Turtle Mode (Cold Weather Warning)

[Just Lurking]

Windchill has no impact on the car.

Going 85 in those temps is a killer. I would go 65.

Rick, these two statements don't compute. ?

peaked

piqued, FYI!

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[Howard]

We have been between 4F to 29F for the past week with several inches of snow and ice here in West TN. This is very unusual for our area of the country. I have several DCFC's within 20 miles of the house. Initially I would setup a departure time and let the heaters be powered from the L2 charger but the last several days I have started each of our two MME's and set a DCFC as destination. I monitor the HVB temperatures on both MME's via reader and Car Scanner app. The reason I switched to this from departure time is that the HVB temperature can be taken to a higher temperature this way vs. using departure time. Cars are unplugged while I do this method of heating the HVB battery. On average, it has been taking about 20 minutes to go from 42F to 70F on the HVB battery. Using the departure time, highest I saw the HVB temperature get to was about 61F. Preconditioning of HVB with the car turned on (fully started) will happen with DCFC set as a destination and with the car in park. Just an option for folks in the event they lose power and would like to keep battery pack warm to some degree. I did this about every 24 to 36 hours during this cold spell. To put things, possibly, in perspective as to how significant temperature affects lithium ion batteries, I monitored my "kwh to empty" during the last heatup I did on my 2023 ER MME; I heated the battery from 46F to 64F in about 18 minutes and noticed that "kwh to empty" went from 70.98 kwh at 46F to 71.46 kwh at 64F while pulling 5.94 kw (heaters) from the battery during this time. For those that want to dive into the chemical reactions, this is not that surprising lol. Just some info on a cold Saturday morning. Please stay safe everyone during this Arctic blast, especially those that do not typically get this type of weather!

 

[bbulkow]

It's odd to me people are saying this is "bad news". I think this is great news.

Reading about the fiascos with Tesla (which don't happen to drivers in Finland), the answer is clearly driver education, and having a better indicators , and a "limp mode", I was thinking to myself last night. And obviously a better charging network - if people have to charge 2x more frequently, even SuperCharger network can't support that.

Turns out that Ford got it right and has a limp mode. You won't be abandoning your car by the side of the road, instead, at 50 horsepower, you can get yourself off the freeway and finding a charger of some sort.

I wish we could have even more indicators like a battery temp indicator, a "time to charging" (at least with Tesla, there are SOC and temps where it takes 45 mins of supercharger just to get the battery warmed up enough to accept charge and we all have the same battery physics), some form of prediction based on changes in temp (route driving into colder weather, sun going down and temp dropping 20 degrees....), miles to turtle mode, etc. I can get some raw data from CarScanner but the predictions along my route will be in my own head and guesses (likely less accurate than the GOM )

I feel much more comfortable with my MachE knowing it has a turtle mode and that it has some rules and Ford engineers have my back, in case I have to drive into a snowstorm I wouldn't get stranded even if I'm going pretty slow. What's the top speed at "50 horsepower" in the flats? 50mph?

[ In this case, getting to an L2 where your car can warm up a bit seems necessary, I would wonder if PlugShare could have a system where people register their home chargers but they only show up in an emergency. Even though I don't live somewhere with cold temps, I'd be willing to have a stranger stop by my house and use my L2 if they were about to be stranded - although I would like them to pay for the electricity. L2s are sucky for road trips, obvs, but in an emergency they're clearly our underappreciated charging strength ]

 

[bbulkow]

I agree, battery temp would be pretty darn cool. I'm also missing having instant read out of kw usage in and out in real time on the gauge cluster while driving (brake coach is not very helpful).

First, there is an instant power meter. You can use "ForeScan" and a Bluetooth dongle to get the instant read power meter. You do have to buy a high quality OBD2 dongle. There's a config bit you set, there are forum entries on it. I think it's NUTS that Ford implemented the feature and doesn't expose it, I can only imagine its covered by a Tesla patent or something.

Second, once you have an OBD2 dongle, you have access to battery temp and instant power levels and how much the battery is being heated and all kinds of things, on your phone.

I also wish Ford put them on the big screen, but at least we have access. I use it from time to time on longer trips when I"m bored, if I was doing a big road trip I'd get some kind of stand for a tablet and put some nifty gauges on the tablet.

 

[dtbaker61]

First, there is an instant power meter. You can use "ForeScan" and a Bluetooth dongle to get the instant read power meter. You do have to buy a high quality OBD2 dongle. There's a config bit you set, there are forum entries on it. I think it's NUTS that Ford implemented the feature and doesn't expose it, I can only imagine its covered by a Tesla patent or something.

Second, once you have an OBD2 dongle, you have access to battery temp and instant power levels and how much the battery is being heated and all kinds of things, on your phone.

I also wish Ford put them on the big screen, but at least we have access. I use it from time to time on longer trips when I"m bored, if I was doing a big road trip I'd get some kind of stand for a tablet and put some nifty gauges on the tablet.

you don't need ForeScan.... the CarScanner app does a great job and enables 'custom' dashboard on your phone. Unfortunately not on the center console, but maybe someday.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...r-output-regen-charging-and-other-data.33211/

 

[Mach-Lee]

We have been between 4F to 29F for the past week with several inches of snow and ice here in West TN. This is very unusual for our area of the country. I have several DCFC's within 20 miles of the house. Initially I would setup a departure time and let the heaters be powered from the L2 charger but the last several days I have started each of our two MME's and set a DCFC as destination. I monitor the HVB temperatures on both MME's via reader and Car Scanner app. The reason I switched to this from departure time is that the HVB temperature can be taken to a higher temperature this way vs. using departure time. Cars are unplugged while I do this method of heating the HVB battery. On average, it has been taking about 20 minutes to go from 42F to 70F on the HVB battery. Using the departure time, highest I saw the HVB temperature get to was about 61F. Preconditioning of HVB with the car turned on (fully started) will happen with DCFC set as a destination and with the car in park. Just an option for folks in the event they lose power and would like to keep battery pack warm to some degree. I did this about every 24 to 36 hours during this cold spell. To put things, possibly, in perspective as to how significant temperature affects lithium ion batteries, I monitored my "kwh to empty" during the last heatup I did on my 2023 ER MME; I heated the battery from 46F to 64F in about 18 minutes and noticed that "kwh to empty" went from 70.98 kwh at 46F to 71.46 kwh at 64F while pulling 5.94 kw (heaters) from the battery during this time. For those that want to dive into the chemical reactions, this is not that surprising lol. Just some info on a cold Saturday morning. Please stay safe everyone during this Arctic blast, especially those that do not typically get this type of weather!

Yes doing that gets the battery warmer, but it’s not really necessary to get the battery warmer than 55°F in your conditions. That is plenty warm to prevent power limits. So it’s kind of pointless unless you have to drive a long trip in -20°F temps and you have time to charge it again after heating.

Turning HVAC off while unplugged will get the battery up to a decent temperature if it’s extremely cold.

It's odd to me people are saying this is "bad news". I think this is great news.

Reading about the fiascos with Tesla (which don't happen to drivers in Finland), the answer is clearly driver education, and having a better indicators , and a "limp mode", I was thinking to myself last night. And obviously a better charging network - if people have to charge 2x more frequently, even SuperCharger network can't support that.

Turns out that Ford got it right and has a limp mode. You won't be abandoning your car by the side of the road, instead, at 50 horsepower, you can get yourself off the freeway and finding a charger of some sort.

I wish we could have even more indicators like a battery temp indicator, a "time to charging" (at least with Tesla, there are SOC and temps where it takes 45 mins of supercharger just to get the battery warmed up enough to accept charge and we all have the same battery physics), some form of prediction based on changes in temp (route driving into colder weather, sun going down and temp dropping 20 degrees....), miles to turtle mode, etc. I can get some raw data from CarScanner but the predictions along my route will be in my own head and guesses (likely less accurate than the GOM )

I feel much more comfortable with my MachE knowing it has a turtle mode and that it has some rules and Ford engineers have my back, in case I have to drive into a snowstorm I wouldn't get stranded even if I'm going pretty slow. What's the top speed at "50 horsepower" in the flats? 50mph?

[ In this case, getting to an L2 where your car can warm up a bit seems necessary, I would wonder if PlugShare could have a system where people register their home chargers but they only show up in an emergency. Even though I don't live somewhere with cold temps, I'd be willing to have a stranger stop by my house and use my L2 if they were about to be stranded - although I would like them to pay for the electricity. L2s are sucky for road trips, obvs, but in an emergency they're clearly our underappreciated charging strength ]

I should emphasize the power limiting is EXCESSIVE based on the battery conditions. The battery can provide more power without much issue, but the software is being an absolute nanny. They’re limiting discharge to only 3.3V/cell, you can easily go down to 3.0V/cell or even less for short bursts. This is why it worked fine last year.

The power limit should happen, but it’s happening too early.

I’m sure it’s an engineer programming based on a data sheet without considering real-world implications of doing so.

 

[helium89]

It's odd to me people are saying this is "bad news". I think this is great news.

Reading about the fiascos with Tesla (which don't happen to drivers in Finland), the answer is clearly driver education, and having a better indicators , and a "limp mode", I was thinking to myself last night. And obviously a better charging network - if people have to charge 2x more frequently, even SuperCharger network can't support that.

Turns out that Ford got it right and has a limp mode. You won't be abandoning your car by the side of the road, instead, at 50 horsepower, you can get yourself off the freeway and finding a charger of some sort.

I wish we could have even more indicators like a battery temp indicator, a "time to charging" (at least with Tesla, there are SOC and temps where it takes 45 mins of supercharger just to get the battery warmed up enough to accept charge and we all have the same battery physics), some form of prediction based on changes in temp (route driving into colder weather, sun going down and temp dropping 20 degrees....), miles to turtle mode, etc. I can get some raw data from CarScanner but the predictions along my route will be in my own head and guesses (likely less accurate than the GOM )

I feel much more comfortable with my MachE knowing it has a turtle mode and that it has some rules and Ford engineers have my back, in case I have to drive into a snowstorm I wouldn't get stranded even if I'm going pretty slow. What's the top speed at "50 horsepower" in the flats? 50mph?

[ In this case, getting to an L2 where your car can warm up a bit seems necessary, I would wonder if PlugShare could have a system where people register their home chargers but they only show up in an emergency. Even though I don't live somewhere with cold temps, I'd be willing to have a stranger stop by my house and use my L2 if they were about to be stranded - although I would like them to pay for the electricity. L2s are sucky for road trips, obvs, but in an emergency they're clearly our underappreciated charging strength ]

There’s nothing great about the news that Ford, having taken three years to realize that it used an underpowered heater, has decided to hastily address the issue in the most ham fisted way possible.

 

[Howard]

Yes doing that gets the battery warmer, but it’s not really necessary to get the battery warmer than 55°F in your conditions. That is plenty warm to prevent power limits. So it’s kind of pointless unless you have to drive a long trip in -20°F temps and you have time to charge it again after heating.

Turning HVAC off while unplugged will get the battery up to a decent temperature if it’s extremely cold.



I should emphasize the power limiting is EXCESSIVE based on the battery conditions. The battery can provide more power without much issue, but the software is being an absolute nanny. They’re limiting discharge to only 3.3V/cell, you can easily go down to 3.0V/cell or even less for short bursts. This is why it worked fine last year.

The power limit should happen, but it’s happening too early.

I’m sure it’s an engineer programming based on a data sheet without considering real-world implications of doing so.

Yeah, it is more than I need to do for our conditions or typical conditions for our part of the country; but we do travel during the winter months. We went to Abilene, TX last January when an ice storm came through the area. Temperatures were about where ours are right now maybe a little colder at night. We took our 2023 ER RWD MME on the trip and didn't have any issues. Only chargers in Abilene at the time were L2 (one at our hotel and one at the hospital where my wife's older brother was at). We did just fine but I wish I knew more about those levels of cold then vs. what I've learned now from folks on the forum and from my own experience during the past week. As you know from the times you have helped me via DM, I like doing my own experiments on my MME's the same as you do experiments on your MME for you and folks on the forum. Thanks again for doing those and sharing your results. We don't get temps like this on a regular basis so I tried to take advantage of the opportunity to test some things so that if I'm out on a trip I will be better prepared. Thanks again for feedback.

 

[Steph]

I experienced turtle mode last winter on a sunny 5F day around 8% charge about 2 miles from home. It’s been colder for longer this year with several consecutive days not above 0F. Seeing this in the 20-30% SOC is giving m serious turtle mode anxiety.
We don’t have any chargers around to employ Howard’s approach with the DCFC in nav, but wonder if putting home in the nav could prevent turtle mode. Anyway to tell the navigation system there is a charger there?

 

[Mach-Lee]

I experienced turtle mode last winter on a sunny 5F day around 8% charge about 2 miles from home. It’s been colder for longer this year with several consecutive days not above 0F. Seeing this in the 20-30% SOC is giving m serious turtle mode anxiety.
We don’t have any chargers around to employ Howard’s approach with the DCFC in nav, but wonder if putting home in the nav could prevent turtle mode. Anyway to tell the navigation system there is a charger there?

That won't help. I had my home in the nav when Turtle Mode happened to me. It also doesn't heat the battery for Level 2 charging, even if you were able to enter your home charger. Navigating to a nearby DCFC also won't work because there isn't enough heat available, it won't even try to to heat the pack (unless you turn off HVAC).

I probably won't get a chance to test Turtle Mode again, but some approaches I'd recommend is turning off HVAC for 15 minutes to get more heat to the battery (which really sucks when it's -10º), and/or slamming the battery pack with as much regen as possible to heat up the cells.

 

[AliRafiee]

A few days ago I forgot to charge my car the night before and ended up down to 8%. Never saw it go into turtle mode.

 

[Mach-Lee]

A few days ago I forgot to charge my car the night before and ended up down to 8%. Never saw it go into turtle mode.

It probably wasn’t cold enough. This is a below zero thing.

 

[Shayne]

Can only charge it to 80% and it turtles out at 30% in the cold when we need the larger battery. So only 50% of the battery is now usable in cold weather? What is wrong with that picture.

 

[Tampamike]

Yes doing that gets the battery warmer, but it’s not really necessary to get the battery warmer than 55°F in your conditions. That is plenty warm to prevent power limits. So it’s kind of pointless unless you have to drive a long trip in -20°F temps and you have time to charge it again after heating.

Turning HVAC off while unplugged will get the battery up to a decent temperature if it’s extremely cold.



I should emphasize the power limiting is EXCESSIVE based on the battery conditions. The battery can provide more power without much issue, but the software is being an absolute nanny. They’re limiting discharge to only 3.3V/cell, you can easily go down to 3.0V/cell or even less for short bursts. This is why it worked fine last year.

The power limit should happen, but it’s happening too early.

I’m sure it’s an engineer programming based on a data sheet without considering real-world implications of doing so.

Do we (you) know for certain that there was a software change that is causing these turtle modes to happen or are we just assuming it must be, based on the reported increase of turtle modes?

 

[kltye]

Can only charge it to 80% and it turtles out at 30% in the cold when we need the larger battery. So only 50% of the battery is now usable in cold weather? What is wrong with that picture.

Where are you getting that you can only charge it to 80%?

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