So just take away choice and make it one hour or some thing like that. For instance leaving soon? Yes - set time - min of one hour. Sure this may still cause some complaints but it would also eliminate quite a few.
One hour would be fine, but cabin heating would need to be interspersed rather than just tacked on at the 55th minute, otherwise if you're leaving in 30 minutes, no cabin heat has kicked in yet.
Tesla heat pumps are both more efficient and produce more heat that the mach-e resistive heater. Tesla has millions of cars on the road with these and issues are fairly limited. BMW also has heat pumps that work great. they are by far the best solution right now for EVs
Actually, Consumer Reports did a study, and proved that in the dead of winter, it was a bunch of hype - heat pumps provided NO advantage.
Correct at extremes heat pumps are no better. But in most use cases 20f, 30f, 40f etc they are significantly better. They are more expensive than resistive heat and manufactures would not use them If they weren’t better.
Who needs heat above 30F anyway!
there are countless articles and tests proving the opposite of what consumer reports says.
It does at different times. First it runs the preconditioning this will vary on temp seen half an hour to 1 hour 45 minutes then for the last 15 minutes it runs cabin heat just like you pushed remote start. You can hear the recir pump quit and the blower fan kick in.
The more I think about this, the more deceiving I think the conclusion may be. They don't say how LONG they tested it for. If it's the standard EPA test, that's only 765 seconds (12.75 minutes), then extrapolated. If they applied an hour of preconditioning to that and just extrapolated the "savings" to a 3+ hour drive (0-100%), then it's highly deceiving.Ford just released a very informative brochure detailing things that affect range with test results. It's for the F150 Lightning, but the effects would be very similar and relevant for the Mach-E as well. If you want to jump straight to the full brochure, I've attached the PDF at the bottom. Let me discuss some of the highlights:
Effect of Preconditioning:
As you can see, the colder it is outside, the larger the range improvement from preconditioning (setting a departure time). If we extrapolate with this data, the effect would be +20% improved range at -4ºF(-20ºC). Warmer batteries store more energy, so that's why heating the battery improves range. Preconditioning also has a slight improvement of range when it's very hot outside as well. For more information on how to precondition your battery when you don't have a regular schedule, see my cold weather strategy topic.
Effect of Outdoor Temperature:
This one isn't specific to the F150 Lightning, but we all know range can decrease with climate use in hot or cold conditions.
Effect of Speed:
If you want EPA range, you have to drive about 65 MPH. If you drive just 10 MPH faster (75 MPH), your range will go down about 20%. This is because drag is proportional to velocity squared (not linear)! Which means if you drive 20 MPH faster (85 MPH), your range will go down about 54%! Driving 65-75 MPH is really the sweet spot for getting decent range in an EV.
Effect of Payload:
The max payload for the Lightning varies depending on trim, but it's around 2,000 lbs here. You can see that even with an extra 2,000 lbs, there is only a 7% decrease in range. It is a common misconception that weight has a much bigger effect on range than it actually does. Speed and aero are much more important. Weight only significantly affects range if you are driving up an incline to a higher elevation. On flat land it's not a big effect. The payload of the Mach-E is roughly half that of the F150 Lightning (~1000 lbs) so a fully loaded Mach-E would only have about a 2% range penalty.
Effect of Trailer:
The Mach-E isn't rated to tow, but you can see pulling a trailer has a huge effect on range. I want to emphasize that it's not the weight, it's mostly the aero (frontal area) that saps the range. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to push a large flat box through the air at speed. This is why you want as vertically short and as aerodynamic trailer as possible if towing. If you are adding a cargo box to the Mach-E, you want to put it behind the car in the wake, not on top:
An aerodynamic box in the back can actually INCREASE the range of an EV (compared to no box) because it makes the overall shape of the vehicle more like a teardrop and improves the drag coefficient. The box must be placed correctly in the wake behind the vehicle as shown above.
Anyway, hopefully you learned something. Read the PDF brochure below for more details:
They said they used portions of the multi-cycle test (MCT), which is actually a very long test (hours) that consists of multiple cycles of city, highway, and 55 mph constant speed. It is defined in the SAE J1634 standard. One cycle of MCT is about 75 minutes long. The results also line up with what I would expect based on battery capacity decline with temperature:
![Ford Mustang Mach-E Preconditioning Improves Range up to 20% [Ford Brochure] {filename}](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316370542/figure/fig1/AS:486116412399616@1492910592410/a-Charge-temperature-characteristics-of-a-Li-ion-cell-at-20C-rate-b.png)
Looks like I looked up the wrong test initially (that showed just 12.75 minutes). The full multi-cycle test specific to EVs does keep repeating the cycles until the battery runs out, which is good. Although use of the "partial" qualifier here could mean anything, I suppose.They said they used portions of the multi-cycle test (MCT), which is actually a very long test (hours) that consists of multiple cycles of city, highway, and 55 mph constant speed. It is defined in the SAE J1634 standard. One cycle of MCT is about 75 minutes long. The results also line up with what I would expect based on battery capacity decline with temperature:
![Ford Mustang Mach-E Preconditioning Improves Range up to 20% [Ford Brochure] {filename}](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
At -10ºC, there's about a 20% capacity decline with a 3.4V cutoff. I don't think they're trying to be deceptive, cold capacity loss is a well-known effect. I think most people would rather have the green line than the red line while driving in cold weather. Notice the voltage is higher too, so you get more acceleration and regen with a warm pack.
