Stop Safely Now (HVBJB): Mach-E Owners Biggest Fear - Facts and Info Thread

[rcechinel]

I'm not sure in what world "reducing battery power" is not going to effect performance. It could be vehicle performance or charging performance, either is bad. Farley is just digging a bigger hole. He must have the same media team as Biden...

I'm not being negative, I'm upset because I thought they were going to do the right thing. In the IT world I couldn't go up to a customer and say, sorry your server is overheating so we will pull one of the two processors since they generate the most heat. That's not acceptable.

This software does not prevent the issue from happening completely.

Perfect! Why some are so resistant to understanding this obvious and logical chain of thoughts?

Please please please let's not allow ourselves to become Tesla worshippers looking for excuses to validate every bad action.

 

[buzznwood]

I’m mostly concerned because I bet all the GT junction boxes are getting damaged over time, and might fail eventually. And secondarily I paid a lot more for a GTPE because I expected a performance vehicle. This has to further reduce performance from when I bought the car, and I’m really super unhappy if that’s the case.

This is going to be the biggest worry for a lot of owners not knowing how much cumulative damage they may have already done. While I never got the GTPE for performance reasons and generally use if for pottering around doing local errands and sitting crawling along in the misery that is southern california commuter traffic so not exactly a recipe for doing damage.

Yet once the commuter traffic is gone it becomes a whole different ball game if your not WOT when joining the freeways you'll cause a pile up or get run over by a train of semi trucks that are all oblivious to their 55mph limit. I am pretty much guaranteed a power meter lock out cool down timer just joining and good luck trying to driving at the 65/70 mph limit if you want to stay with the flow of traffic .

I have very little interest in the traffic light grand prix where the 5 second power limit had little impact it is in freeway conditions where they become very obvious so I am not looking forward to a fix that has the potential to reduce this performance even further.

 

[Mathington]

If the software will only be monitoring the resistance on the contactors and then advise the user to bring the car in, it would make sense that it wouldn't affect performance at all. Maybe the "fix" is just preventing these sudden failures and will advise the user to get the car servers before a failure occurs.

All I can say is that I'm glad I purchased the extended warranty.

 

[Kmp14]

I know the answer, as usual, is "money!", but I still don't understand the fibs and obfuscation. People know what is going on. The part is under-engineered. Pretending like software can fix that and not affect the performance in some way is just a plain old lie. For once I would like to see a company be straightforward, explain what it is, and fix it. I am still deciding what I want to buy, and it is not the fact that there is a problem that is pushing me away from the MME, it is now the B.S. Yes, I know all cars have problems. What I would like to see is honesty. Crazy I know.

 

[rcechinel]

Thought they may have been blowing smoke as to the cause. Just joking anyway. My car performs just fine and I am not worried if there is a slight performance reduction.

Good for you.
I am.

 

[buzznwood]

If the software will only be monitoring the resistance on the contactors and then advise the user to bring the car in, it would make sense that it wouldn't affect performance at all. Maybe the "fix" is just preventing these sudden failures and will advise the user to get the car servers before a failure occurs.

All I can say is that I'm glad I purchased the extended warranty.

If it allowed normal fun and games until it sees condition x and then locks you into the required turtle mode with a warning about reduced power and service required, while not ideal would at least work. If they do that then I would imagine that everyone to paraphrase the Martian is just going to WOT & DCFC the shit out of this, so they can get the warning to get it in for warranty repairs.

 

[Neil4Real]

I think it's masterfully worded. His statement doesn't claim the issue was detected ONLY on demo units, but it does imply that it was detected proactively before customer units (not the case, clearly). So it's not technically an incorrect statement, but its definitely downplaying the issue from an implication perspective.

I don't think it is clearly not the case. I think they definitely could have known about this issue for a long time, well before customers started having them, but they either thought the likelihood was super low of cars failing or they really dropped the ball on figuring out the solution. I'm thinking it is a mix of the two with the latter being more heavily weighted.

I'm not sure why people are hung up on that line. What is clear is that you're correct in that he masterfully wrote that tweet. The real focus should be on the fact that they're purely sticking with the software update story when their FAQ states the part to part variance bs, which means that they CANNOT do a software update that will properly encompass all cars. If there is such a variance, that means they'll have to do a software update to all cars to ensure the low end of such a variance is also protected. So even those with a more "robust" conductor will have the same limits, whatever they end up being, as those with ones that barely work, essentially. They really do need to do part replacements.

We're all speculating, but I really hope that they do an OTA update ASAP that prevents it from happening, whatever gimping that does, WHILE they do part replacements. So you get your car fully back to normal once you get the replacement part. If they really just stick to this band-aid, we have no idea what limits will be put in place, but it is very certain that something will be cut back and the cars purchased will no longer live up to their advertised specs, whether that is driving or charging performance.

 

[newmme]

I don't think it is clearly not the case. I think they definitely could have known about this issue for a long time, well before customers started having them

There was someone on here from 1.5 years ago with the issue. If ford knew about it for that long, we have bigger issues with how slow and incompetent this looks. I hope that is not the case.

 

[dtbaker61]

He has a media team. Every word on his posts are intentional, IMHO.

maybe no impact on peak performance possible..... but what is UNSAID is the duration of peak performance allowed/enabled.

 

[Anthropod]

About ten years ago, we had a rack of Dell servers. (I can't remember their model number, but they were 1U's with serial attached SCSI drives all over the front) Most of these systems we had set up as virtual machine servers. We had two AC units for our 8-12 room. Both AC units ran 24/7, and it never rose above 70F. Shortly after getting them installed and set up, we started coming into systems that had shut down overnight. It was the craziest thing because that would be during a time when not much was going on. It turns out there was a firmware bug that kicked in and made the things overheat when not much was going it. We could have kept the room cooler. If they had put a bigger, better heatsink in the systems, that might have helped, but in reality, faulty software was making the hardware fail, making the hardware do something it should not have. My point is software "can" be a proper fix. For the dell, the hardware was not under-engineered. A firmware update fixed the problem, and we never saw a performance hit. I know we are talking apples and oranges here, computer vs. Car. Low voltage/low amps vs. "Boom!" here's the power. That said, it is still totally possible that software can fix this without a perceivable performance hit.

Question: "A reduction in battery power", hmmm could that mean that for a 1/100 of a sec, they reduce power when the contactor engages so it doesn't have as much heat generating potential when it makes contact, then ramp up the voltage? This is a genuine question, not a statement. If that was the case, I could see how this would be an actual fix that wouldn't impact performance.

 

[buzznwood]

Question: "A reduction in battery power", hmmm could that mean that for a 1/100 of a sec, they reduce power when the contactor engages so it doesn't have as much heat generating potential when it makes contact, then ramp up the voltage? This is a genuine question, not a statement. If that was the case, I could see how this would be an actual fix that wouldn't impact performance.

From ford own FAQ

Q. What is the cause of the issue?

A. The design and part-to-part variation of the high voltage battery main relay switch is not robust to the heat generated during DC fast charging and multiple wide open pedal events.

Not robust is not words you associate with a part that just needs a temporary dial back. Of course until we get the fix anything is just wild speculation but as the problem has come from cumulative actions we could potential end up with a fix that does a cumulative reduction so you may not notice a loss of performance to start with but once you hit condition x you get permanently dialed back to 90% current draw to prevent further damage, and what happens if the condition happens yet again as the part ages does it knock another 10% off.

 

[mmap]

could that mean that for a 1/100 of a sec, they reduce power when the contactor engages so it doesn't have as much heat generating potential when it makes contact, then ramp up the voltage?

The contactor closes/enganges when you push the start button and stays closed the whole time the car is "on." If the car is working properly, then it makes sure the load is zero when closing the contactor so there is no chance of an arc, and the same when opening it when you turn it off.

My question is, how does a contactor, even one that is damaged, open while driving? That's what Ford is saying happened, but that should never happen. It's held closed by an electromagent powered by the 12v system (including the 12v battery).

 

[FLmac]

I think it's masterfully worded. His statement doesn't claim the issue was detected ONLY on demo units, but it does imply that it was detected proactively before customer units (not the case, clearly). So it's not technically an incorrect statement, but its definitely downplaying the issue from an implication perspective.

I think it’s damage control. How many owners are on this forum and have followed this issue? Most “average” people and buyers will never delve this deeply. If I wasn’t a crazy person and decided to order a car that would take 10-12 months I would have never joined the forum. I would have bought the car and continued life.

I get how it’s insulting to those with the issue and those that have been digging into the issue since the start, but I guess I can’t blame Ford for maybe pissing off a minimal amount of people and trying to downplay it as something found in dealer demos and is a quick software fix. Plus it’s not like the media is getting the story right and they’re making it sound way worse than it is. I’m not trying to defend Ford, but just trying to see how a normal person with no knowledge of the inner workings of the car would see it.

Regarding this hurting Ford or the BEV industry I don’t think it matters. There are people who will never buy a Ford and others who will never buy anything else. If people didn’t buy a brand because of recalls they would never buy a car these days.
I also think there’s 3 sets of people when it comes to EVs.
-Those that think they’re saving the world and bought the Leaf when it would go 30 miles on a charge (I’m making these numbers up for those who are going to correct me).
-Those like me who never thought they’d buy an EV, but I needed a new car and couldn’t afford the new car prices and gas. I didn’t buy it for performance I bought it to save money. These people buy cars based off the look, color, price and Apple CarPlay or whatever. Gas prices go down they don’t buy.
-Those that will purposely buy an F350 diesel dually and will never buy an EV. These people buy RVs so I love them. They’ll brag about this recall to anyone who will listen because it proves their point.
-Oh and Tesla owners. Every Tesla owner I know has shared a news article about the recall with me.

 

[sotek2345]

If the software will only be monitoring the resistance on the contactors and then advise the user to bring the car in, it would make sense that it wouldn't affect performance at all. Maybe the "fix" is just preventing these sudden failures and will advise the user to get the car servers before a failure occurs.

All I can say is that I'm glad I purchased the extended warranty.

This is an EV power train component and covered by the 8 year / 100k warranty. Unless you got a weird nontraditional extended warranty it won't cover this.

 

[rcechinel]

My question is, how does a contactor, even one that is damaged, open while driving?

Great question. I don't know the answer.

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