The GT never had a 5 second limit

[Mach1E]

At this point, I’m fairly sure we made that idea up here, and it has always caused confusion. It’s why we got questions like:

What happens if I floor it at 30 mph, 50 mph, 70 mph, how many seconds do I get?

or

Can I trick the timer by going 95% throttle?

There is no timer. The limit has never been 5 seconds.

The limit is SPEED limited, not time limited. And the speed limit? 72 mph.

Doesn’t matter how you get to 72 mph (full throttle, part throttle, cruising, dropped off a cliff) that is the speed at which power is limited.

I even tested this in neutral down a tall bridge. Put in neutral at 65 mph, grey bars showed up at 72.

For has never said “5 second limit.” The closest we had was buried in a FAQ disclaimer on the ford website (now removed) that said full power available for “about 5 seconds.”

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[RKinWA]

At this point, I’m fairly sure we made that idea up here, and it has always caused confusion. It’s why we got questions like:

What happens if I floor it at 30 mph, 50 mph, 70 mph, how many seconds do I get?

or

Can I trick the timer by going 95% throttle?

There is no timer. The limit has never been 5 seconds.

The limit is SPEED limited, not time limited. And the speed limit? 72 mph.

Doesn’t matter how you get to 72 mph (full throttle, part throttle, cruising, dropped off a cliff) that is the speed at which power is limited.

I even tested this in neutral down a tall bridge. Put in neutral at 65 mph, grey bars showed up at 72.

For has never said “5 second limit.” The closest we had was buried in a FAQ disclaimer on the ford website (now removed) that said full power available for “about 5 seconds.”

That's interesting. On my weekend trips I am always going more than 72 and have never seen the jailbars, the only time I ever see them is when HVB gets below 40%

 

[lefortpf]

At this point, I’m fairly sure we made that idea up here, and it has always caused confusion. It’s why we got questions like:

What happens if I floor it at 30 mph, 50 mph, 70 mph, how many seconds do I get?

or

Can I trick the timer by going 95% throttle?

There is no timer. The limit has never been 5 seconds.

The limit is SPEED limited, not time limited. And the speed limit? 72 mph.

Doesn’t matter how you get to 72 mph (full throttle, part throttle, cruising, dropped off a cliff) that is the speed at which power is limited.

I even tested this in neutral down a tall bridge. Put in neutral at 65 mph, grey bars showed up at 72.

For has never said “5 second limit.” The closest we had was buried in a FAQ disclaimer on the ford website (now removed) that said full power available for “about 5 seconds.”

This is a really strange post. Jail bars, gray bars... the longer & harder you put your foot down, the more quickly they show up. There's absolutely a limiter in the vehicle to protect the HVBJB. Thousands of posts on here confirm it-- as well as my experience at the track-- they are not wrong.

 

[fangfow]

I think it's more of a combination of things, current speed, battery level, temperature /temperature of key components (or estimated temperature based on other variables)... The 5 second thing mostly came about with how long it took the jail bars to appear with full throttle from a launch.

 

[DevSecOps]

I think you're missing a whole lot of stuff in your OP.

If you cruise along at higher speeds you'll have some jail bars. We've always known this. But it's just a handful of them, not 10, 15 or whatever, it's closer to 3-4.

When you go under those per-determined speeds the jail bars immediately fall off. This would indicate 100%, that those jail bars are speed based. Again however, that's just a couple of them.

If you accelerate full throttle for 5 seconds you get a crap ton of jail bars. Surely some of them are from the speed thresholds, but the rest are from the 5 second limit. This is also proven in that the ones from the 5 second limit will NOT drop off once you go under those per-determined speeds until things cool down. While you can't see my speed in this video, you can hear the rumble strip and you can tell that I still have jail bars well under 50mph.

So, in summary, yes there's a 5 second limit and yes there's per-determined jail bars at various speeds, what we see when we accelerate 0-80mph is a combination of them both. Not to mention there's jail bars for low SOC, cold weather and probably a few other things.


|||||||||||||||
^^^^.............5 Second limiting
.............^^.......Speed limiting

 

[AliRafiee]

You are particularly right. It’s a combination of multiple things. Including the battery temperature.

 

[GoldNekNinja]

At this point, I’m fairly sure we made that idea up here, and it has always caused confusion. It’s why we got questions like:

What happens if I floor it at 30 mph, 50 mph, 70 mph, how many seconds do I get?

or

Can I trick the timer by going 95% throttle?

There is no timer. The limit has never been 5 seconds.

The limit is SPEED limited, not time limited. And the speed limit? 72 mph.

Doesn’t matter how you get to 72 mph (full throttle, part throttle, cruising, dropped off a cliff) that is the speed at which power is limited.

I even tested this in neutral down a tall bridge. Put in neutral at 65 mph, grey bars showed up at 72.

For has never said “5 second limit.” The closest we had was buried in a FAQ disclaimer on the ford website (now removed) that said full power available for “about 5 seconds.”

I think the reason Ford removed it from the website is because they are going release an update after BlueCruise 1.3 to the GTs which will remove the power limiter or raise it substantially.

In my GT Performance, I only notice the power limiter on the highway, as it feels substantially slower than on city streets. And in cold weather, the gray bars start rolling in at 80% SOC.

 

[HuntingPudel]

My car woke up this morning with a zero second limit after L2 charging to 85%:

These are the quantity of bars you see after going WOT (note that I did not go WOT this morning and the bars were present at 15 mph). The 72 mph singular bar is speed triggered (with more bars appearing as speed increases, and bars disappearing as speed decreases). The WOT bars are different all together. There are several things going on here that affect the bars on the display. Mine currently are not related to speed or power over time, but I have no DTCs. Gonna pull the 12V power after I get home from work if a key cycle doesn’t clear this (TCU doesn’t seem to be talking to Ford since yesterday morning). ?‍?

 

[Coffs]

I take it this is only on GT's as I have never seen any jail bars on my AWD and don't even have the electrical symbol under the battery remaining percentage

 

[dtbaker61]

I think you're missing a whole lot of stuff in your OP.

If you cruise along at higher speeds you'll have some jail bars. We've always known this. But it's just a handful of them, not 10, 15 or whatever, it's closer to 3-4.

When you go under those per-determined speeds the jail bars immediately fall off. This would indicate 100%, that those jail bars are speed based. Again however, that's just a couple of them.

If you accelerate full throttle for 5 seconds you get a crap ton of jail bars. Surely some of them are from the speed thresholds, but the rest are from the 5 second limit. This is also proven in that the ones from the 5 second limit will NOT drop off once you go under those per-determined speeds until things cool down. While you can't see my speed in this video, you can hear the rumble strip and you can tell that I still have jail bars well under 50mph.

So, in summary, yes there's a 5 second limit and yes there's per-determined jail bars at various speeds, what we see when we accelerate 0-80mph is a combination of them both. Not to mention there's jail bars for low SOC, cold weather and probably a few other things.


|||||||||||||||
^^^^.............5 Second limiting
.............^^.......Speed limiting

power limiting is not a simple 5-second rule.... nor is it a simple 72 mph rule.

Power limiting occurs in all trim levels, but is easier to see in the GT with visible bars. I've verified power limiting in my select by watching the actual power output on my custom Carscanner 'dashboard' which is reading ODB2 data on the fly.

The power limiting is programmatic, with lots of variables, and has never been fully disclosed or explained by any official statement from @Ford Motor Company Engineering. It would be nice to know exactly how it works, but there is no way to avoid it.

Through much group discussion, testing, and conjecture.... the 'group think' conclusions I have reached are:

- power is limited programmatically to prevent thermal damage and reduced life of batteries and components.... to prevent warranty payout while enabling 0-60mph performance.

- the power limiting formula takes into consideration ambient temps, energy output over some 'trailing time period', and probably adjusts with *available* temp sensors that are near components that may be prone to damage. i.e. output of xx kW for yy seconds is calculated to require aa seconds of 'recovery' at reduced output of bb kW. For example.... full output at 200kW for about 5 seconds puts the clamp on to reduce output to some output that is calculated to be maximum continuous output/input without thermal runaway. my observations indicate somewhere between 100-150kW where the existing cooling system can keep up. This applies to output, regen, and charging most likely.

- once output drops below 100kw or so.... for some trailing period of time, calculated temps drop and power above 100kw-150kw would be allowed of zz period of time before clamps come down again.

- rolling on flat highway at 65mph requires about 20-30 kw power, no limiting
increasing speed to 80-85mph (typical commute on I-25 between Albuquerque and Santa Fe) output climbs towards 50kW climbing an extended hill, and reduces time available for 'full output'.

This 'formula' is not something we can change, and it's unlikely that Ford would change it dramatically and risk drivetrain warranty unless there are physical improvements made to cool key components, and sensors added for temperature feedback rather than programmatic adjustments to output.

Unfortunately, because the limiting appears to be programmatic, and NOT directly affected by any available temp sensors... efforts to improve cooling probably will not result in extending full output time, or speeding the calculated recovery. Our vehicles are a blast to drive, especially 0-60, or in spurts of moderate speed accel/decel as in mountain driving.... but I don't think there are any modifications we can make (without voiding warranty) to make stock vehicles perform better on the drag strip or autoX track.

 

[Auto Motive]

I think it's more of a combination of things, current speed, battery level, temperature /temperature of key components (or estimated temperature based on other variables)... The 5 second thing mostly came about with how long it took the jail bars to appear with full throttle from a launch.

Come on man. How does my wifes AWD long range model y best my times at the drag strip? 0 to 60 for GTPE 3.5 model y 4.8.
So the GTPE should easily beat the y but it doesn't because of power drop off.

 

[Pushrods&Capacitors]

I take it this is only on GT's as I have never seen any jail bars on my AWD and don't even have the electrical symbol under the battery remaining percentage

4Xs don’t have limiting like the GTs to speak of other than Ford’s soft launch tuning that slightly handicaps their 0-30mph numbers (should run a 1.8-1.9 but usually Dragy has them at 2.1-2.2 with high SOC and good temps). With a harder launch strategy the 4X could hit 4.0-4.2 0-60s instead of 4.7-4.9 bests.

 

[Mach1E]

That's interesting. On my weekend trips I am always going more than 72 and have never seen the jailbars, the only time I ever see them is when HVB gets below 40%

They’re there, you have to look closer. It’s only 1-3 at first. Take a pic and zoom in.

 

[nvabill]

At this point, I’m fairly sure we made that idea up here, and it has always caused confusion. It’s why we got questions like:

What happens if I floor it at 30 mph, 50 mph, 70 mph, how many seconds do I get?

or

Can I trick the timer by going 95% throttle?

There is no timer. The limit has never been 5 seconds.

The limit is SPEED limited, not time limited. And the speed limit? 72 mph.

Doesn’t matter how you get to 72 mph (full throttle, part throttle, cruising, dropped off a cliff) that is the speed at which power is limited.

I even tested this in neutral down a tall bridge. Put in neutral at 65 mph, grey bars showed up at 72.

For has never said “5 second limit.” The closest we had was buried in a FAQ disclaimer on the ford website (now removed) that said full power available for “about 5 seconds.”

Which means it is a whole lot less than 5 seconds as it takes nowhere near 5 seconds to get to 72 mph in a GT!

 

[Mach1E]

This is a really strange post. Jail bars, gray bars... the longer & harder you put your foot down, the more quickly they show up. There's absolutely a limiter in the vehicle to protect the HVBJB. Thousands of posts on here confirm it-- as well as my experience at the track-- they are not wrong.

I think you read my click bait headline but missed the details.

My point is there are tons of things that limit power in the GT.

And none of those are a “5 second timer.”

We just call it that because that’s about how long it takes to hit 72 mph from a stop.

But calling it a “5 second limit” is both confusing and inaccurate.

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