Charging Lightning ER on 50A Circuit with L2 Charger

[RickLightning]

On charging rate, I guess it depends on what part of the curve you're going up. I have an FCSP installed on a dedicated 100-amp line, and the FCSP is set in the hardware switch to deliver 80 amps. However, in the FordPass app, I've set the charging rate to 48 amps. I typically keep the vehicle charged to 50%, and in day-to-day driving hardly ever dip below 40% SOC. A couple of weeks ago, I charged from 49% to 80% in 3 hours and 27 minutes. That's a 31% charge in 207 minutes or 0.15% charge per minute, so in 60 min, I add 9.0%. So, 0.090 x 131 kWh capacity = ~12 kWh per hour. This calculation inherently includes the 10% charging loss. It's that 80% to 90% part of the trip up the charging curve that I avoided that kills the kWh added per hour overall figure.

BTW, Ford probably just put the "recommended" 90% charge figure in the manual to avoid owner range anxiety and having unhappy owners stranded out in the boondocks far from a charging station. In anything a large monolithic company like Ford does, the marketing department probably has a significant influence on what's revealed to the customer and why. Ford basically wants you to be happy with your vehicle, recommend it to others, and buy more yourself down the line. And they don't want to have to pay any warranty claims for batteries that don't have at least 70% capacity after 8 years or 100,000 miles. I would interpret anything they tell you about charging the battery in that light, not that it's the best charging scheme to have far higher battery health than only a crappy 70% of full capacity left after 8 years or 100,000 miles.

Strange, too, that folks don't think the FCSP or the HIS Intelligent Backup system is the best technology in the world but yet swear that Ford, in its owner's manual, is recommending the best charging scheme to maintain the highest lifetime battery capacity... There ought to be a thread on this forum for those who reach 8 years or 100,000 miles with their Lightning to report where they're at in battery capacity (and how they got there).

There is basically a flat charging curve for AC charging until the very end. I will post mine shortly. I charge to 90%. It's flat.

Ford doesn't make the charger.

Not charging to 100% except for trips is basically an industry standard.

Your math is not right. 48 x 240 = 11.52, less 10% loss is 10.37. Open the Ford app while charging and you will see 10, because it lops off the decimal place. You won't see 12 or even 11.

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[Jim Lewis]

Your math is not right. 48 x 240 = 11.52, less 10% loss is 10.37.

Hi, Rick. I see your point on amps x volts. But my calculation is not based on theoretical amps delivered by the charger. It's just based on energy actually taken up by the battery, according to Ford's software system, as relayed to me by the FordPass app.

So, a small part of the apparent discrepancy that you point out is that the figure in the FordPass app is only accurate to TWO significant figures and might be rounded up. The percentage charge increase might have been 30.51% and rounded up to the 31% number I used. Or even worse, maybe Ford's rounding scheme is anything above 30% gets rounded to 31%! IDK.

The other unknown is when I'm on an 80-amp hardware setting but a 48-amp software limit, do I really only get exactly 48 amps all the way up the charging curve as the resistance is changing, etc? And is the 10% loss figure constant all the way up the charging curve, or is that an average figure covering the whole range, and do you actually do better in lower parts of the range with less charging loss when the input resistance is lower and the applied voltage is lower? Maybe I benefited from that by not going up the last 10% of the range to 90% SOC. (and I'm charging a vehicle whose battery is cool to start over a much smaller range than 15% to 90% (only 49% to 80%).

Using 31% charge added as a good figure, my actual calculation, carrying unwarranted significant figures, was 11.78 kWh added per hour. If I assume that I really only hit a 30% charge increase in 3 hr 27 min, the kWh/hr figure becomes 11.40 kWh/hr. So, either the amps delivered and/or the charging rate loss are off if I can make it from 49% to 80% SOC in 3hr 27 min...

I do agree with you that using an L2 charger, you can charge every day to 90% SOC in Ford's battery indicator (~81% actual battery SOC) and do very well in battery lifespan - and ~never have range anxiety in daily local driving. You'll ~double your charging lifespan as compared to charging every day to 100%, which Ford EV VP Darren Palmer said you could do if you wanted with an L2 charger, and still meet the at least 70% capacity left after 8 years or 100K miles. But in general, if one wants the very best long-term lifespan, staying as much as possible within a modest depth-of-discharge range and the mid and lower SOC ranges above 20% SOC will give you the longest battery lifespan. Doing so is just not very practical for most people, but it works for me. I've tested this out over the years with a number of consumer devices. My wife has to charge her iPhone every day to 100% to get through the workday, whereas as an older retiree, I never go above 60% SOC on my iPhone (and I have to charge back to that 3x or 4x a day from ~40% SOC). After 2 years with an iPhone 13 Pro Max, she's down to 92% battery capacity. I'm still at 100% on my 1-year-old iPhone 14 Pro Max (and same deal for me for 2 years use of iPhone 6S, 1 year of iPhone XS Max - no more than a percent or two capacity loss within those timespans according to the Apple Battery Health monitor). Same for two Apple Watchs. Li-ion battery-powered EGO string trimmer and blower, etc. (4-yrs use, still going strong). Nikon DSLR and Sony camcorder batteries in use from 2006 and 2009, respectively, etc.

I agree that the FCSP is not made by Ford (as probably is true of many other parts in a Ford vehicle itself, like the microprocessors Ford couldn't get enough of! ). The point is Ford is vouching for the FCSP, and it's ~OK but not great. The same might be true for Ford's charging recommendations, which are certainly good enough to make sure owners get through their warranty period.

 

[Mcgyverrod]

What are people's experiences charging the Lightning ER on a L2 Charger limited to 50A circuit?
How many more hours to go from 15% TO 80/100%
Thanks,

I have a 60a NEM14 circuit wired to my garage but, with the direct-wired Ford PRO L-2 charger, I chose the 48a charging option which works fine for me for charging my 2023ER battery. When I want it charged fully, I just have it start after peak periods and charge until I am at 85%. My 2 Tesla batteries put out 10kw so I only draw 2 kw from the grid.

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