HV battery range seems very low after AC charging

[21st Century Truck]

As a wise older engineer once told me: "Electricity is not a liquid. You can measure water or gasoline or diesel or kerosene or coal almost exactly, by volume and by weight. Stored electricity can only be measured by its potential to do work".

When I switched to EV driving years later, I began to understand what that old engineer had shared with me.

Hence, the Guess-o-Meter on our EV vehicles. It tries to estimate the potential to do work by our vehicle-stored electricity. It's always an ever-changing estimate and not an actual measure of physical weight or volume. It's not wrong in what it tries to do... we users have to un-train ourselves from a lifetime habit of measuring fuel by physical attributes (gallons / liters / pounds etc.) and then our GOMs might become more useful to us.

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[invertedspear]

As a wise older engineer once told me: "Electricity is not a liquid. You can measure water or gasoline or diesel or kerosene or coal almost exactly, by volume and by weight. Stored electricity can only be measured by its potential to do work".

When I switched to EV driving years later, I began to understand what that old engineer had shared with me.

Hence, the Guess-o-Meter on our EV vehicles. It tries to estimate the potential to do work by our vehicle-stored electricity. It's always an ever-changing estimate and not an actual measure of physical weight or volume. It's not wrong in what it tries to do... we users have to un-train ourselves from a lifetime habit of measuring fuel by physical attributes (gallons / liters / pounds etc.) and then our GOMs might become more useful to us.

This is a great message. It's further compounded by the fact that the truck has no idea how much potential is stored in those cells. What it knows is that more potential equates to slightly higher voltage. This is the same with any battery really, even your phone. It can only infer your state of charge by the nominal voltage variance.

 

[Monkey]

What difference does extra charge time make if it's sitting in your driveway?

Are you saying there is more heat loss above 90% when charging on a level 2 charger? Please explain further.

I'm not sure what you mean by "bleed off of the HV battery."

It doesn’t really matter if it’s sitting in your driveway…. But it’s just a definitively slower charge-up for that last 8% or so and less efficient, so those last few kWh take proportionately more time and $. Just seems kinda pointless to me unless you’re needing the full range every time you charge or about to start a road trip.

Discharge inefficiency is higher at > 90% SOC and you get a bleeding off effect for the first bit the battery is used where it is lost as additional heat. That extra 13kWh or so from charging to 100% on the ER battery doesn’t get you 13kWh of energy that can be used as efficiently it would be at a lower SOC. You will also see more phantom drain when charged to 100%, which is why you want to have it topped up to the 100% just before you begin your trip.

Ford included more additional battery overhead than Tesla and KIA do, but still not enough to escape all the little quirks of a 100% charge. You can charge to 100% regularly, even every day if you must. There are just some caveats Inherent to doing so.

The LFP battery pack won’t suffer from this. And that will be in the SR trucks. initially that was supposed to happen later in the ‘24 model year, but I don’t think Ford has started shipping any vehicles with the LFP batteries? I haven’t kept up on that or seen any confirmation if they have…

 

[Scorpio3d]

Having a destination set in the nav can also make the GOM stupid.

I think you mean stupider

 

[electricpig]

One thing not mentioned here that has the potential to help a good deal under more urban drive conditions is to turn on and learn to use one pedal driving. The default is for it to be off. I do allot of suburban driving locally, and in mild temps I can get sometimes 3.2m/kwh going to work (but higher elevation) and occasionally 3.8m/kwh come back from work. It's 13 miles each way. Also temp can have a really big impact as well. At the closest point of last winter I got barely 2.0m/kwh driving home at the usual time just because it was cold with a cold soaked battery. For reference March 1 2014, my total average is 2.8m/kwh that includes the usual work, shorter trips on the freeway, and a few longer freeway trips where I usually stay at 7ph as speed KILLS range.

 

[potato]

One thing not mentioned here that has the potential to help a good deal under more urban drive conditions is to turn on and learn to use one pedal driving. The default is for it to be off.

One pedal driving has no effect on efficiency for the Lightning. It has blended braking. Unless you are standing on the brakes (making uncomfortably abrupt stops) you will get full regen in either mode.

 

[electricpig]

One pedal driving has no effect on efficiency for the Lightning. It has blended braking. Unless you are standing on the brakes (making uncomfortably abrupt stops) you will get full regen in either mode.

You are incorrect sir. The normal mode regeneration is much much weaker. Sport mode is very close. And no, I was not "standing on the brake". My averages show that very well. You don't like using one-pedal driving, fine by me. You do you. But it does make a significant difference in urban suburban driving over "Normal" mode without it. Does nothing for highway driving.

 

[RickLightning]

I just did a test of the Guess-o-Meter processing I always charge at home, but we were doing a trip to Mt Baker (NW Washington state), staying at a hotel nearby. Charged it up to 100% (of course I had to manually control this telling it when to start so that it would get to 99.999 just before we took off). ABRP told me that I would be fine leaving with 100% and getting back with 10% no charge needed.

Note: I usually get 2.4, not too much high speed highway, and I'm guessing that the temperature here is good for the batteries (does anyone know the 'ideal' temperature for the batteries?)

I was going to top off at the hotel, but turns out they only had Tesla (even though website said 'electric car charging stations'), and my adapter order is 19,xxx so I'm still waiting for that. But using my gut I thought we would be fine. Once we got to the mountain parking area (5,000'+) with the highway driving and then mountain climbing we were down to 46% and Guess-o-Meter said 84 miles left. Knowing we would be going back down hill, and what we 'should' get I wasn't too concerned. The truck yelled at me "critical charging - find somewhere to go" (since it knew we were quite a way from a charging station).

Going back downhill we saw the battery charge up and the range go up, but rather slowly. I didn't want to be caught with my pants down so I stopped at an Electrify America and did my first Public Charge. Added 18.423kWh in 7 minutes, and got back home with more than that left in the tank.

Now I feel better about my own guess-o-meter in my head Use 54% of the battery going up hill and 36% going the other way.

Ideal battery temp is 77 degrees.

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[Henry Ford]

You are incorrect sir. The normal mode regeneration is much much weaker. Sport mode is very close. And no, I was not "standing on the brake". My averages show that very well. You don't like using one-pedal driving, fine by me. You do you. But it doesn't make a significant difference in urban suburban driving over "Normal" mode without it. Does nothing for highway driving.

When using two pedal drive mode (2PD) the regen is whatever you tell to be by pressing on the brake pedal. A 1PD user who is forced to use the brake pedal because they overshot their turn will be less efficient than a 2PD user who eases gently into the brake pedal on the same turn. Any loss in efficiency while using 2PD, or even 1PD, is user technique.

1PD vs 2PD is a user preference. I prefer 1PD not because it's more efficient but because, well...I prefer it.

 

[Maquis]

You are incorrect sir. The normal mode regeneration is much much weaker. Sport mode is very close. And no, I was not "standing on the brake". My averages show that very well. You don't like using one-pedal driving, fine by me. You do you. But it does make a significant difference in urban suburban driving over "Normal" mode without it. Does nothing for highway driving.

If the brake coach shows the same number in each mode, efficiency is the same. It’s certainly possible to brake using only regen without using 1PD. If changing modes causes you to drive differently, all bets are off.

 

[Grumpy2]

If the brake coach shows the same number in each mode, efficiency is the same. It’s certainly possible to brake using only regen without using 1PD. If changing modes causes you to drive differently, all bets are off.

This is the beauty of the Lightning setup, all of the options. I switch modes as traffic conditions change. Highway is normal, as traffic gets worse I change modes. The goal is keeping the brake coach at 100%, keeps me paying attention!

 

[Zprime29]

You are incorrect sir. The normal mode regeneration is much much weaker. Sport mode is very close. And no, I was not "standing on the brake". My averages show that very well. You don't like using one-pedal driving, fine by me. You do you. But it does make a significant difference in urban suburban driving over "Normal" mode without it. Does nothing for highway driving.

After 31k miles my overall average is 2.5mpk, and in cooler weather when I'm not cranking the A/C I average 2.8mpk on my commute. All 2 pedal driving. The blended braking is quite possibly a better feature than the frunk.

 

[electricpig]

Use whatever justification you want, I don't care. You don't like one pedal driving, I don't care. I saw the results. Regen is not as strong. My efficiency went up allot. You are incorrect, and others have had similar results. I'm not wasting time arguing with you on a forum. Your unlikely o change your mind, and I know you are incorrect at the very minimum for my cirstancea. Your employing I don't know how to drive etc is just very weak. Perhaps it's the other way around. My longer term averages speak well for my use of the truck.

 

[Zprime29]

Use whatever justification you want, I don't care. You don't like one pedal driving, I don't care. I saw the results. Regen is not as strong. My efficiency went up allot. You are incorrect, and others have had similar results. I'm not wasting time arguing with you on a forum. Your unlikely o change your mind, and I know you are incorrect at the very minimum for my cirstancea. Your employing I don't know how to drive etc is just very weak. Perhaps it's the other way around. My longer term averages speak well for my use of the truck.

Here's the bottom line, you are confusing what works for you as what is best for everyone. That is what we are disputing. No one is claiming that you aren't getting better efficiency for your use case with 1 pedal. However, you cannot empirically claim that 1 pedal is more efficient for everyone else. The simple fact is that each individual is going to do better with one or the other. Both styles have equal potential for efficiency and it's up to the driver to figure out what works for them.

 

[potato]

Use whatever justification you want, I don't care. You don't like one pedal driving, I don't care. I saw the results. Regen is not as strong. My efficiency went up allot. You are incorrect, and others have had similar results. I'm not wasting time arguing with you on a forum. Your unlikely o change your mind, and I know you are incorrect at the very minimum for my cirstancea. Your employing I don't know how to drive etc is just very weak. Perhaps it's the other way around. My longer term averages speak well for my use of the truck.

Here's a screenshot from CarScanner. It's a typical stop from 70 km/h to zero in two pedal drive where the brake coach says 100% energy returned. Note the brake pressure is zero until right at the end. Literally zero. The friction brakes are not used, at all, until almost at a complete stop, same as with one pedal drive. If you are seeing 100% on the brake coach then it is impossible to be any more efficient.

If you brake too hard, you see blips on the brake pressure graph, and the brake coach gives a number lower than 100%. In that case there could be efficiency gains. So, don't drive like that lol

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