Condition Battery While Traveling - Does it Matter

[NeuroDawg]

Hi all! I'm about to take my first road trip in my Lightning XLT ER. I've read a lot about battery conditioning, but I can't seem to find the answer I'm looking for. I know that in hot temperatures, conditioning the battery (by selecting the charging station in the Ford Nav) will engage cooling to get the battery to 90°F for more efficient charging. Is the opposite true? Ambient temperature during my travels will be 50-75°. When I navigate to a charging station, does the battery get warmed, or in cooler temperatures does it matter?

And secondly, in cooler temperatures does it even matter? Will I see significantly time gains in charging by navigating to the charging station with the Ford navigation, or can I ignore that and just keep navigating with ABRP?

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[3rdgenfan]

I feel just by driving it you'll have the battery adequately warmed up, but not sure you'd see much of a difference in speed unless the ambient temp was in the 30s.

 

[RickLightning]

At those temps, you're good. No need to precondition.

 

[hturnerfamily]

'pre-conditioning' a battery, of any size, is simply about bringing the battery cells up to 'temperature': cells have a temperature range in which they charge the most effectively(efficiency, speed, health, etc)... it's generally very similar to our own body temperatures: in the 90-100degree range.

some EVs have these systems built in, as the owner may not have driven the vehicle long/far enough for the battery to warm up, on it's own, especially in very cold environments... DC Fast Charging is hard on a 'cold' battery pack.
some EVs do not have these pre-conditioning systems built in, simply because DC Fast Charging for an 'extremely cold' battery pack is unlikely to happen, at least very often, as most owners are not immediately DC Fast Charging with a cold battery, they are ARRIVING with a warmed battery after having already traveled many, many miles. The travel itself is what pre-conditions the battery.

Unless an EV needs immediate DC Fast Charging from the very moment it is turned on, the likelihood of ever needing any real 'pre-conditioning' of the battery is not any real concern.

Some owners will have the opposite concern: 'pre-conditioning' their battery pack to COOL it down, if it happens to already be overly heated due to long drives in very HOT climates. I suggest that this too, is infrequent, and is not really any issue to the battery and DC Fast Charging. The cooling system for the battery pack is already in place to monitor and provide 'some' cooling, just like a radiator is to an engine.

Whether DC Fast Charging is somewhat slowed due to either a cold battery pack, or an overheated one, is not really known, or at least it is very difficult to ascertain.

I suppose that one can wonder and concern themselves with these things, but, honestly, when we are DC Fast Charging, generally only when we are traveling, it's unlikely that there's much of anything you can 'do' about it, regardless. It is what it is.

My wife's new Kia EV9 has a 'pre-conditioning' option, where you can tell the vehicle to start the process, although many times it's already 'up to temperature' and won't do anything, anyway. I suspect it's only an option, or precaution, if an owner needs to precondition fairly quickly in their travels. Although, frankly, the preconditioning, itself, is going to take some time, on it's own.

 

[TaxmanHog]

And secondly, in cooler temperatures does it even matter?

Sub freezing conditions are when it matters most for DCFC session, if you don't precondition in transit, the BMS and charge controller will prioritize warming the battery before allowing high DC charge current to ramp up.

 

[21st Century Truck]

Om my former, very well-traveled Mach E it mattered a lot to precondition before starting a DC Fast charge session. It demonstrably mattered to me for consistently faster DC Fast charging sessions on longer trips, and per battery experts it mattered for the longevity of the traction (HV) battery although I drove other systems of that car into the ground loooong before my traction battery showed usage degradation

Preconditioning the traction battery before DC fast charging mattered much more for me in the dead of Winter, yet on pretty much any long trip when minutes add up, setting a DC Fast charging point as an intermediate destination in the Synch NAV did help overall. It's a degree of help and it does depend on the cold -- temperate -- high temperatures around the car as it drives, and in temperate conditions it mattered almost negligibly. I will assume my Lightning behaves in similar ways unless it proves me wrong.

I've heard it said that overall, traction batteries prefer close to the temperatures our human bodies prefer when starting a DC Fast charge.

Of course, on our Fords the only way AFAIK to pre-condition while driving is to aim for a DC Fast charging station as a Synch NAV pre-set destination (intermediate if needs be) even if our actual charging station, for example a Tesla Supercharger, is not visible in the NAV. As long as we set a NAV-visible DC Fast charging point relatively close by, and about 20 + minutes before we get there, the traction battery will generally get to an optimal internal temperature range to fast charge, as long as the truck reaches our preferred fast charging point within a few dozen miles / dozens of minutes. Otherwise as per my Mach E experience, the car's traction battery preconditioning system will simply not know when we plan to start a fast charge and thus won't know when to start the traction battery preconditioning process.

I do hope that Ford evolves this to some way the driver can precondition on demand.

 

[mtxmiller]

Just need a precondition button - the nav thing is nearly unusable

 

[astrand1]

Just need a precondition button - the nav thing is nearly unusable

What do you mean unusable? I think the sync nav is pretty good. I used to hate factory nav and use CarPlay but so far I’ve been pleased with it. Just took a cross country trip from LA home to Michigan and used the sync nav for the entire trip.

 

[21st Century Truck]

What do you mean unusable? I think the sync nav is pretty good. I used to hate factory nav and use CarPlay but so far I’ve been pleased with it. Just took a cross country trip from LA home to Michigan and used the sync nav for the entire trip.

Yeah I agree... I's not bad once You learn how to use it.

"...not bad" in this use case translates as "good enough". Besides, it's A) free and B) built-in - two great factors imho.

 

[astrand1]

Yeah I agree... I's not bad once You learn how to use it.

Yeah it took a minute but it’s not that bad. Even has been good about routing around traffic etc.

 

[mtxmiller]

Never shows Tesla charger and hard to use while driving

 

[21st Century Truck]

Never shows Tesla charger and hard to use while driving

My NAV shows some Tesla Superchargers but a very limited set of them... nowhere near their true available number. Supposedly, from discussions on the sister Mach E forum, Ford Corporate is "working on this and aware of the issue"... NFI.

 

[potato]

Sub freezing conditions are when it matters most for DCFC session, if you don't precondition in transit, the BMS and charge controller will prioritize warming the battery before allowing high DC charge current to ramp up.

My $0.02. I watched a charge in -20 C last winter. The battery heater did run full bore (8 or 9 kW) for 15 minutes or so until the battery temperature reached about +19 C. So that amount of charge current was going to heating rather than directly to the battery. *But* if I had been able to precondition, the heating energy would just have come out sooner, before the charge started; it still would need to be added back during the charge. And I don't recall the rate from the charger being much lower than usual. It was in the 120 kW range as it always was at that charger.

I wish I had taken detailed notes with exact numbers. But I do recall coming to the conclusion that preconditioning wouldn't really save me much time at the charger. Maybe 5 minutes. So personally I'm not as worried about it as I was when I first got the truck. Maybe if I lived in Phoenix or Vegas. Hot is probably worse than cold. Though the tow/haul trick might help there.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Hot is probably worse than cold.

I think cold is important to battery health, note the electro / mechanical heat generated as we're driving on a long frigid trip helps to moderate the battery temperature, moving heat from the motors to the battery, as well the PTC sending it's extra energy either enroute or while sitting at the charging stall.

@MickeyAO could refresh our memories about which is worse, fast charging in the extreme heat or cold.

 

[thunderbayterry]

What do you mean unusable? I think the sync nav is pretty good. I used to hate factory nav and use CarPlay but so far I’ve been pleased with it. Just took a cross country trip from LA home to Michigan and used the sync nav for the entire trip.

The problem with the sync nav is that the Tesla Superchargers don't show up. I live in Canada and drive into Minnesota a lot - often in the winter and its COLD COLD here - so I have NO WAY to precondition my battery when I am planning to stop at to my favorite Tesla Supercharger in Tofte, MN on my way to Minneapolis. What I plan to do is use the sync nav to navigate to a charger in Lutsen, MN - which is 9 miles away. Its just not an eloquent solution.

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