Scheduled Charging and Departure Times/Remote Start

[cjb]

How do preferred charge settings interact with departure times and remote start when the truck is plugged in? Does the truck draw down the battery if you're outside the preferred charging time? Or does the AC get used for preconditioning/heating the car?

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[mmcguirk]

How do preferred charge settings interact with departure times and remote start when the truck is plugged in? Does the truck draw down the battery if you're outside the preferred charging time? Or does the AC get used for preconditioning/heating the car?

Excellent question ... I'm trying to sort that out too.

One data point: my off-peak hours are 11am to 5pm AND 9pm to 7am. The other day I plugged in at about 3pm, FP dutifully started charging and estimated that I would reach 90% at about midnight. That estimate sounded about right IF charging would stop at 5pm. I watched the clock and sure enough charging paused at 5pm, resumed at 9pm and finished at about midnight. Yay for FordPass!

Your question is the big one though: cold weather conditioning in general (Ford want us to leave the truck plugged in on really cold days) and conditioning/cabin heating related to departure times.

My GUESS is that FP, given how it acted in the above case, will not let us use AC outside off-peak hours.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Excellent question ... I'm trying to sort that out too.

One data point: my off-peak hours are 11am to 5pm AND 9pm to 7am. The other day I plugged in at about 3pm, FP dutifully started charging and estimated that I would reach 90% at about midnight. That estimate sounded about right IF charging would stop at 5pm. I watched the clock and sure enough charging paused at 5pm, resumed at 9pm and finished at about midnight. Yay for FordPass!

Your question is the big one though: cold weather conditioning in general (Ford want us to leave the truck plugged in on really cold days) and conditioning/cabin heating related to departure times.

My GUESS is that FP, given how it acted in the above case, will not let us use AC outside off-peak hours.

I think it actually does drawn 240v at that point during preconditioning, this morning my truck was already at desired SOC, but my connected charge stations insights log showed I consumed 1.074 KWH during a 15 minute cabin conditioning session.

 

[mmcguirk]

I think it actually does drawn 240v at that point during preconditioning, this morning my truck was already at desired SOC, but my connected charge stations insights log showed I consumed 1.074 KWH during a 15 minute cabin conditioning session.

I've seen the same thing but on off-peak weekends. What's going to happen if I try to precondition during on-peak hours? Will FP allow the truck to draw 240V from the charger or will it refuse and draw from the battery?

 

[TaxmanHog]

I've seen the same thing but on off-peak weekends. What's going to happen if I try to precondition during on-peak hours? Will FP allow the truck to draw 240V from the charger or will it refuse and draw from the battery?

Not certain, I will program a scheme where it's not supposed to charge, and see where preconditioning and or remote-start energy comes from, I'll assume directly from the FCSP 240v supply even though it's not charging the battery the charge inverter is probably allow just enough amperage to energize the heating loop.

 

[mmcguirk]

Not certain, I will program a scheme where it's not supposed to charge, and see where preconditioning and or remote-start energy comes from, I'll assume directly from the FCSP 240v supply even though it's not charging the battery the charge inverter is probably allow just enough amperage to energize the heating loop.

Thank you. I'll try the same experiment but it will have to wait until next week as I'm off-peak all weekend. Off-peak, FP is happy to have my HomeFlex charger do the work. On-peak? Maybe not.

This is what it looked like last Sunday, all off-peak.

 

[mmcguirk]

Where does the energy come from if I ask the truck to precondition during an on-peak time?
- Plugged in at 16:15 during PM off-peak hours
- Truck charged until 17:00, which is the end of the PM off-peak hours
- Truck resumed charging at 21:00, the beginning of night time off-peak
- Charged until about 02:00 when it reached 90% target
- Off-peak ends at 07:00
- Departure time set for 08:30
- OAT 36F, so truck wants to be preconditioned (presumably)
- At 8:40, cab is cold, no indication that preconditioning occurred.
- Between 07:00 and departure time, I did see a reduction in distance-to-empty of 5 miles. There was no apparent exchange of miles for cab heat; could this have been a tiny bit of energy expended to warm the pack?

This is only one experiment but it indicates that the TOU restrictions in FordPass will not allow you to use the grid/EVSE to provide the energy needed to precondition for a departure time set in on-peak hours. Do you buy that @TaxmanHog?

Next question: in the above case, will the truck expend a significant number of miles-to-empty to precondition itself?

 

[cjb]

Thanks for sharing that data. I've found my departure time to be hit-or-miss. About half the time the cabin will actually pre-warmed. I may be getting into the truck too early some times, so I've bumped my departure time up a few minutes to see whether that has any effect. Hope to start collecting some data myself when my charging station is installed later this week.

 

[sotek2345]

I am having big issues with this as well and it seems to be getting worse. I am about 1 for 10 for the truck actually pre-conditioning when it is supposed to. I have another thread going on it.

 

[TaxmanHog]

This is only one experiment but it indicates that the TOU restrictions in FordPass will not allow you to use the grid/EVSE to provide the energy needed to precondition for a departure time set in on-peak hours. Do you buy that @TaxmanHog?

Next question: in the above case, will the truck expend a significant number of miles-to-empty to precondition itself?

My wife messed up my plans to test pre-conditioning this morning, she wanted to hit Market Basket at 7am, so I started a round of remote start while plugged in at 06:42, in this operation the truck was programmed with a made up TOU schedule to avoid charging from 4am to 9am. The truck started and preconditioned the cabin, including the steering wheel warmer, all was comfy when we left.

by the minute

by the hour

Next up Wednesday morning we will be back to our normal schedule and see what happens with energy source under TOU rules while plugged into the EVSE/FCSP.