V2X with our Mustang Mach-E!

[ChasingCoral]

Although I'm curious if you ran your F-150 Lightning this way in California would it somehow invalidate the warranty even though it's designed to do it with Ford's bidirectional charger.

No, it won't void your warranty.

1. See the many discussions on here about the Magnuson-Moss act and what can and can't void a warranty. tldr; it's really hard to void a warranty and only applicable systems or parts would be "voided", not the whole warranty.

2. Ford has worked with some power companies in parts of the US to offer full V2H, including power arbitrage.

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[ChasingCoral]

Last weekend we visited a homeowner in San Diego that has a new system from Sigenergy that enables the Mach-E to do V2X! We were able to plug our unmodified Mach-E into the charger and watch it pull energy from the car into the integrated system that ties in rooftop solar, the DC charger, the grid, and a small battery.

We've been told that the Mach-E is incapable of doing V2X but we saw it happen. There are lots of questions about support from Ford and if other EVs work. The customer/owner that we visited uses his Mach-E all the time with the system. He also has a Rivian that works with the system but not as flawlessly as the Mach-E.

Pretty cool setup!

For all of the details and an interview with the CEO of Sigenergy North America:

Great video!

When the Sigenergy system looks at the Mach E, do they see the vehicle's available battery capacity or its full capacity?

 

[mkhuffman]

Great video!

When the Sigenergy system looks at the Mach E, do they see the vehicle's available battery capacity or its full capacity?

I doubt the vehicle BMS is bypassed, so I expect the BMS provides access to available capacity, same as it does for the drive train. Otherwise it would be more stressful on the battery and reduce life expectancy. And I bet Ford wouldn't want that!

 

[watchdoc]

Here is an email I received from Pointguard regarding the V2X module and limitations they are facing.

“Tesla there were almost no limitations but 10% SOC for the cars battery. What we are seeing now is a 10 min discharge allowance, more to come since this just happened yesterday. Ford we are seeing 50/50 results, no limits to 10 min discharging limits, we aren't sure if it is firmware or year. “

Sierra Mulvey
Sales Manager Pointguard Energy Inc.

 

[HuntingPudel]

I doubt the vehicle BMS is bypassed, so I expect the BMS provides access to available capacity, same as it does for the drive train. Otherwise it would be more stressful on the battery and reduce life expectancy. And I bet Ford wouldn't want that!

I think the question posed by @ChasingCoral is a valid one though. When reading HV battery info off of the OBD2 port we see both raw capacity and net capacity. I would assume that Ford only reports capacity and SoC through the charge port (which is how the L3 chargers know what the SoC is), but you know what happens when we assume...

Maybe someone who works for @Ford Motor Company can enlighten us as to how information is reported through the charge port.

 

[bbulkow]

Last weekend we visited a homeowner in San Diego that has a new system from Sigenergy that enables the Mach-E to do V2X! We were able to plug our unmodified Mach-E into the charger and watch it pull energy from the car into the integrated system that ties in rooftop solar, the DC charger, the grid, and a small battery.

We've been told that the Mach-E is incapable of doing V2X but we saw it happen. There are lots of questions about support from Ford and if other EVs work. The customer/owner that we visited uses his Mach-E all the time with the system. He also has a Rivian that works with the system but not as flawlessly as the Mach-E.

Pretty cool setup!

For all of the details and an interview with the CEO of Sigenergy North America:

I can't sit through a 45 minute video to figure out how they're pulling enough power out of the MachE. ( I did try skipping around )

Time mark? Short answer?

How much are they getting out? Using what port?

Why did we all believe this wasn't possible before?

 

[Mark813]

They're using the DC charging like you would at a dcfc except drawing it out.

So the charger they connect to the vehicle from their home battery is charging DC fast charging into the vehicle but only up to 25KW if battery plus solar and home AC is outputting all at the same time. They said home AC only without solar or battery output 9 to 11 KW into the vehicle when charging, again still on the DC channel.

So it should be able to output as much as 25kw back to house if needed

So dcfc when it's inputting and it's drawing back DC current when the vehicle is outputting back to the house. It's got the same charging connector to the vehicle like you to expect but it's only using the DC channel

The Ford F-150 Lightning has a bi-directional charger that's plugged into the regular ccs plug so I don't think it can output as much back to the house as this unit using the DC channel only.

There was an article on electrek if you want a faster version I found the 45 minute video interesting I didn't think I'd watch it all.

Also I went to the website a couple weeks back sig energy PowerPoint Guard whatever the name of the company was.

 

[DYohn]

I can smell the Mach-E warranty going up in smoke...

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