Preferred Charging times do not work

[Rex]

I have a problem with preferred charge times in Fordpass and the car, they do not work.
The car nearly always starts to charge as soon as I plug into the Ford wallbox. If I stop the charge with Fordpass and leave the car plugged in it may start charging at a random time.

This means I cannot reliably use my low cost EV rate electricity via my 7.4kW Ford wall box.

My work around is that as I charge my PV battery in the cheap period and do not consume it all I do a bit of arithmetic in a spreadsheet in the evening.
I work out when I can turn on the granny charger such that it depletes the PV battery just as that battery starts to get charged by the low cost electricity, 00:30.
I leave the car charging until 04:30 when the low cost time ends.

To do that I use a wi-fi mains socket costing less than £8, can be set to the minute, and a free app on my phone. I can tell the app to switch on at the time calculated and go off at 04:30.

That beats waking up at 01:00 to tell the car to charge on the 7.4kW Ford wallbox!

This has been escalated within the Ford EV Support System

I am awaiting the special team

The images show that the car thinks it will charge at the preferred times and start straight away! Which is what it does. The other shows the preferred times set

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[L0WBATT3RY]

i had the same problem, since it's winter here in WI, cabin preconditioning was causing my car to charge immediately as well. I disabled at that feature and now my car charges from midnight to 7am

 

[Rex]

i had the same problem, since it's winter here in WI, cabin preconditioning was causing my car to charge immediately as well. I disabled at that feature and now my car charges from midnight to 7am

I'll check but I'm pretty sure I don't use that facility.

When, on the rare occasions that it didn't start charging immediately, if I changed anything in the settings it would immediately start to charge.

 

[Mrn]

When I use Ford Pass to change charging times and levels I sometimes forget to scroll down and press the Enter (or whatever it's called) button at the bottom of the page. Otherwise, it works just fine for me.

 

[Rex]

When I use Ford Pass to change charging times and levels I sometimes forget to scroll down and press the Enter (or whatever it's called) button at the bottom of the page. Otherwise, it works just fine for me.

Umm. The car and Fordpass agree as to what the preferred charge times should be. However on arriving home and plugging in it immediately starts to charge, almost every time.
I thought it might not know I was Home so I tried leaving it then checking the screen in the car to see it knew I was home. It did and that made no difference. I reprogrammed home, that didn't fix the problem.
I'm waiting for technical support now.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I have a problem with preferred charge times in Fordpass and the car, they do not work.
The car nearly always starts to charge as soon as I plug into the Ford wallbox. If I stop the charge with Fordpass and leave the car plugged in it may start charging at a random time.

This means I cannot reliably use my low cost EV rate electricity via my 7.4kW Ford wall box.

My work around is that as I charge my PV battery in the cheap period and do not consume it all I do a bit of arithmetic in a spreadsheet in the evening.
I work out when I can turn on the granny charger such that it depletes the PV battery just as that battery starts to get charged by the low cost electricity, 00:30.
I leave the car charging until 04:30 when the low cost time ends.

To do that I use a wi-fi mains socket costing less than £8, can be set to the minute, and a free app on my phone. I can tell the app to switch on at the time calculated and go off at 04:30.

That beats waking up at 01:00 to tell the car to charge on the 7.4kW Ford wallbox!

This has been escalated within the Ford EV Support System

I am awaiting the special team

The images show that the car thinks it will charge at the preferred times and start straight away! Which is what it does. The other shows the preferred times set

Your charging window is too short, which is causing it to charge outside of charging hours. Suggest an 8 hour window, or use a more powerful 10 kW charger.

 

[Rex]

Your charging window is too short, which is causing it to charge outside of charging hours. Suggest an 8 hour window, or use a more powerful 10 kW charger.

I cannot lengthen it and still use cheap electricity, which is another complaint I've made to Ford. I will ask if this would make a difference.
In the UK the max single phase charger is 7.4 kW. A three phase 11 kW charger is available but I would have to pay to have the pavement and my drive to be dug up to have that installed, even if they would do it.
It took for Feb to September to get a single phase unit fitted due to the bureaucracy hoops in the way. I wouldn't live long enough to get a 11 kW unit fitted. If it were controlled in the same way as the 7.4 kW Ford wall box I reckon it still wouldn't work.

 

[L0WBATT3RY]

You could try a third party charger like a juice box charger (not sure what's available in the UK) I recently was approved for our EV pilot program where we receive a juice box 40amp with $.06kwh for charge times 12am-7am does your utility company have something similar ?

 

[AKgrampy]

Or set your Max to 80%. Basically the car will prioritize reaching your requested max charge over using your preferred window.

 

[Rex]

Or set your Max to 80%. Basically the car will prioritize reaching your requested max charge over using your preferred window.

Thanks for that input but I am pretty sure one of the failures was when it was less than 10% away from my target.
I could experiment tonight but I don't want to have to wake up, again, at 01:00 to check it has started charging as I'm going on a weekend trip and want it at 100%.
I will ask the experts when they get in touch.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I cannot lengthen it and still use cheap electricity, which is another complaint I've made to Ford. I will ask if this would make a difference.
In the UK the max single phase charger is 7.4 kW. A three phase 11 kW charger is available but I would have to pay to have the pavement and my drive to be dug up to have that installed, even if they would do it.
It took for Feb to September to get a single phase unit fitted due to the bureaucracy hoops in the way. I wouldn't live long enough to get a 11 kW unit fitted. If it were controlled in the same way as the 7.4 kW Ford wall box I reckon it still wouldn't work.

Your car is unable to completely charge to target in only 3 hours. Which is why it’s having to start early. How do you propose this is handled instead?

I would get a different rate plan if you only have a 3 hour charging window. That’s too short and really dumb. Should be 6 hours minimum.

 

[Rex]

Your car is unable to completely charge to target in only 3 hours. Which is why it’s having to start early. How do you propose this is handled instead?

I would get a different rate plan if you only have a 3 hour charging window. That’s too short and really dumb. Should be 6 hours minimum.

In the UK the supplier, Octopus, I have chosen provides the cheapest electricity for four hours every night. It is rated as one of the best by EV users. In the cheap period it is 29% of the day rate. I think we pay a lot more for electricity than you do in the US.
That is adequate for 99% of my charging requirements.
Due to the inadequacies of the Mach E and Ford Pass software I can only use three hours.
The Mach E can be set, according to the GUI for as little as 1 hour charging.
Nothing I have read says that the target value must be reached within the charge time set and none of the Ford support people have mentioned that as a problem. Being retired I just plan ahead if going on a long trip. If the worst came to the worst I'd just charge up the last bit on expensive electricity.

When I get to talk to an expert I'll ask if that could be the cause. If it is it is pretty dumb.

I have a friend who keeps a Nissan and an MG charged using Octopus within the 4 hour limit and doesn't suffer the fixed one hour intervals of the Mach-E. Oh and it works every time.

 

[Mach-Lee]

In the UK the supplier, Octopus, I have chosen provides the cheapest electricity for four hours every night. It is rated as one of the best by EV users. In the cheap period it is 29% of the day rate. I think we pay a lot more for electricity than you do in the US.
That is adequate for 99% of my charging requirements.
Due to the inadequacies of the Mach E and Ford Pass software I can only use three hours.
The Mach E can be set, according to the GUI for as little as 1 hour charging.
Nothing I have read says that the target value must be reached within the charge time set and none of the Ford support people have mentioned that as a problem. Being retired I just plan ahead if going on a long trip. If the worst came to the worst I'd just charge up the last bit on expensive electricity.

When I get to talk to an expert I'll ask if that could be the cause. If it is it is pretty dumb.

I have a friend who keeps a Nissan and an MG charged using Octopus within the 4 hour limit and doesn't suffer the fixed one hour intervals of the Mach-E. Oh and it works every time.

In your case I would set it to 1-7 AM so it’s long enough to satisfy the charging algorithm. You might go over a little bit, but it should mostly use the cheap electricity then.

You can also get a smart EVSE/Charge Point and set the schedule on that.

I’ve never seen an EV rate plan with less than a 6 hour charging window. Usually there’s not much difference in the cost of electricity over the nighttime hours here.

 

[BillPitman]

In the UK the supplier, Octopus, I have chosen provides the cheapest electricity for four hours every night. It is rated as one of the best by EV users. In the cheap period it is 29% of the day rate. I think we pay a lot more for electricity than you do in the US.
That is adequate for 99% of my charging requirements.
Due to the inadequacies of the Mach E and Ford Pass software I can only use three hours.
The Mach E can be set, according to the GUI for as little as 1 hour charging.
Nothing I have read says that the target value must be reached within the charge time set and none of the Ford support people have mentioned that as a problem. Being retired I just plan ahead if going on a long trip. If the worst came to the worst I'd just charge up the last bit on expensive electricity.

When I get to talk to an expert I'll ask if that could be the cause. If it is it is pretty dumb.

I have a friend who keeps a Nissan and an MG charged using Octopus within the 4 hour limit and doesn't suffer the fixed one hour intervals of the Mach-E. Oh and it works every time.

4 hrs of charge time should get you about 80- 85 miles of charge.
Is this enough for your daily use?
If so, use your preferred time, as set in Fordpass, for best rate, and plug in every day…… Would this work for you?!
I live in Pennsylvania, USA. It’s winter here, car is plugged in when not being driven. My preferred time is midnight to 6 am. Bill P

 

[Rex]

4 hrs of charge time should get you about 80- 85 miles of charge.
Is this enough for your daily use?
If so, use your preferred time, as set in Fordpass, for best rate, and plug in every day…… Would this work for you?!
I live in Pennsylvania, USA. It’s winter here, car is plugged in when not being driven. My preferred time is midnight to 6 am. Bill P

I can only get 3 hours because the Mach-E only works to exact hours whereas my supplier works to the half hour. However 3 hours covers a very large amount of my requirements.
If I'm going a way I prepare by charging on the days before.

However Preferred Times are so unreliable at the moment I don't use the Ford wall box at all. I do it all on the "Granny" charger and can adhere to the 00:30 to 04:30 requirement exactly and reliably using a wifi socket I purchased for about £8. I deplete my PV battery just before the low rate period starts and that then powers the granny charger and the recharge of the PV battery. I effectively get 14-16% charge into the Mach-E at the cheap rate.

My supplier, Octopus, does offer an "Intelligent" rate where it controls the charger, this is much cheaper. On another thread someone in the UK just said that the latest OTA has killed off his Octopus Intelligent Rate. I'll get the standard charging sorted before delving into that and also check with the chap that has the problem if it got fixed, quickly.

Thanks for your input.

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