What percentage should I charge my battery to daily using the Ford Charge Station Pro?

[jefro]

A few ways to play the battery. One is to just run it as you like. Hope that at 100K miles the battery out performed Fords wish of 70%. (70% is a huge loss of power) or Ford buys you a new battery.

The other way is to trade it in.

The last way is to limit things that could reduce life. Actually time is a cause there too.

I had a BMW i3 that had a lot of free fast charging and every day 100-5% use. I tracked the battery to over 77K miles and it was a foot race to see if BMW would buy a new battery or I'd have to buy a new battery at $24K.

You can select how you wish to run the battery game. That battery will go bad on every single car and truck.

Sponsored

 

[Theo1000]

Ah! the eternal thread with all the entrails peering poking prodding....

Been through years of this on the RAV4 EV, Volt, I3, Etron, Mache-E forums.

JMT on this.

50% plus of battery health is having a good liquid cooling system. The lightning has a world class cooling system. I believe only the Lucid, the Taycan and maybe the Etron have a leg up. If you look at Kyles charge curve the battery never gets above 45C or 112f even on high resistance DCFC. This is quite remarkable.. Even the Taycan gets well above 120f in cool weather and even close to 132f in warm weather.

Another 40% is having climate control. Park your vehicles inside in climate control where ever possible. Esp. while charging. and in harsh places. I'm looking at you 130f Arizona...

Next up limit DCFC unless you absolutely have to. Lightning charge curve already protects us. Those Korean manuf with their 270 kw charging will learn this the hard way.

On L2 charging in a climate controlled garage, the battery is being babied as much as possible.

So at this point I personally charge the battery as I need to and set it to 100%. I only have to charge 1-2 times a week to 100% and I don't let it sit at 100% or below 20% very long. That's it. Rest I let the car protect itself.

Finally that 90% recommendation is more likely to be from the legal types than from engineers. This is what has been the case previously for EV's. So not much more than a recommendation....

Charge it and drive it how you want folks, the car can protect itself.

 

[FirstF150InCasco]

Ah! the eternal thread with all the entrails peering poking prodding....

Been through years of this on the RAV4 EV, Volt, I3, Etron, Mache-E forums.

JMT on this.

50% plus of battery health is having a good liquid cooling system. The lightning has a world class cooling system. I believe only the Lucid, the Taycan and maybe the Etron have a leg up. If you look at Kyles charge curve the battery never gets above 45C or 112f even on high resistance DCFC. This is quite remarkable.. Even the Taycan gets well above 120f in cool weather and even close to 132f in warm weather.

Another 40% is having climate control. Park your vehicles inside in climate control where ever possible. Esp. while charging. and in harsh places. I'm looking at you 130f Arizona...

Next up limit DCFC unless you absolutely have to. Lightning charge curve already protects us. Those Korean manuf with their 270 kw charging will learn this the hard way.

On L2 charging in a climate controlled garage, the battery is being babied as much as possible.

So at this point I personally charge the battery as I need to and set it to 100%. I only have to charge 1-2 times a week to 100% and I don't let it sit at 100% or below 20% very long. That's it. Rest I let the car protect itself.

Finally that 90% recommendation is more likely to be from the legal types than from engineers. This is what has been the case previously for EV's. So not much more than a recommendation....

Charge it and drive it how you want folks, the car can protect itself.

This is brilliant. Exactly the type of fact-based info I was looking for. (And I forwarded to my wife who has a new E-tron, which you mentioned. Thank you.

 

[jefro]

Simple to verify batteries. Go to any used car dealers that have the ability to correctly measure the battery health and see how far they have degraded. Ford is not using any magical improvement over other modern cars other than Tesla LiFePo4 models.

 

[GDN]

Ah! the eternal thread with all the entrails peering poking prodding....

Been through years of this on the RAV4 EV, Volt, I3, Etron, Mache-E forums.

JMT on this.

50% plus of battery health is having a good liquid cooling system. The lightning has a world class cooling system. I believe only the Lucid, the Taycan and maybe the Etron have a leg up. If you look at Kyles charge curve the battery never gets above 45C or 112f even on high resistance DCFC. This is quite remarkable.. Even the Taycan gets well above 120f in cool weather and even close to 132f in warm weather.

......

I'm not hetr to argue this point, but willing to learn. However, can you share your source for the "Lightning has a world class cooling system"? There are a lot of people here and claims like that need at least a little source behind it.

It is my understanding the Lightning has a coolant loop around the battery. I'm not aware of any loop through the battery. How can it be good at cooling the inner parts of the pack with no loop through it? Likewise - heating the pack in winter?

If it is superior and has coolant capabilities I'm not aware of, do only those with Max Tow and the second AC unit get that world class cooling? Or do all batteries get that? How do you claim all have world class if Ford must add a second AC for a towing truck to stay as cool as one that doesn't tow, but also works extra hard hauling and

I've researched none of the other packs, but you don't mention Tesla - that is the one I"m somewhat familiar with and I know they cool within the pack and between the rows of batteries.

Just looking for some justification on such big claims and willing to learn.

 

[FirstF150InCasco]

Simple to verify batteries. Go to any used car dealers that have the ability to correctly measure the battery health and see how far they have degraded. Ford is not using any magical improvement over other modern cars other than Tesla LiFePo4 models.

Really????

 

[jefro]

Yes, really.

I was shopping for used EV's and the ability to have the battery capacity as a buying choice was very important. The BMW had one way while other cars used OBD2.

 

[ShirBlackspots]

I would say 20-85% is fine for daily driving. For trips, 15-90% at a DCFC, but at a hotel on a level 2, max of 100%
I was reading in the manual, at 15% and below, the vehicle stops sending power to the 12V battery.

 

[Calvin H-C]

I am not an expert on batteries specifically, but I do have a degree in electrical engineering, so I have some understanding of what goes on with EV batteries. That said, most of what I have learned comes from over five years of having a Ford Focus Electric - what I like to think of as Ford's EV "ginnea pig".

My best advice is to follow the practices that you're most comfortable with. Here's what we've found works for us...

For daily L2 charging, our FFE does not have the ability to automatically stop at any SOC besides 100%. So when plugged in, that's how full it will be unless we unplug it before it reaches fully charged.

Prior to COVID, weekdays pretty much just involved 40-50 km (25-30 mi) commute each day, so I often would plug in once per three days in warmer weather or every second day when colder.

However, the go-time feature that pre-conditions the interior only functions if it's plugged in. When the temperature is below about 3C (35F), it recommends plugging in when you shift into Park. The heating/cooling system works to keep the battery within a preferred temperature range, so plugging in will avoid using the battery charge for that task. If "value charging" is enabled, then plugging into an L1 or L2 EVSE will not charge unless in the value charge window, but will be used for battery temperature regulation.

For DCFC on the FFE, the fastest I've seen it charge at is about 53 kW. The FFE can typically charge to just over 90% SOC at about 45 kW before slowing down, and is down to about 15 kW by 95%. At 53 kW, it starts to drop just above 85%.

Here in Canada, our government hasn't changed the rules that would allow pricing by the kWh, so we get charged by the minute. So, there is a financial incentive to stop fast charging before it begins to slow down.

As others have pointed out, the range we see is not the total of what the battery actually provides. This is limited partly to prevent damage from either full discharge or overcharging. I suspect that a more important reason for limiting the range is to "hide" degradation over time. As the battery loses capacity, you don't see it, or at least don't see it as great as it actually is.

This likely reduces the number of batteries that lose enough range capability before their warranty is up. I suspect that recommending to limit daily charging to 90% SOC may help in reducing that number as well. With the FFE, Ford never recommended charging to only 90%, and didn't provide the ability to do so automatically. Perhaps that may have been a lesson learned that they're now applying to the MME and Lightning.

Our 2017 FFE has just over 131,000 km on it (about 81,400 miles) and we've seen little loss of range. It did appear there was a 1-2% loss per year but a system reboot when it was in for service has the guess-o-meter starting with a full charge comparable to when the vehicle was new.

 

[FirstF150InCasco]

I'll start off by saying that I am not an expert on batteries specifically, but I do have a degree in electrical engineering, so I have some understanding of what goes on with EV batteries. That said, most of what I have learned comes from over five years of having a Ford Focus Electric - what I like to think of as Ford's EV "ginnea pig".

Driving a vehicle with a range of 160 km (100 miles) gives one pretty good skills at planning to avoid range anxiety. Actual range varies with our wide temperature ranges here in Toronto. Nice spring and fall weather can see ranges of 190-210 km, but some extra cold winter days can drop it to 120.

My best advice is to follow the practices that you're most comfortable with. Here's what we've found works for us...

For daily L2 charging, our FFE does not have the ability to automatically stop at any SOC besides 100%. So when plugged in, that's how full it will be unless we unplug it before it reaches fully charged. Of course, doing so will result in FordPass notifying that the vehicle was "accidentally" unplugged.

Prior to COVID, weekdays pretty much just involved 40-50 km (25-30 mi) commute and short shopping runs per day, so I often would plug in once per three days in warmer weather or every second day when colder. However, the go-time feature that pre-conditions the interior only functions if it's plugged in. Also, when the temperature is below about 3C (35F), a recommendation to plug in appears when you shift into Park. The heating/cooling system will work to keep the battery within a preferred temperature range, so plugging in will not use your battery charge for that task. If "value charging" is enabled, then an L1 or L2 plug in will not charge (unless the time is in the value charge window), but will be used for battery temperature regulation.

For DCFC on the FFE, the fastest I've seen it charge at is about 53 kW. For the first couple years we had the vehicle, I never saw more than 42 kW, because that was all the chargers we used could put out. At that rate, the FFE could charge to just over 90% SOC before slowing down. I would like to plot it's slow down, but I've only noticed that it is down to about 15 kW by 95%. At 53 kW, it starts to drop just above 85%.

Here in Canada, our government hasn't changed the rules that would allow pricing by the kWh, so we get charged by the minute. Thus, the best reason to stop fast charging is the increased energy cost as the rate slows down.

As others have pointed out, the range we see is not the total of what the battery can actually provide. This is limited partly to prevent damage, immediate or long term, from either full discharge or overcharging. I suspect that a more important reason for limiting the range is to "hide" degradation over time. As the battery loses capacity, you don't see it, or at least don't see it as great as it actually is.

This likely reduces the number of batteries that lose enough range capability before their warranty is up. I suspect that recommending to limit daily charging to 90% SOC may help in reducing that number as well. Ford never recommended that with the FFE, and didn't provide the ability to do so automatically. Perhaps that may have been a lesson learned that they're applying to the MME and Lightning.

Our 2017 FFE has just over 130,000 km on it (about 80,800 miles) and we've seen little loss of range. It did appear there was a 1-2% loss per year. Last year when the car was in for service, I had them try to do some sort of reboot because our value charging mode and go-times stopped working when the modem was upgraded to 4G last March. It didn't fix the modem problem, but it did appear to return the range to what it was when the car was new. Actually a little better, as the guess-o-meter started a few days last year at about 210-213 km, when I never previously saw it more than 205.

TLTR

Sponsored