time lol

Both ? and ?.

 

[21st Century Pony]

So now that Sonny Boy and I have a Grizzl-E Duo to use for both cars (he lucked into a used Audi E-Tron last year), we just keep them plugged in overnight... I use my Ford preconditioning / Departure setup.

Of course, Winter is here so the Departure setup warms both the big battery and the cabin. With low temperatures, the warming action (plus any overnight charging) must be environmentally noticeable in the garage.

Why do I know this? Four nights ago, as I was already crashed and Sonny Boy was finishing the latest iteration of Forza video game, he called for me to "quit playing with my car fob and setting the alarm off". After the usual 30 seconds of a father - son argument, we went to the garage and the car alarm was indeed on and flashing etc.

I said something about buggy Ford software and went back to sleep.

The next day, I was final-installing the KW coilovers on a lift in a garage I have access to. As I was packing the tools into the trunk after lowering the lift etc., I noticed two nice dried cherries on the trunk cargo floor. I remembered that I keep a sealed bag of Montmorency Michigan dried cherries under the passenger seat where the dog can't get at them, for snacking on drives... so I ate those two.

2 minutes later, wondering how these two dried cherries got so far away from the front-seat bag, I pulled the bag out from under the front seat... see the picture.

The answer is obviously mice. They must have gotten in somehow attracted by the warm battery etc., got comfortable and started exploring and found the dried cherry bag. I note the bag's top was zip-sealed.

A mouse obviously carried some of the dried cherries to the trunk, to munch in comfort and perhaps away from its friends and neighbors who were working the bag(??).

We figure the car alarm noise and flashers must have scared the mouse party off. I always set the "movement sensors on?" to YES when I shut the car down... I guess they are better than I had given them credit for.

Anyway, I thought I'd add this environmental angle to the preconditioning / departure discussion, as it is Winter and warm, sheltered microenvironments may well attract unexpected cold creatures. Them Kentucky mice are tough, and problem solvers to boot!

Now, I keep a nice peanut-baited JawSnap snap trap on the floor of the trunk.

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