Trouble with DC charging stations

[JoseLuisDeLaCruz]

Elon, is that you? ?
[/QUOTE

Elon, is that you? ?

my name is jose musk.....thanks! Lol!

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[DaveRuns]

I hate to keep harping on this. This is not a station issue. The battery is cold. Plain and simple. There might be some outliers on the station front, but I don't think it's in the station side. Until Ford gets a way to warm the battery up, it will continue To be an issue. Only Tesla and Porsche have a battery heater that warm a battery up enough to DC fast charge. Technically, only Porsche heats it enough to reach peak speeds.

I have seen on this forum that Ford plans to add preconditioning on the battery. We can all hope it comes sooner rather than later.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Doesn’t Tesla only warm the battery enroute to a Supercharger? I plan to find a DCFC just to see what kind of speeds I can get up to and how fast.

 

[Dan G]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Doesn’t Tesla only warm the battery enroute to a Supercharger? I plan to find a DCFC just to see what kind of speeds I can get up to and how fast.

That is correct. Same with Porsche. I'm assuming Ford will do the same.

 

[DBC]

Elon, is that you? ?

People get Teslas because: (1) they lack taste; (2) they're not the brightest bulbs in the pack; (3) they can't wait for something better so they settle.

Friends don't let friends buy Teslas. LOL

 

[benk016]

I hate to keep harping on this. This is not a station issue. The battery is cold. Plain and simple. There might be some outliers on the station front, but I don't think it's in the station side. Until Ford gets a way to warm the battery up, it will continue To be an issue. Only Tesla and Porsche have a battery heater that warm a battery up enough to DC fast charge. Technically, only Porsche heats it enough to reach peak speeds.

I have seen on this forum that Ford plans to add preconditioning on the battery. We can all hope it comes sooner rather than later.

Dan, I really want to agree with you, but I also think EA is still part of the issue. I am not expecting a full speed charge right now with the temps we have. But, my trip involved stopping to charge on a fairly long trip. Each stop would have been right off the highway where i was going 70-80mph. That should have gotten the battery at least a little warm.

My brother's Chevy Bolt has the same issues with EA that I have. EA will always stick around 35kw. But he moves to a non-EA charger, he can hit 55kw which is about the max his car can do.

Don't get me wrong, Ford definitely has some work to do on the charging for the Mach E. I just don't think its 100% a Ford issue right now. We've not really seen good charging from anyone, even in good weather.

 

[ajmartineau]

Cruising on the freeway at 70mph in the winter ? is not going to warm your battery. You need to YoYo it before you pull in to charge. Try Hard acceleration and maximum regen and repeat for ten
Miles.

 

[dtbaker61]

Just got my new Mach-E yesterday. Love it! Battery range very low but upon reading all your threads, I’m going to assume that early usage and very low temperatures might be the culprits. We took it to a few different DC fast charge stations today, all 150 kW or higher, and couldn’t get a fill up rate of more than 36 kW. It took an hour to fill from 45 to 80%. I would have thought we could have gotten faster rates. Anyone have any feedback?

my guess would be the temperature.

charging LFP batteries is *not recommended* if they are below 32 F /0 C, and depending what temp the internal battery warmers are holding the pack at, the charge rate is *probably* limited.

my guess is if you did a series of hard accel/regen braking 'events' to dump some heat into the battery pack, then the charge rate would increase.... unless they use a second sensor keeping tabs on the outside air.

what the software is trying to avoid is filling the cells too fast at current temp, and anticipating that if you park outside in the cold you should not have the pack at 'full'

 

[silverelan]

Cruising on the freeway at 70mph in the winter ? is not going to warm your battery. You need to YoYo it before you pull in to charge. Try Hard acceleration and maximum regen and repeat for ten
Miles.

I really wish Ford would not encourage MME owners to induce whiplash headaches to increase DC charging speeds.

 

[dtbaker61]

I really wish Ford would not encourage MME owners to induce whiplash headaches to increase DC charging speeds.

the 'easy' alternative would be to put some heating pads in the bottom of battery enclosure.... like seat warmers. They would consume a *little* range, but enable fast charging and 'full' capacity.

'seedling heat pads' use about 20 watts per sq ft to heat to keep things above freezing in greenhouses.... something similar would be relatively easy to add to the bottom of the battery pack and switch on when temps are below freezing.

 

[generaltso]

the 'easy' alternative would be to put some heating pads in the bottom of battery enclosure.... like seat warmers. They would consume a *little* range, but enable fast charging and 'full' capacity.

No need. The MME already has battery heating. There‘s just no way to activate it for DCFC preparation. Ford has hinted that it‘s coming soon.

 

[silverelan]

No need. The MME already has battery heating. There‘s just no way to activate it for DCFC preparation. Ford has hinted that it‘s coming soon.

I've seen posts saying it's coming soon but I haven't seen a source yet. Hopefully the update is imminent since preconditioning in the dead of winter is more needed than ever.

 

[bluestarct]

I finished a 540 mile trip from Northwest Arkansas to home and tried used a quite a few chargers. Most of the chargers were only 50kw chargers maxing out at 48-49 sometimes only 30. Of course the weather decided not to cooperate with temperatures ranging from -5 to 25 F with snow, ice and freezing rain at times.

The worse part is during the charging, I would get a Charge Fault Error on the Mach E and I would have to restart the charging. I lost count of how many times I had to restart charging sessions. This is a major problem. If it continues, I will return the car. It is that bad.

I was at Electrify America's 150kw chargers in Waco Texas and spent over an hour on the phone with them trying to get the chargers to not fault out. Electricfy America's telephone help people were great. They tried. They even gave me free sessions and we tried using 5 different handles on three charging different stations. Had multiple times where the charging would not start and would I get a Charge Fault Error on the Mach E. Other times, it would charge then an error would happen and I would have to restart. Once I got to 60%, I stopped charging and left because that was enough to get me home with reserves As there were no more chargers between Waco and College Station.

 

[silverelan]

I finished a 540 mile trip from Northwest Arkansas to home and tried used a quite a few chargers. Most of the chargers were only 50kw chargers maxing out at 48-49 sometimes only 30. Of course the weather decided not to cooperate with temperatures ranging from -5 to 25 F with snow, ice and freezing rain at times.

The worse part is during the charging, I would get a Charge Fault Error on the Mach E and I would have to restart the charging. I lost count of how many times I had to restart charging sessions. This is a major problem. If it continues, I will return the car. It is that bad.

I was at Electrify America's 150kw chargers in Waco Texas and spent over an hour on the phone with them trying to get the chargers to not fault out. Electricfy America's telephone help people were great. They tried. They even gave me free sessions and we tried using 5 different handles on three charging different stations. Had multiple times where the charging would not start and would I get a Charge Fault Error on the Mach E. Other times, it would charge then an error would happen and I would have to restart. Once I got to 60%, I stopped charging and left because that was enough to get me home with reserves As there were no more chargers between Waco and College Station.

We really need Ford to eliminate any and all DCFC issues within their control and also work hard with 3pty mobility service providers (EA, etc) to reduce these pain points.

I literally cannot afford to have a $60,000 car that I cannot take anywhere.

 

[Mirak]

I just can’t even imagine road tripping with the MME yet.

 

[Dan G]

Dan, I really want to agree with you, but I also think EA is still part of the issue. I am not expecting a full speed charge right now with the temps we have. But, my trip involved stopping to charge on a fairly long trip. Each stop would have been right off the highway where i was going 70-80mph. That should have gotten the battery at least a little warm.

My brother's Chevy Bolt has the same issues with EA that I have. EA will always stick around 35kw. But he moves to a non-EA charger, he can hit 55kw which is about the max his car can do.

Don't get me wrong, Ford definitely has some work to do on the charging for the Mach E. I just don't think its 100% a Ford issue right now. We've not really seen good charging from anyone, even in good weather.

There's a pretty good video, I'll find it in a bit and edit this post, but it's of a ID3 in Europe. The guy drives at 130 kmh, which is around 80 mph and the battery temperature decreases. It's not until he gets it up to around 160 kmh or 100 mph that the battery starts to increase in temperature. You'd then want to increase the temp to at least 30 degrees C. Unfortunately, Ford doesn't give us a battery temp display. Only Porsche does, I believe.

My current car can charge around 67kW. Only EA had given me those speeds as nothing else in my area goes over 62.5kW

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