Power Gauge Reduction

[MAFleetLightning]

I've seen some folks posting about malfunction / reduced power to the point where it has limited driving and repairs were needed. Temp dropped to 22 degrees last night, wasn't plugged in and was 48 degrees late morning when I drove it. Today, my power gauge was reduced to 89, no malfunction warning and truck had no noticeable loss of power. Is this normal? @Ford Motor Company

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[lightspeed]

Yes, normal. When the battery is too cold or too hot, it will reduce the max power available.

 

[MAFleetLightning]

Thanks - appreciate it!

 

[AdmiralYamo]

Confirmed normal. I posted earlier about this and it's what I see too. The cold will do it.

 

[boggle]

Does anybody know what the ideal operating temperature range of the batteries is while driving? At 0C ambient temperature, generally how long does it take to get batteries up to temp and restore full power? With how intermittent preconditioning seems to be for some it'd be nice to not have a drive a gimped truck around for an hour to just to warm it up. Some of the cold weather power throttling I've seen posted has seemed pretty severe.

 

[RickLightning]

Does anybody know what the ideal operating temperature range of the batteries is while driving? At 0C ambient temperature, generally how long does it take to get batteries up to temp and restore full power? With how intermittent preconditioning seems to be for some it'd be nice to not have a drive a gimped truck around for an hour to just to warm it up. Some of the cold weather power throttling I've seen posted has seemed pretty severe.

Ideal battery temp is low 70s.

Most people I've seen posted battery temps, while driving in winter, show it well below that, except after DC charging (when it's higher).

I suspect, if you monitored it, you'd see it go away when the battery got into the low 40s, but I'm just guessing.

The Mach-E doesn't tell us what's available or not, except on the GT where there is a power bar, and it shows gray lines when it's not fully available. Ignorance is great, since you don't notice it anyway.

 

[boggle]

Ideal battery temp is low 70s.

Most people I've seen posted battery temps, while driving in winter, show it well below that, except after DC charging (when it's higher).

I suspect, if you monitored it, you'd see it go away when the battery got into the low 40s, but I'm just guessing.

The Mach-E doesn't tell us what's available or not, except on the GT where there is a power bar, and it shows gray lines when it's not fully available. Ignorance is great, since you don't notice it anyway.

Thanks for the info. Haven't seen it really discussed before but I imagine that will result in some serious winter tow limitations. For us snowmobilers/ice fishermen it's not ideal returning to the truck parked at a lake/trailhead after a few hours to find we're down 30+% power. Something to take into consideration.

Don't have my truck yet but it's something I plan to monitor closely. For those that have experienced it, does the power slowly restore automatically with rising battery temps or does the truck have to be cycled?

 

[NCMike]

So does this pic confirm that the battery temp and motor temp gauges at the top are in fact dumb gauges? I have also noticed the reduce power on a cold morning. But no matter if its 20F with reduced power or 100F in the middle of the summer(took delivery in July), the temp gauge for the battery remains exactly in the middle.

 

[Akbrian]

So does this pic confirm that the battery temp and motor temp gauges at the top are in fact dumb gauges? I have also noticed the reduce power on a cold morning. But no matter if its 20F with reduced power or 100F in the middle of the summer(took delivery in July), the temp gauge for the battery remains exactly in the middle.

They are not dummy gauges. They should be considered logarithmic a large swing in temp is a small shift in gauge. I have measured battery temps in the low 20’s so far. Power seems to start reducing at 30degree batt temp. Battery loses about 10 degrees per hour depending on outside temp measured mine at 5 degrees OAT. Precondition appears to be trying to heat battery to 55-60degrees. Precondition uses a lot of power 20-30kwh thus why it asks if you want to do it if vehicle is unplugged.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Unless you mash it to the fire wall on a regular basis, most of us are not going to notice the minor reductions. Drag racing at these temp's is unproductive anyway due to severely reduced road and tire traction..... LOL, ..... I miss racing season!

Let's get all the New Englanders to the Dragway at Epping NH on 4/1/2023, opening day, be there or be square

 

[SmoothJ]

We really need advanced stats for these vehicles on the dash or the Sync.

 

[TaxmanHog]

We really need advanced stats for these vehicles on the dash or the Sync.

I want to configure a center stack screen to look like mission control, "Houston we have no problems"

 

[SmoothJ]

They are not dummy gauges. They should be considered logarithmic a large swing in temp is a small shift in gauge. I have measured battery temps in the low 20’s so far. Power seems to start reducing at 30degree batt temp. Battery loses about 10 degrees per hour depending on outside temp measured mine at 5 degrees OAT. Precondition appears to be trying to heat battery to 55-60degrees. Precondition uses a lot of power 20-30kwh thus why it asks if you want to do it if vehicle is unplugged.

Does it really use that much power during PreCon? The heater is only 5 kWh, so how can it pull 20-30?

 

[metroshot]

Does it really use that much power during PreCon? The heater is only 5 kWh, so how can it pull 20-30?

While cabin heating is not that much, the battery fluid warmers must pull a lot more.

Should always precondition with charge cord plugged in.

Even in mid December, as I drive around in shorts & t-shirt around So Calif - thinking I never would need to worry about range loss....

 

[TaxmanHog]

Does it really use that much power during PreCon? The heater is only 5 kWh, so how can it pull 20-30?

Recently I did a energy consumption study of one morning with temps around 37 degrees, the truck will pull upwards of 11kw for short period to get battery and cabin warming, this session ran for a good 40+ minute, normally a remote start session which only warms the cabin runs for 10 minutes, and on warmer days the preconditioning phase on shore power can be much shorter than 40+ minutes, always relative to the ambient temps

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...itioning-detail-information.13353/post-280306

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