Preconditioning at a 20A Wallbox Charger Setting

[RickMachE]

OK, so how do you know if the battery is "preconditioned"? I'm charging at 16A, with set departure times, everything seems to be working fine. Car is always warm & ready to go ar 6:50AM.

The car being ready to go is simply a warm cabin. The only way to precondition the battery, which gives you more range (and power) on the first leg of a trip, is to use a 30amp or higher charger. So, with 16A, you're not warming the battery as much.

As has been posted many times, this impacts you if you're charging to 100% for a trip and want to maximize your range. The warmer the battery, the more range you get.

It also can impact your power, i.e. the amount of energy you can get at any time from the battery. If the battery is too cold, the energy will be limited until it warms up. You can't see that unless you have a GT/GTPE and see the "jail bars".

So, to sum it up, if you're doing a local 20 or 30 mile drive, you're just fine. But, if you want to take a trip and go as far as possible before stopping to charge (or simply want more power right away), then you need to up your charging game.

Some people believe that charging at a lower amperage will make the battery "last longer". In reality, if you're AC charging, the amperage (up to 48amps for the Mach-E) is really not an issue.

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[dalola]

The car being ready to go is simply a warm cabin. The only way to precondition the battery, which gives you more range (and power) on the first leg of a trip, is to use a 30amp or higher charger. So, with 16A, you're not warming the battery as much.

As has been posted many times, this impacts you if you're charging to 100% for a trip and want to maximize your range. The warmer the battery, the more range you get.

It also can impact your power, i.e. the amount of energy you can get at any time from the battery. If the battery is too cold, the energy will be limited until it warms up. You can't see that unless you have a GT/GTPE and see the "jail bars".

So, to sum it up, if you're doing a local 20 or 30 mile drive, you're just fine. But, if you want to take a trip and go as far as possible before stopping to charge (or simply want more power right away), then you need to up your charging game.

Some people believe that charging at a lower amperage will make the battery "last longer". In reality, if you're AC charging, the amperage (up to 48amps for the Mach-E) is really not an issue.

Appreciate the explanation, it all makes sense. I'm just wondering why there isn't an easy way to see/monitor/control the battery preconditioning. In my case, It doesn't matter, the car is in a heated garage, and wifey drives less than 100 miles a day most of the time. It's more of a curiosity for me, as I try to educate myself on EV's practical applications. It seems like, if the EV management was "intelligent", 16A would be enough to accomplish this over a given period of time. It's clear to me, so far, the software engineering is way behind the hardware.

So what is the "ideal" battery temperature? And why isn't there a way to monitor this (in the car)? Or is there? Seems similar to an ICE vehicle's engine temp gauge.

 

[Snakebitten]

OBD PID monitoring is the only way I know of for you to know battery temps.

 

[dalola]

I've got a ScanGauge3, I may have to break that out & see what I can break....?

 

[Snakebitten]

Smartphone apps are all the rage these days. ?

 

[dalola]

Smartphone apps are all the rage these days. ?

Right? After being married to the damn thing for 25 years, I mostly want to throw mine in the river nowadays... I try to do as little as possible with it in retirement. ?

 

[Snakebitten]

I have an old one, without a SIM in it, dedicated to monitoring PIDs in both the truck and the Mach-E.

 

[RickMachE]

Appreciate the explanation, it all makes sense. I'm just wondering why there isn't an easy way to see/monitor/control the battery preconditioning. In my case, It doesn't matter, the car is in a heated garage, and wifey drives less than 100 miles a day most of the time. It's more of a curiosity for me, as I try to educate myself on EV's practical applications. It seems like, if the EV management was "intelligent", 16A would be enough to accomplish this over a given period of time. It's clear to me, so far, the software engineering is way behind the hardware.

So what is the "ideal" battery temperature? And why isn't there a way to monitor this (in the car)? Or is there? Seems similar to an ICE vehicle's engine temp gauge.

77 degrees.

There is not a way to see it at all, no, without an app like Car Scanner.

 

[Mach-Lee]

It's NOT cold here, compared to you Fargo frigid folks, but we are experiencing 30's the previous few nights. So I finally had the opportunity to witness the affects of a cold battery on an EV, and it was interesting.

Anyways, for the last 3 mornings I have used the Departure Time feature and the car consistently pulls 27 Amps on the Emporium. And the battery is right at 60F (Highest temp pid) at departure.

Range/efficiency at that temp is still a little bit less than normal, but negligible for my daily commute.

I really enjoy the car's welcoming interior though, the most.

Note: the Mach-E started drawing power from the EVSE at 8:44 for a 9:30 departure time. I'm curious what parameters determine that?

It decides when to start based on how cold the battery is. The colder the battery, the sooner it will start.

Why do you have it set to only 28 amps? That's odd.

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