Preconditioning Energy

[vvgogh]

Does anyone have any data on how much energy battery preconditioning uses when setting a departure time? Temperature the truck was soaking in and the associated preconditioning energy used would be helpful. It probably takes more energy to precondition the larger battery mass of the extended range, so SR vs. ER is also helpful to know.

I used the departure time frequently in December and my energy usage was much higher than I anticipated.

Sponsored

 

[Heliian]

A 25% charge with preconditioning and departure at - 2degC took 46kwh. 33kwh went into the battery the other 13kwh are line losses, battery heating, preconditioning and cabin heating.

The battery stays warmish when plugged in regardless of charge or precon settings so you will see increased electrical usage in the winter.

 

[Maquis]

It will vary quite a bit, depending on ambient temperature.

 

[Its PJ Bia]

Preconditioning only today in a garage that was around 30f consumed around 8kwh. Truck consumed energy from 6:42am until my 7:30am departure time.

 

[Maquis]

Preconditioning only today in a garage that was around 30f took around 8kw. Truck consumed energy from 6:42am until my 7:30am departure time.

Does that mean it used 8 kWh of energy or drew 8 KW of power? If the latter, you only consumed about 6 kwh.

 

[Its PJ Bia]

Consumed 8.2kwh

 

[Randall Stephens]

I only drive locally on a currently 120v evse. Would I be better off energy wise just unplugging it when I reach my target charge or leave it plugged in? There are days at a time I don’t drive.

 

[shutterbug]

I only drive locally on a currently 120v evse. Would I be better off energy wise just unplugging it when I reach my target charge or leave it plugged in? There are days at a time I don’t drive.

shouldn't make any difference

 

[GarageMahal]

I precondition in my 30F garage and at a glance it appears that preconditioning uses about the same amount of power as my nightly charge for my 20 mile round trip commute. Still worth it to me to have a warm truck in the morning.

Note that I do use less energy on my drive to work with the warm battery vs. the drive home after sitting outside all day.

Maybe someday I will dig into the data I have collected but I can confirm that today's preconditioning used just under 8kW for 1 hour (8kWh). Last night's charge was also 8kWh after about 17 miles of driving.

On a side note, I sure wish the @Ford Motor Company app recorded and displayed the odometer reading every time the vehicle was connected to a charger.

 

[RickLightning]

I precondition in my 30F garage and at a glance it appears that preconditioning uses about the same amount of power as my nightly charge for my 20 mile round trip commute. Still worth it to me to have a warm truck in the morning.

Note that I do use less energy on my drive to work with the warm battery vs. the drive home after sitting outside all day.

Maybe someday I will dig into the data I have collected but I can confirm that today's preconditioning used just under 8kW for 1 hour (8kWh). Last night's charge was also 8kWh after about 17 miles of driving.

On a side note, I sure wish the @Ford Motor Company app recorded and displayed the odometer reading every time the vehicle was connected to a charger.

A warm truck is provided by Remote Start. What's relevant is the amount of power used by preconditioning NOT including the warming of the cabin (or subtracting the energy of a remote start that warms the cabin), as compared to driving it cold. While you use less energy driving with the warm battery (and also have 100% vs. probably 85% power), how much less? 5 or 6kWh less?

 

[TaxmanHog]

Does anyone have any data on how much energy battery preconditioning uses when setting a departure time? Temperature the truck was soaking in and the associated preconditioning energy used would be helpful. It probably takes more energy to precondition the larger battery mass of the extended range, so SR vs. ER is also helpful to know.

I used the departure time frequently in December and my energy usage was much higher than I anticipated.

I've done consumption studies in various threads over the past 16 months in particular during the winter season, I might do this again when weather conditions are worse.

Yesterday, I used preconditioning to prepare my Lariat-ER for a 152 mile round trip from southern to northern Mass, cold temps were expected so I wanted to make sure the truck battery was at peak performance in addition to having the cabin pre-warmed before leaving.

Earlier in the day I charged up the battery to 90% from a regular 85% to make sure I had plenty of capacity and range.

This is a recap of the energy I consumed during the preconditioning {Departure Timer} set for drive at 6:10 PM, actual conditioning efforts started by the trucks computations at 5:29 PM.

Total energy during the 5 o'clock hour was 4.85 KWH, while during the 6 o'clock hour the remaining 10 minutes of cabin prep consumed 1.22 KWH. At this point in the evening temp's in the garage were around 40 degrees. The cabin warmed to 74, but when I started the drive I lowered it to 70.

The FordPass predicted range before the conditioning at 90%, indicated a potential range of 246 miles, after the battery conditioning phase was completed, the prediction jumped to 251 miles.

That's 6.07 KWH of energy burned to gain an addition 5 miles of range, [3.7 KWH @ consumption rate of 1.35 MPK .... explained further down.

I used the FordPass route planner for my trip, it suggested that I could complete the journey with a reserve of ~30% SOC, spirited freeway driving in temperature's of mid 30 to mid 20's

Instead of 30% reserve I was down to 11%, burning 79% for the 152 miles traveled comes to 1.47 MPK = (152/(131*.79))

When I got home I started recharging at a slow pace ~40 amps after a few minutes it was rising slowly to 12%, I let it run until this morning at about 8am when we needed to begin our morning errands & breakfast routine, the SOC had recovered to 51%.

Funny thing regarding the pessimistic range prediction this morning is directly tied to my previous evenings aggressive driving and the fact that I reset the drivers history as of 12/31/2023 to begin winter performance analysis 1/1 to 3/31, so having a clean slate I promptly romped on her, it shows the true colors of how bad cold fast driving can affect endurance, the imputed value comes to ~ 1.35 MPK = (90/(131*.51))the truck was predicting a pessimistic value based on the short poor performance.

The rest of the day, I was futzing with my FCSP to return the charge rate back to 80 amps so that I could get the battery charged back to 85%, side note, FordPass / cloud / FCSP-cloud communications are still haphazard, eventually I got the charging pace back up to 80 amps. once we were done with afternoon errands, I wanted to get a few more motorcycle miles in before the weekend Nor'easter, plugged in the truck and let the charging finish.

Total energy 11% to 85% which includes another 18 miles driving today is 115 KWH
Note, had I gone back to starting SOC of 90% it would have consumed ~123 KWH

The FCSP energy log is pretty accurate, showing 111 KWH, though the 115 from Emporia is closer to reality. For those who have seen my prior studies, note the horror of 2024 winter energy rates are now at 35.1 cents a KWH!!!! Again, 123 KWH would come to ~$43 for 170 miles of travel or 25 cents a mile!

Finally, back at 85% the GOM is back to its ~Happy~ numbers, MPK=2.29 = (255/(131*.85))

So, in the end .....is it really worth it to spend the 4.8 KWH, at last night temp's and trip length I doubt it really improved my experience, so for now as the majority of my travels are under 30 miles a day with a daily starting SOC of 85% it's totally unnecessary to warm the battery for daily short driving.

 

[vvgogh]

Consumed 8.2kwh

Thank you. This usage would explain my energy bill. I used the departure times maybe 30-40 times. I'll definitely stop doing that for daily usage and use the departure times more sparingly.

 

[Maquis]

Thank you. This usage would explain my energy bill. I used the departure times maybe 30-40 times. I'll definitely stop doing that for daily usage and use the departure times more sparingly.

Yeah, it’s only worth it if you need to maximize range for a road trip.

 

[TaxmanHog]

I performed a new test, primarily to confirm that a recent Ford Pass update 4.32.0 didn't mess up my generally working departure timer on the very rare occasion that I might use it, I also restructured the test for a very cold morning low was 22 overnight, no battery charging in the past 24 hours. I wanted to see the impact of how much energy is needed to "prepare" the battery for the 8am drive when it's cold soaked. In post 11 above I was able to leverage the residual heat from charging at 5:00 to 6:30 am, in effect minimizing last minute battery warming.

When I got up at 7:21 to see what the truck was doing, it had already started the process, at that moment this is what the GOM predicted 191 miles total range with a SOC of 77%

A few [3 & 4] minutes later, this is what it showed, note the "Distance added" is the performance improvement due to warming the battery. The "Finish time" doesn't makes sense, twelve minutes in the past! Status is "Preparing for drive at Home"

15 minutes later I'm up to 14 miles added new range is 202, notice the status of operation is now "Cabin preconditioning", the emporia energy chart shows the start time was 7:12 am, quickly jumping to around 10KW rate, then 15KW rate,

Outside temp was 26°

13 minutes later and 40 minutes into the process, I tweaked the FCSP amp rating to 80A to test if I could effectively manage the energy flow on the fly, it worked.

At 8am I got the alert that the Lightning was ready to drive, 19 miles of endurance added for the same 77% SOC now I could in theory go 207 miles. At that moment I had consumed 9.7 KWH of energy to gain the additional 19 miles or range. The minute chart gives you an idea of the power flow through the process.

I unplugged at 8:04am, total energy used from the grid was 10.1 KWH

We drove to our first destination a whole 1.5 miles away, SOC bumped up to 78% range dropped to 204. The trip home is a slightly different path, adding 3 actual miles of travel, SOC dropped to 77% and range is now 199 miles

After sitting in the driveway for 5 hours, unplugged with ambient temps of 35 degrees, the range has dropped to 195 miles, I'm driving the truck at 3:45 pm to church, the unplugged departure timer will only warm the cabin, I expect it will kick off around 3:40 pm.

So, I've burned appx 8 extra KWH over the average 2 to 3 KWH of a remote start & go process.

It would be nice to be able to use departure timer with an on/off switch for battery conditioning, I would generally turn it off unless I was planning for a really long road trip, the extra 19 miles of potential range could useful reaching a second leg charging station.

 

[vvgogh]

Total energy used from the grid was 10.1 KWH

I've burned appx 8 extra KWH over the average 2 to 3 KWH of a remote start & go process.

That's helpful datapoint at 22-26F. Was the truck in a slightly warmer garage, or outside in those temperatures?

Sponsored