Carsinmyblood

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Wouldn't it be great if Ford would put in writing some of the differences in the different modes in lay terms, in clear unmistakable language?

It would read something like:

"Regen doesn't change via driving modes. It's all the same. There's no difference. None. Zero. Nada. We're squeezing every drop of current out of the battery, so we rigged it so no matter what you do in the cockpit and no matter what you mash your fingers on, you get the highest mileage on a charge and the highest regen we can manage without melting the controller. That's all we care about.... range and quelling your anxiety about it so you'll by our cars. So stop touching all that stuff and just drive the damned car."

.... like that.
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Carsinmyblood

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Now, as to the downhill racing problem....

This sounds more like a cooling system problem than a battery problem. I think the regen electronics are taking the hit here and are overheating, not the batteries. The batteries can charge at 100 kWh + per hour. There's no way coming down a hill squeezes more than that into the batteries. But, it could severely inconvenience the controller.

How they think software is going to fix that.... I assume they're going to turn off regen when the controller temperature gets too high, 1 pedal will switch off and we'll have to use the brakes for the rest of the trip to the bottom.

It's hard to believe they didn't test this condition given that a dozen or more states are littered with mountains.
 

Carsinmyblood

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dbsb3233

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Wouldn't it be great if Ford would put in writing some of the differences in the different modes in lay terms, in clear unmistakable language?

It would read something like:

"Regen doesn't change via driving modes. It's all the same. There's no difference. None. Zero. Nada. We're squeezing every drop of current out of the battery, so we rigged it so no matter what you do in the cockpit and no matter what you mash your fingers on, you get the highest mileage on a charge and the highest regen we can manage without melting the controller. That's all we care about.... range and quelling your anxiety about it so you'll by our cars. So stop touching all that stuff and just drive the damned car."

.... like that.
Funny, but there probably is a bit of truth in there. I suspect the first sentence is correct. They described that in one of the Ford videos a year ago, saying that regen is used to slow the vehicle whether via the accelerator pedal or the brake pedal. We don't know 100% for sure when friction brakes blend in, but it sounds likely that it's only after regen is maxed out. And that would make sense (to save the most energy efficiency).

If correct, all the various drive modes do is simply vary the degree of regen applied by lifting up on the accelerator pedal (almost like different downshift gears in an ICE car). Whisper appears to not use any regen when lifting off the pedal, Engaged uses light regen when lifting off, "L" gear medium, Unbridled strong, and 1PD strongest + friction brakes to complete the full stop.

But all those are likely just pedal mapping to apply degrees of a common function (regen/friction braking). It's just mapped to different degrees in the accelerator pedal via the drive mode selection. In effect, they simply set how much of the (would-be) brake pedal press shifts over to the accelerator pedal lift.
 
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Mach-E VLOG

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I am not sure if my issue was related, but I ran into problems coming down from Mount Evans (the highest paved road in North America). The drive up was problem free. Coming down, I got a slew of errors. My car was not "bricked" but it did have me pull over and then took a few minutes before I could get the errors to clear and keep going. After it happened a second time, I even called for a tow, but decided to just try to make it home. I didn't really want to do that, but it was going to be $180 for an Uber and a 2 hour wait for the tow. And then the dealer they were towing it too was closed.

Anyway, the car is fine. Ford updated a bunch of modules and we've driven 2,400+ miles since then. I haven't done a super long decent since then, but I have done some quite long ones in the Rockies.

(It's a long video, but the issues started at just past the 28:30 mark in the video.)

 
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dbsb3233

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I am not sure if my issue was related, but I ran into problems coming down from Mount Evans (the highest paved road in North America). The drive up was problem free. Coming down, I got a slew of errors. My car was not "bricked" but it did have me pull over and then took a few minutes before I could get the errors to clear and keep going. After it happened a second time, I even called for a tow, but decided to just try to make it home. I didn't really want to do that, but it was going to be $180 for an Uber and a 2 hour wait for the tow. And then the dealer they were towing it too was closed.

Anyway, the car is fine. Ford updated a bunch of modules and we've driven 2,400+ miles since then. I haven't done a super long decent since then, but I have done some quite long ones in the Rockies.

(It's a long video, but the issues started at just past the 28:30 mark in the video.)

I'd have used your video in my post above if it was there at the time. Just missed it by a day. ?
 

jlauro

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Wouldn't it be great if Ford would put in writing some of the differences in the different modes in lay terms, in clear unmistakable language?

It would read something like:

"Regen doesn't change via driving modes. It's all the same. There's no difference. None. Zero. Nada. We're squeezing every drop of current out of the battery, so we rigged it so no matter what you do in the cockpit and no matter what you mash your fingers on, you get the highest mileage on a charge and the highest regen we can manage without melting the controller. That's all we care about.... range and quelling your anxiety about it so you'll by our cars. So stop touching all that stuff and just drive the damned car."

.... like that.
However, that would not be true and not what Ford has said.
Regen is more aggressive in unbridled and more coasty in whisper.
You can get the same behavior and efficiency by not lifting off the accelerator as much in unbridled or pushing on the brake a little on whisper, but driving modes does make a difference.
 

dbsb3233

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So more and more it's sounding consistent with an overheating condition (sensors detecting it and shutting down for protection). Patrick's car seemed fine after stopping and cooling down for a while. Maybe that's the stop-gap remedy if it happens to anyone - pull over for a while and let the battery/motor/whatever to cool down some?
 

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So more and more it's sounding consistent with an overheating condition (sensors detecting it and shutting down for protection).
This was noted in the original post, quoting the article from Norway:
When this happened, the Mustang Mach-E stopped to prevent overheating.
and
The Mach-Es essentially experienced too much regen braking, resulting in the vehicles’ batteries getting too hot.
 

Mach-E VLOG

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So more and more it's sounding consistent with an overheating condition (sensors detecting it and shutting down for protection). Patrick's car seemed fine after stopping and cooling down for a while. Maybe that's the stop-gap remedy if it happens to anyone - pull over for a while and let the battery/motor/whatever to cool down some?
Yeah, whether or not mine was from this exact problem or not, just giving it a few minutes gave it time to clear.

I wish I had more concrete answers (for myself and everyone else). I am feeling much better about it after my long road trip. Give me a couple more weeks and I may try Mt Evans or Pikes Peak.
 

Carsinmyblood

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Yeah, whether or not mine was from this exact problem or not, just giving it a few minutes gave it time to clear.
Could you hear the crazy-loud fans running while you waited?
 

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I think the crazy-loud is the compressor. The fans are not silent, but they are not the crazy loud the compressor and pumps are... Did it have the vents below the grill open?
 

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I am not sure if my issue was related, but I ran into problems coming down from Mount Evans (the highest paved road in North America). The drive up was problem free. Coming down, I got a slew of errors. My car was not "bricked" but it did have me pull over and then took a few minutes before I could get the errors to clear and keep going. After it happened a second time, I even called for a tow, but decided to just try to make it home. I didn't really want to do that, but it was going to be $180 for an Uber and a 2 hour wait for the tow. And then the dealer they were towing it too was closed.

Anyway, the car is fine. Ford updated a bunch of modules and we've driven 2,400+ miles since then. I haven't done a super long decent since then, but I have done some quite long ones in the Rockies.
Since the update have you found that the regen is being disabled on the descents after some time?
 

dbsb3233

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Since the update have you found that the regen is being disabled on the descents after some time?
I doubt it for his recent drive. The mountain drive Patrick just did (after the update) was on I-70 through Colorado. I've done the same drive twice (Denver-Vegas). There's regen coming down from the Eisenhower Tunnel at 11,000' and Vail Pass at 10,000', but that's never been a problem for the MME on interstates. Presumably because interstates are designed to maintain high speed without harsh switchbacks where you have to slow hard into the tight curves.

Even on 5-6% interstate grades, it only need gradual regen over many miles rather than hard bursts where you're repeatedly speeding up and slowing hard into the turns like the Mt Evens road, and the Norway road.

A real test would be driving back down the Mt Evans road again, or a similar road with hard, steep switchbacks.
 

Mach-E VLOG

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Could you hear the crazy-loud fans running while you waited?
No fan noise at all.
I think the crazy-loud is the compressor. The fans are not silent, but they are not the crazy loud the compressor and pumps are... Did it have the vents below the grill open?
I didn't check the grill. But I didn't hear any fan noise. The fans do get crazy loud at extreme temps. The next week we did a DCFC at 110+ degrees and the fan noise was crazy.
Since the update have you found that the regen is being disabled on the descents after some time?
Nope. But I didn't do a a 14,000 to 7,500 ft descent. I did go up and over the Eisenhower Tunnel and Vail Pass twice. They are over 10,000 feet.
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