Cold snap triggering battery “protection” heating?

[LightningShow]

Just curious if anyone is seeing this. I figured it might happen with the very cold weather we’re having. This morning the app said “preparing to drive” even though there was no departure time set. I’m assuming it was doing some unscheduled preconditioning. It was only about 15 degrees at the time, we’re going -12 overnight.

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[Pioneer74]

We left our Mach-E at the airport in Detroit. Been getting down in single digits overnight the past few nights. Should be interesting when we get back to see if the charge percentage went down trying to keep itself warm.

 

[SmokingtheMeats]

Just curious if anyone is seeing this. I figured it might happen with the very cold weather we’re having. This morning the app said “preparing to drive” even though there was no departure time set. I’m assuming it was doing some unscheduled preconditioning. It was only about 15 degrees at the time, we’re going -12 overnight.

I’ve noticed that before. Thought it was odd

 

[TaxmanHog]

I've got a trip Saturday morning/afternoon that is about 160 miles round trip.

The truck is charged and ready to go parked in the garage overnight.

I'm paying attention the my Emporia Vue2 energy monitor to see how much shore power is taken to maintain the battery overnight.

I set departure time for 10am, though my real time departure is 10:30.

This allows for 15 minutes of sleep time, then 15 minutes of remote start to do a round of cabin/steering wheel preparation.

Looking to see when the truck decides to kick off battery conditioning, in prior milder winter times it started about 40 minutes prior to scheduled departure time, these cold conditions may show an earlier start time.

 

[LightningShow]

I've got a trip Saturday morning/afternoon that is about 160 miles round trip.

The truck is charged and ready to go parked in the garage overnight.

I'm paying attention the my Emporia Vue2 energy monitor to see how much shore power is taken to maintain the battery overnight.

I set departure time for 10am, though my real time departure is 10:30.

This allows for 15 minutes of sleep time, then 15 minutes of remote start to do a round of cabin/steering wheel preparation.

Looking to see when the truck decides to kick off battery conditioning, in prior milder winter times it started about 40 minutes prior to scheduled departure time, these cold conditions may show an earlier start time.

I’ll be interested to hear what you find!

 

[RickLightning]

Just curious if anyone is seeing this. I figured it might happen with the very cold weather we’re having. This morning the app said “preparing to drive” even though there was no departure time set. I’m assuming it was doing some unscheduled preconditioning. It was only about 15 degrees at the time, we’re going -12 overnight.

Yes, that message shows when it's simply warming the battery IF you look.

 

[luebri]

We left our Mach-E at the airport in Detroit. Been getting down in single digits overnight the past few nights. Should be interesting when we get back to see if the charge percentage went down trying to keep itself warm.

Very curious what you find!

I havent been brave enough to try it yet other than a 10 hour standard day outside at work. In which case I have yet to notice and document a loss of SOC that would indicate the usage of kWh for emergency heating.

What I have noticed is that if the truck at a certain temp (under 32F is what I am honing in on so far) and plugged in it will do a mild warm up and at times even some "blip" warm ups throughout the night even if it is outside of the charging window.

My evidence is from my charge window being set to 4am to 7am. However sometimes when plugging it in in the evening, either when I got home or before bed, I noticed the charger kick on and watched my whole home energy monitor and could see the usage from the charger.

So I've been trying to check my battery temp on my ODB before I plug in to identify the temp threshold. I've also started not plugging in until 10 PM at night because I was annoyed this was happening sometimes during my peak rate times from 4 to 8 PM or normal rate of 8 to 10.

So my hypothesis is there are 2 different low temp thresholds.

One low "maintenance" temp trigger for using wall energy when plugged in and an even lower "emergency" temp trigger which will use the battery energy to warm itself up when approaching a harmful temperature.

The "maintenance" temp trigger may also explain why some have noticed what seems to be a "schizophrenic" deviation from their set charging schedules. That's originally what I thought until I started being able to repeat the scenario.

 

[ddbrooke]

I left my truck at home while I went to Florida for 10 days. It was at 54% when I left unplugged. It's been in the 30s and 40s while I was gone until the last couple of days. This morning it was in the teens headed for 6 overnight when my son texted me to ask if he could drive it today. My app hadn't update since I've been in Florida so I wasn't sure what the SOC was. He got in it to set up a departure time to pre-condition it and the battery was at 55%. What the __? Makes no sense but at least it didn't loose anything over the past 9 days.

 

[TaxmanHog]

No appreciable energy used overnight since fully charging the truck yesterday afternoon.

Just prior to 9am the truck started "Preparing for Drive" drawing a trivial amount of energy.
This may ramp up in the next 30 minutes to prepare battery temp's and departure for 10 am.

 

[alanack]

Just curious if anyone is seeing this. I figured it might happen with the very cold weather we’re having. This morning the app said “preparing to drive” even though there was no departure time set. I’m assuming it was doing some unscheduled preconditioning. It was only about 15 degrees at the time, we’re going -12 overnight.

same here…… no departure time set.
preparing for drive changed back to charge complete 10 minutes later. Plugged in all night, set to 50%. Temps outside 0F.

 

[LightningShow]

I checked this morning and my truck was charging. That’s nothing to do with the cold, though, that’s just Ford’s poorly designed charging algorithm. I told it to stop charging last night at 95% but it decided i needed a 100% charge at some point in the middle of the night. @Ford Motor Company really needs to fix this broken interface.

 

[LightningShow]

Also interesting to note that when i went out the the store last night at 95% charge and -2F the available power was 87% IIRC.

 

[TaxmanHog]

9:30 am drawing substantial energy and Fordpass has updated to cabin preconditioning, notice the improved predicted (though unrealistic) range.

EDIT, prior to the above, at 9:14 (while I was not looking) the battery warming phase ran for about 8 minutes.

 

[Maquis]

I left my truck at home while I went to Florida for 10 days. It was at 54% when I left unplugged. It's been in the 30s and 40s while I was gone until the last couple of days. This morning it was in the teens headed for 6 overnight when my son texted me to ask if he could drive it today. My app hadn't update since I've been in Florida so I wasn't sure what the SOC was. He got in it to set up a departure time to pre-condition it and the battery was at 55%. What the __? Makes no sense but at least it didn't loose anything over the past 9 days.

I‘ve left my Mach-E at the airport for several days at a time. It’s there now and was there last week during single-digit temps. It has never lost any charge while parked.

Since the % charge figure resolution is only whole numbers, +-1 could just be rounding, or just temperature effects on the SOC algorithm.

 

[Grumpy2]

9:30 am drawing substantial energy and Fordpass has updated to cabin preconditioning, notice the improved predicted (though unrealistic) range.

Help me understand your post. You had a departure time set at 10am, the battery was already at 100% charge, and apparently the preconditioning started 30 minutes early using about 9 kw?

Am I reading that correctly?
Thanks

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