Turtle Mode (Cold Weather Warning)

[Mach-Lee]

2026 Update: Turtle Mode has been fixed. Owners should no longer experience early power limits with the current software. See this.

Clarification: This applies to cold climates with temperature below approximately 25°F/-4°C. You don’t need to worry about this in warmer conditions or if you’re not discharging the battery below 30%.

Warning: If your battery is cold, your car may unexpectedly enter turtle mode (power limit) with as much as 30% battery left. You will suddenly have a severe power limit and will not be able to maintain freeway speed, go up hills, nor accelerate through intersections or on-ramps safely. This has happened to myself and others in the northern US and Canada. It's a really severe power limit and is pretty scary when it happens.

Yellow Turtle:

Red Turtle:

The colder the battery, the sooner you will get turtle mode. The power limit will get progressively worse as you keep driving until you are no longer able to maintain speed. It will start with yellow turtle warning "Performance limited due to cold battery" then progress shortly after to the above red turtle mode "Severely limited performance due to cold battery". At this point you have almost no power.

To avoid this, you must precondition/set a departure time, and plan your charging stops for no less than 20% battery in the cold. The GOM will still say you have many miles to go, but your car will be at a crawl long before it gets to 0%. I preconditioned and got turtle mode at 9% because my battery had cooled off enough while driving. Cold battery + low % SoC charge triggers turtle mode.

If you get yellow turtle, you need to take action immediately regardless of what the GOM says. Slow down by 20 MPH and/or get off the freeway ASAP before you have no power left. Your car will only have about 50 horsepower to accelerate—wait for all traffic to pass at stop signs and do not pull out on anyone. You will need to stop and warm up the battery or find the nearest Level 2 charger.

Mitigation strategy: If you are not near a charger when you get turtle mode, pull over and turn off HVAC for 15 minutes (leave car on). This will allow the battery to warm up and turtle mode should go away. After 15 minutes, you can turn HVAC back on and resume driving. This will unlock the missing battery capacity.

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[Sam2084]

I had the orange turtle at 31%, red turtle at 30%. I would say don’t drive this car at all if you’re going to drop below 40% when temps are below 10*.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I had the orange turtle at 31%, red turtle at 30%. I would say don’t drive this car at all if you’re going to drop below 40% when temps are below 10*.

Wow, it keeps getting worse. Updated.

 

[bshaw]

Warning: If your battery is cold, your car may unexpectedly enter turtle mode (power limit) with as much as 20% battery left. You will suddenly have a severe power limit and will not be able to maintain freeway speed, nor accelerate through intersections or on-ramps safely. This has happened to myself and several others in the cold during the past few days. It's a really severe power limit and is pretty scary when it happens.

Is this a new battery protection strategy enabled by a recent update? I don't recall it being this severe previously, although I don't take my SoC that low in winter temps, typically.

 

[breeves002]

Is this a new battery protection strategy enabled by a recent update? I don't recall it being this severe previously, although I don't take my SoC that low in winter temps, typically.

I think it is just the coldest winter on record since the Mach E has been released. We're seeing a much larger sample size of extreme cold in these vehicles than we ever have before.

They may have adjusted it though as I don't remember seeing any reports like this last year from the few people who did have Mach E's in extreme cold. Again though, much larger sample size now.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Is this a new battery protection strategy enabled by a recent update? I don't recall it being this severe previously, although I don't take my SoC that low in winter temps, typically.

That is what I think. I don't remember this happening last year.

 

[MellowJohnny]

Sorry - what temps are you guys seeing? -10F? Wow.

I had an interesting experience today driving north of Toronto. Left at 90%, GOM was just under 300km, with a departure time set. Was conservative with heat (it's sunny out today) and highway speeds. For the return trip I was down to 110 km GOM and maybe 50% SOC, which proceeded to drop quite fast as I drove home.

My guess is since I drove into colder temps the GOM was making quick adjustments. At one point I was about 40% SOC I had like 78 km on the GOM. Never really seen such big swings.

I stopped for a quick charge to make it home - pulled in at 37% SoC w/ 70-ish km GOM.

So be mindful of temperature changes on route as well.

 

[AKgrampy]

Thanks for the info. I have never seen anything like this but I am not sure I have let my car get below 30% SOC in the winter. I drive regularly below 10F and car does well down to -20F (around town and short highway driving.) I have a long uphill to my house so I am not about to test it out though!

 

[Womps]

The news just keeps getting worse for us COLD winter drivers. Does anyone know if other electric vehicles are experiencing this issue?

 

[GarageWarrior2023]

I experienced this over the weekend in -27C (-17F).

Usually we plan carefully and precondition and even charge to 100% for long trips rather than just 90%......but a family emergency made us take off with limited preheat and only 85% charge on a long highway commute. within 45km of a 50kw DC charger we dropped below 30% and got the amber turtle...followed by the red turtle at 25% at which point the car took over and for every 30 seconds of driving it seemed to drop by 1km/h in speed until I was doing 50km/h and on a highway.....made it to the charger with 7%SOC and charged to 70% and then booted home no problem at 100km/h...

I wasn't expecting the performance and speed reduction at that SOC. I could see acceleration being cut...the speed being cut was an unsettling surprise. (though I understand the methodology behind the forced restrictions)

From what others have posted....is this new behavior to aggressively control speed and acceleration at 30%SOC (rather than lower than that) in the cold or has it always been this way? I was surprised because I had seen so many people brag about getting down to 10% or less and never mentioning their speed getting so badly clipped. But they might be in nice warm climates too...

Curious what others can speak to for common cold weather operation (this is my first winter with mine).

Burning question for me: has anyone been highway driving with a high SOC like above 50-60% in extreme cold (-37c to -45c) and had the heater not keep up and end up with their speed clipped due to cold battery? I have heard these heaters have trouble keeping up when you combine highway speeds and extreme cold.

 

[Monke]

This is very bad. This is a safety issue. I wish I knew about this turtle mode before buying a Mach E.

 

[bbhaag]

What was the ambient outside air temperature when you experienced the loss of power and the turtle symbols?

 

[dtbaker61]

Warning: If your battery is cold, your car may unexpectedly enter turtle mode (power limit) with as much as 30% battery left. You will suddenly have a severe power limit and will not be able to maintain freeway speed, nor accelerate through intersections or on-ramps safely. This has happened to myself and several others in the cold during the past few days. It's a really severe power limit and is pretty scary when it happens.

Yellow Turtle:

Red Turtle:

The colder the battery, the sooner you will get turtle mode. The power limit will get progressively worse as you keep driving until you are no longer able to maintain speed. It will start with yellow turtle warning "Performance limited due to cold battery" then progress shortly after to the above red turtle mode "Severely limited performance due to cold battery". At this point you have almost no power.

To avoid this, you must precondition/set a departure time, and plan your charging stops for no less than 20% battery in the cold. The GOM will still say you have many miles to go, but your car will be at a crawl long before it gets to 0%. I preconditioned and got turtle mode at 9% because my battery had cooled off enough while driving. Cold battery + low % SoC charge triggers turtle mode.

If you get yellow turtle, you need to take action immediately and find the nearest Level 2 charger regardless of what the GOM says. Slow down 20 MPH and/or get off the freeway ASAP before you have no power left. Your car will only have about 50 horsepower to accelerate, wait for all traffic to pass at stop signs and do not pull out on anyone.

do you have any idea if the yellow/red turtle modes were introduced with 6.x update?

I am still running on 4.3.4 which indicated in release notes that it had enhanced battery pre-heat functionality; but n real details on what that meant. I recently took a trip, and my car was outside multiple nights.... and the last night on my trip home I was below 30% multiple times at highway speed in temps around 25-35F; no turtles showed up thank god because I did not have a charger within miles.

 

[GarageWarrior2023]

This is very bad. This is a safety issue. I wish I knew about this turtle mode before buying a Mach E.

Yes I agree, it can become a bit of a potential safety issue. luckily the reduction happens after warnings and the reduction is very gradual...but a very unsettling feeling for sure.

 

[GarageWarrior2023]

What was the ambient outside air temperature when you experienced the loss of power and the turtle symbols?

For me it was at -27C and only after I went below 30%SOC. Before that I was clipping along at 100km/h at the same ambient temperature. To me it seems at 30%SOC they stop heating the battery to conserve juice and then it gets too cold and then you're tossed into turtle mode pretty quick. That's what I gathered from how it played out.

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