Ford's Important Tip For Driving Your Lightning in the Cold: Preconditioning / Pre-Heat Your Battery

If they would give us a way to do it on the fly and not have to schedule it with the scheduler, I'd be happy to do it. But I leave the house at unpredictable times and there is no way (that I am aware of), to precondition on the fly, say one hour before leaving. Or am I missing something?

frautumn said:

If they would give us a way to do it on the fly and not have to schedule it with the scheduler, I'd be happy to do it. But I leave the house at unpredictable times and there is no way (that I am aware of), to precondition on the fly, say one hour before leaving. Or am I missing something?

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I agree, @Ford Motor Company we need a "Pre-condition Battery Now" button on the app at a minimum, preferably in-vehicle as well.

As of now in a mild winter with temps in the low mid 20's in the early morning, my preconditioning sessions have been running about 40 minutes when not having just recently charged the battery, ie. I charged to my target SOC the evening before, then many hours pass by and it takes about 40 minutes to make the battery ready to drive and warm the cabin.

Last night I changed the charging scheme to a time frame that is as close as I can get to "just in time" charging, calculating this window takes a bit of forethought, but ended up with a 5am start to the charge window to replenish 12% of used SOC from the prior days travels. That took 65 minutes at 18 kwh FCSP running full tilt at 80 amps setting actual output 74 amps, during this hour the battery temps must have increased some but I don't have exact values.

From 6:05 am to 7:30 am the charging stopped, the battery probably cooled some during this period.

At 7:30 the truck decided it was time to begin pre-conditioning for my 8am departure, energy consumption was less than prior events when starting with a completely cold battery, it drew only 12kw for a couple minutes then ramped down to about 8kw for a few minutes then 6 kw to continue warming the cabin. Truck was good to go with 80% SOC, and 100% available throttle power at 24 degrees outside temp.

Tailoring the charging and precondition is going to require attention as winter progresses, I look forward to the challenge.

frautumn said:

If they would give us a way to do it on the fly and not have to schedule it with the scheduler, I'd be happy to do it. But I leave the house at unpredictable times and there is no way (that I am aware of), to precondition on the fly, say one hour before leaving. Or am I missing something?

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Would be nice if the scheduled departure times work consistently too.

sotek2345 said:

Would be nice if the scheduled departure times work consistently too.

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Commented on the video thinking of you. Sad they still can't get it right.

Recommend everybody post their feedback with the feature on the video, will have a lot more @Ford Motor Company eyes on it there than they seem to care here.

frautumn said:

If they would give us a way to do it on the fly and not have to schedule it with the scheduler, I'd be happy to do it. But I leave the house at unpredictable times and there is no way (that I am aware of), to precondition on the fly, say one hour before leaving. Or am I missing something?

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No quick action button, if you have enough lead time, adjust your preset, but the EVSE will continue to idle for a period of time after the intended departure time, at the moment I'm testing various offsets to see how long it takes the truck to decide to shut down if actual departure is later than indicated, at the moment 15 minutes late it's still drawing idle current from the EVSE, next up are 20, 25 and 30 minutes late.

frautumn said:

If they would give us a way to do it on the fly and not have to schedule it with the scheduler, I'd be happy to do it. But I leave the house at unpredictable times and there is no way (that I am aware of), to precondition on the fly, say one hour before leaving. Or am I missing something?

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I’ve schedule a departure for 45 minutes away and the preconditioning worked well.
I also got notification from Ford Pass app that cabin was up to temperature. Seat and steering wheel heaters were on when I got in.

Does powering up the vehicle from the FordPass app effectively precondition it?

@Ford Motor Company I setup departure time this week from M-F at 7:55 am and it did not work.

I had set it up ad hoc on some specific days and it had worked.

The schedule is useless to me and I don’t always know 40 minutes ahead of time I will be going out. Even if my power and range is cut in half, I will be fine with most of my drives. It sounds like the whole thing is a matter of comfort and convenience. Preconditioning while plugged in may not necessarily save energy. I am fine getting into a cold truck and turn on the seat warmer and drive with half the power. My main question is, does leaving truck disconnected in cold and driving it cold do any permanent damage to batteries? Would I be using my electricity for preconditioning to save Ford warranty cost? Or battery only care about getting hot not as much about getting cold? I read somewhere that cold can do damage too but I don’t remember how cold and what kind of damage. Anyone know anything about this?

I'd rather have a warm steering wheel than a warm battery.

Maxx said:

The schedule is useless to me and I don’t always know 40 minutes ahead of time I will be going out. Even if my power and range is cut in half, I will be fine with most of my drives. It sounds like the whole thing is a matter of comfort and convenience. Preconditioning while plugged in may not necessarily save energy. I am fine getting into a cold truck and turn on the seat warmer and drive with half the power. My main question is, does leaving truck disconnected in cold and driving it cold do any permanent damage to batteries? Would I be using my electricity for preconditioning to save Ford warranty cost? Or battery only care about getting hot not as much about getting cold? I read somewhere that cold can do damage too but I don’t remember how cold and what kind of damage. Anyone know anything about this?

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Your truck will warm the battery (either using stored energy, or energy from the grid if plugged in) to avoid any damage or deterioration. However, this temperature point is less than the optimum temp for range/performance.

On a daily basis, preconditioning is just about comfort / convenience as you said. You can also get that just by remote starting the truck in the app (for the cabin anyways). Where it really matters is before a longer range road trip, as it can get you an extra 40-60 miles of range on that first leg. Thankfully, we typically know those are coming more in advance.

Nick503955 said:

Does powering up the vehicle from the FordPass app effectively precondition it?

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Only the cabin, not the battery.

sotek2345 said:

Your truck will warm the battery (either using stored energy, or energy from the grid if plugged in) to avoid any damage or deterioration. However, this temperature point is less than the optimum temp for range/performance.

On a daily basis, preconditioning is just about comfort / convenience as you said. You can also get that just by remote starting the truck in the app (for the cabin anyways). Where it really matters is before a longer range road trip, as it can get you an extra 40-60 miles of range on that first leg. Thankfully, we typically know those are coming more in advance.

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very helpful. It looks like I will be fine with the way it works.