Tips for Maximizing Your Mach-E’s Winter Range (via Precondition)

[Chudsaviet]

Have you been reading the “Winter is Coming” posts around here?

Nope.

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[BostonPete]

I'm wondering if, after level one charging completes, there is any benefit at all when preconditioning the vehicle while still plugged-in?

I just got my MME so I am still learning but from what I understand if you set a departure time while the car is still connected to power (L1 or L2) it will Precondition The battery as well as get the cabin up to temp / turn on the seat / steering wheel heat

If you are not connected to power it will not precondition the battery, it will basically remote start the vehicle and get the cabin up to temp and warm up the seats / steering wheel. This will use a lot of power if you let it sit for a long time... This is why they recommend leaving it connected to power.

This could be an issue if you have / are using a smart charger (Like Chargepoint) and set the charging schedule in there it wouldn't allow the vehicle to pull any house power.

 

[prius2pony]

Please help me understand and reconcile something here...

1) From the MANUAL (p.263):
Preconditioning Your Vehicle
You can precondition your vehicle to warm or cool your cabin and the high voltage battery when your vehicle is plugged in. You can charge your vehicle to the targeted level and also make sure your vehicle is at a comfortable temperature for the occupants.
Note: You can precondition your vehicle prior to your departure using the FordPass App.

2) From the Winter Tips Bulletin shared at the top of his thread and in everyone's FordPass App:
2. Keep your vehicle plugged in when possible
3. Precondition your vehicle by scheduling departure times to warm the cabin and the battery while plugged-in (using the FordPass™ App or the SYNC® 4A touchscreen)

3A) Unofficial/ from many members of this & other forums re home L2 AC Charging:
Draw down to no lower than 20%, don't go above 90%.

3B) Unofficial/ from other members of this & other forums re home L2 AC Charging:
Always Be Charging

So I wonder how many answers will come of this question:
I am a low-milage driver. In the temperate months (Chicago area), I've generally plugged in at home only when approaching 20%, and have my charge settings to stop at 90%. (It may be weeks between charges for me. Yes, for the rare long trip, I've L2 charged to 100% the night before leaving.)


Q1) Am I understanding correctly that Remote Start conditions only the cabin if not plugged in–but conditions cabin and battery if plugged in? (I have no consistent schedule, so am loathe to use the departure scheduling feature.)

Q2) Should I be plugging in every day and charging back up to 90% (even if I only drove it down to 85%)--or is it sufficient to be plugged in and NOT charging, just so that when I use remote start, the fact that I'm plugged in means I'll be preconditioning both the cabin AND battery?

Q3) I've got the car set to "Charge When Plugged In" because my schedule is so random I just plug it in every few weeks when I'm approaching 20%. I could make a [winter weather time] habit of plugging in daily when I return home, then (unless I really do want to 'top off' to 90%), I can hit the Stop Charging button on the FordPass App. (Note- I have the ChargePoint HomeFlex in my garage for L2. I'm guessing I don't want to tell the ChargePoint to stop.)

What say you, friends?

 

[mkhuffman]

What say you, friends?

If you can, leave it plugged in all the time. Set the charge level to whatever level you feel comfortable with, but 90% is 80% of the battery, and what Ford recommends, and a good level for the situation when you need to take an emergency trip. Like I had to do yesterday. So per Ford guidance and per good preparation for the unexpected, keep it plugged in and charge to 90%.

 

[BMT1071]

Please help me understand and reconcile something here...

1) From the MANUAL (p.263):
Preconditioning Your Vehicle
You can precondition your vehicle to warm or cool your cabin and the high voltage battery when your vehicle is plugged in. You can charge your vehicle to the targeted level and also make sure your vehicle is at a comfortable temperature for the occupants.
Note: You can precondition your vehicle prior to your departure using the FordPass App.

2) From the Winter Tips Bulletin shared at the top of his thread and in everyone's FordPass App:
2. Keep your vehicle plugged in when possible
3. Precondition your vehicle by scheduling departure times to warm the cabin and the battery while plugged-in (using the FordPass™ App or the SYNC® 4A touchscreen)

3A) Unofficial/ from many members of this & other forums re home L2 AC Charging:
Draw down to no lower than 20%, don't go above 90%.

3B) Unofficial/ from other members of this & other forums re home L2 AC Charging:
Always Be Charging

So I wonder how many answers will come of this question:
I am a low-milage driver. In the temperate months (Chicago area), I've generally plugged in at home only when approaching 20%, and have my charge settings to stop at 90%. (It may be weeks between charges for me. Yes, for the rare long trip, I've L2 charged to 100% the night before leaving.)


Q1) Am I understanding correctly that Remote Start conditions only the cabin if not plugged in–but conditions cabin and battery if plugged in? (I have no consistent schedule, so am loathe to use the departure scheduling feature.)

Q2) Should I be plugging in every day and charging back up to 90% (even if I only drove it down to 85%)--or is it sufficient to be plugged in and NOT charging, just so that when I use remote start, the fact that I'm plugged in means I'll be preconditioning both the cabin AND battery?

Q3) I've got the car set to "Charge When Plugged In" because my schedule is so random I just plug it in every few weeks when I'm approaching 20%. I could make a [winter weather time] habit of plugging in daily when I return home, then (unless I really do want to 'top off' to 90%), I can hit the Stop Charging button on the FordPass App. (Note- I have the ChargePoint HomeFlex in my garage for L2. I'm guessing I don't want to tell the ChargePoint to stop.)

What say you, friends?

A1) I don't think we have enough real world data to come to a conclusion. Departure times seem to be more effective than remote start at making sure cabin and battery are ready to go. I also have an inconsistent schedule, but setting departure times in FordPass only takes a minute. I usually know at least an hour before I'm going out. In the heat of the AZ summer my car would start preconditioning about 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time.

A2) Yes. The 'always having a full tank every morning' aspect of BEV ownership is awesome. There is no advantage to running it down to 20% before charging. It would only take one time where you needed to make an unexpected long drive but found your SOC at 25% to prove this point.

A3) Set your preferred charging schedule in the car and have your CPHF always on. This will assist with preconditioning.

 

[RickMachE]

@prius2pony, you should read your ChargePoint info. No reason you can't tell it to stop, or start, when you want to. No reason you can't restrict its hours, then override them when you want to charge.


Remote starting or Departure Times function the same whether you are plugged in or not I believe. The difference is that you're running down the battery instead of using house current.

There is simply no reason not to always be plugged in. There is also no reason to not always be at 90%.

 

[Kabish]

So interesting test I did, not sure if its an accurate way or not, with my GOM. If this is not the best way to get your range, please educate me!

I started to see a decent drop in range this month. I've always heard resetting your driving history helps with the GoM, so I reset it as I've never rest it since owning it. I live in San Diego, it gets to maybe 55 degrees at night and quickly warms up to at least the 60 degree mark, normally warmer. My car was showing me a 244 mile range at 90% while in the garage and conditioned. Typically my car will show between 290 to 304 mile range at 90%. I've never reset my Trip 2 or Trip 1, both showed 4678.4 miles at 3.9mi/kWh. I will also add when I check my current trip when driving into work I'm always at either 3.9 or 4.1 when arriving. I made sure I checked every day this week.

So, I reset my Trip 1 with the car at 90% showing 244 miles. I ran the car down to 20%/55 miles, showing 200.7 miles on trip 1 at 3.7mi/kWh. Given I get about 15 miles per 5% of charge, that would give my car 60 miles of range vs the 55 it was showing. This would give me a total range of 260 miles at a 90% SOC. I would get 273-280 miles every day when I used to only charge to 80%.

So seems like the GOM is actually pretty damn close, only off by +16 miles. What is odd is that my usage shows 3.7mi/kWh. I'm assuming this is lower cause I had my family with me 3 times this week, was her birthday, and I had to run the heater lol Even at 3.7mi/kWh I should be sitting around 325 miles of range at 100% or around 295 miles at 90%. Oddly enough that math of 295 miles is in the range where my GoM would sit during the summer time at 90% SoC.

So it being "cold" at 60 degrees really equal a 65 mile drop, or a 20% loss? First time owning an EV, I can't even IMAGINE the range people are going to see in actual cold weather. If my car is losing 20% in 60 degree weather does that mean people in the 40 or 30 degree are going to see a 50% cut in range??? I honestly did not expect to see any weather impact on the EV here in San Diego..

 

[Dmhccs]

If driving alone or with just a front passenger, using the heated seats is a no brainer. Hottest heated seats I have ever owned. However, the rear seats are not heated so have to turn on the e-heat.

Heated seats get very hot but my steering wheel is lukewarm at best. Also, I would have paid for an upgrade for rear heated seats. I wish that was offered.

 

[mkhuffman]

So it being "cold" at 60 degrees really equal a 65 mile drop, or a 20% loss? First time owning an EV, I can't even IMAGINE the range people are going to see in actual cold weather. If my car is losing 20% in 60 degree weather does that mean people in the 40 or 30 degree are going to see a 50% cut in range??? I honestly did not expect to see any weather impact on the EV here in San Diego..

I am also a new EV owner and wonder if cooler temperatures have a significant impact or not. But one thing happens over time and especially when it gets cooler: tire pressure drops. Low tire pressure will definitely cause a significant hit to range, even 20%. Have you checked your tire pressure to see if they are at around 40 psi?

I just did a 9 hour drive (round trip) and was getting much lower efficiency than I expected. The trip screen was showing 99% of energy use due to driving, and really nothing due to climate or temperature, but it was in the 40-50 degrees outside. I was getting 2.2 mi/kWh on the trip screen. Now I did have the cruise set to 78 mph, so I know higher speed will have a big impact. But still. 2.2 mi/kWh?

Interestingly, in FordPass the trip log shows a higher efficiency than was showing in the car while driving: 2.5 mi/kWh for the trip. I wonder if the real time screen is not very accurate. Seems like it should be easy to measure energy usage while driving, but that does not explain the significant discrepancy.

 

[Kabish]

Have you checked your tire pressure to see if they are at around 40 psi?

I just checked the app and it looks like I’m 2psi under now. I’ll have to air them up this afternoon once my tires cool down again.

I did not even think to check that, thanks.

 

[BostonPete]

I am also a new EV owner and wonder if cooler temperatures have a significant impact or not. But one thing happens over time and especially when it gets cooler: tire pressure drops. Low tire pressure will definitely cause a significant hit to range, even 20%. Have you checked your tire pressure to see if they are at around 40 psi?

I just did a 9 hour drive (round trip) and was getting much lower efficiency than I expected. The trip screen was showing 99% of energy use due to driving, and really nothing due to climate or temperature, but it was in the 40-50 degrees outside. I was getting 2.2 mi/kWh on the trip screen. Now I did have the cruise set to 78 mph, so I know higher speed will have a big impact. But still. 2.2 mi/kWh?

Interestingly, in FordPass the trip log shows a higher efficiency than was showing in the car while driving: 2.5 mi/kWh for the trip. I wonder if the real time screen is not very accurate. Seems like it should be easy to measure energy usage while driving, but that does not explain the significant discrepancy.

I noticed that the Ford Pass App shows different data than the vehicle itself. My last trip to work was something like 2M/kWh according to the Trip in the vehicle but the app shows 4.4m/kWh. I was wondering it it only shows the driving usage and not the other (accessories / climate / external temp)?

 

[mkhuffman]

I was wondering it it only shows the driving usage and not the other (accessories / climate / external temp)?

That's a good point and would explain your big difference and my small one since 99% of my car mi/kWh was driving. But I hope that is not it because then the app data is very misleading. The app provides kWh used and it should be inclusive of all energy used during the trip. Not just driving energy.

 

[ARK]

If you can, leave it plugged in all the time. Set the charge level to whatever level you feel comfortable with, but 90% is 80% of the battery, and what Ford recommends, and a good level for the situation when you need to take an emergency trip. Like I had to do yesterday. So per Ford guidance and per good preparation for the unexpected, keep it plugged in and charge to 90%.

That 10% hidden buffer isn’t all at the top - about half of it is at the bottom so that if someone drives their Mach-E down to 0% and the car shuts off, there is still some juice because a truly 100% depleted lithium ion battery is not a good thing.

So charging to 90% is really more like charging to around 85%, because the top end maximum is really more like 95% of the max battery and 90% of 95% is around 85%. This IMO is a bit too high if you are really charging up after each drive and the battery is spending a large majority of its life at what is effectively 85% charge.

 

[tuminatr]

For me, the GOM has been way too conservative. I recently installed a set of 18" select wheels and winter tires 225/60/18 104v and my range actually went up. I went out to Micro Center to get some computer parts. Micro center is a 42 mile round trip when I left home the GOM said 125 mile range when I got back home it said 110 mile range and 3.7m/kWh at 36 degrees that's really good IMHO.

 

[mkhuffman]

That 10% hidden buffer isn’t all at the top - about half of it is at the bottom so that if someone drives their Mach-E down to 0% and the car shuts off, there is still some juice because a truly 100% depleted lithium ion battery is not a good thing.

So charging to 90% is really more like charging to around 85%, because the top end maximum is really more like 95% of the max battery and 90% of 95% is around 85%. This IMO is a bit too high if you are really charging up after each drive and the battery is spending a large majority of its life at what is effectively 85% charge.

Very good points and I didn't think about that. For now, I think a L2 charge to 90% is only slightly worse than 85%, and I want my car ready for a long drive whenever I need it. It is a good compromise instead of charging to 100% which is what I would do if I didn't care about long term battery life. It is a balance between having a car ready to go, and protecting the battery. Also Ford recommends 90%, and they know more than me. So I am going with their recommendation.

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