Preconditioning without a schedule?

[billy_at]

Temperatures are starting to drop here in NJ (it's 28℉ as I type this), so I'm starting to think about preconditioning my MME.

I usually only charge my MME once a week and leave it unplugged the rest of the time. However, I've seen my GOM range start to drop with the cold weather and I also don't want to put any extra stress on the batteries from the cold weather, so I'm thinking about preconditioning the car.

The issue is that I don't have a fixed schedule. We still work from home, so we don't have any predictable times where we drive the car everyday. So my plan is to leave the car plugged in all the time on cold days and then, ten minutes before leaving, use the remote start feature in FordPass to get the car and batteries heated up from shore power.

Will this achieve the same goals as preconditioning with a set schedule?

Also, I just wanted to confirm: I know preconditioning will avoid battery drain due to heating the cabin and batteries, but is it necessary to preserve long-term battery health and capacity? If I don't feel like leaving the car plugged in, and I'm just taking short trips, can I skip it without guilt?

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[RickMachE]

Discussed in several threads in the last week.

Remote start is fine. Too many anquish over hurting the battery. Relax.

 

[generaltso]

10 minutes isn't nearly enough time to get a cold battery up to optimal temp with all the thermal mass anyway, so don't worry about it.

 

[Stang68]

I kind of wish there was a "pre-condition" button in the app for those days when you KNOW you're going somewhere soon, but it's not in your actual day-to-day schedule. Going in and setting a departure time for random trips is a pain (I'm complaining, I know).

 

[SAM]

Winter is almost here. Morning drives below freezing or close to it. Highs around 50F.

If I'm just doing short trips at random times, I don't worry about preconditioning. Just plug in more often and keep battery near 90%.

Planning for longer trips (200 miles or so), I precondition by remote starting the car while plugged in and use extend to add more than 10 min, so the battery has more time to warm. Also, for the longer trips, I'd use less eheat by setting at 68 or 70F or none at all and just rely on heated seats (which use much less energy).

Car is in an unheated attached garage, which is cold but rarely goes below freezing.

 

[Sin_Chase]

Ive been using the method of setting adhoc departure times before going out then deleting them later on so its not there for the same time the next week.

It would be nice to have a dedicated adhoc departure function in the app though.

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