Changing target charge level for current session?

[tls]

I think I've just gotten myself lost in the app. Is there really no way to change the target charge percentage for the current session? The only way I've found to do this is to unplug from the location and then save a location-specific preference when it appears in "previous locations".

This can't be, can it? There must be a way to tell it to cap the current charging session at 80% instead of the default 100% I get when arriving at a charger I haven't used before?

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[LazyElectrons]

You can set a one time charging limit from inside the vehicle under the Charging settings.

 

[Maquis]

In a year and a half of driving an EV, I’ve never felt the need to do that. At a DCFC, I’m always ready to depart well before 100% due to the taper after 80%. If I’m at a new L2 (usually a hotel on a road trip), I just let it go to 100%. Max range of electrons, no charge courtesy of the hotel, when ready to go in the morning.

 

[tls]

In a year and a half of driving an EV, I’ve never felt the need to do that. At a DCFC, I’m always ready to depart well before 100% due to the taper after 80%. If I’m at a new L2 (usually a hotel on a road trip), I just let it go to 100%. Max range of electrons, no charge courtesy of the hotel, when ready to go in the morning.

I don't charge anywhere north of 80% if I don't need to. I don't understand why there ought to be a difference between a "new" L2 and an "old" L2 - why shouldn't I be able to set the target for the charge session that's going on right now, without having to mess around with the in-car screen to do so?

For example, if I park my car in a charging space at the airport, I don't want to let it go to 100% and stay there for the entire length of my trip. That's really bad for the battery. I want to set it to 70% or so and then, the morning I'm flying home, tell it to top up to 90% with the airport's free electrons (thanks, Port Authority...) so it's at my target 80% when I get home.

Other brands of EV default to 80% charge and require an override to charge to 100%; but then again, other brands of EV let you just dial the target up and down from the app whenever you like. This seems like a silly limitation in Ford's user interface.

 

[Maquis]

The airport I use frequently has gratis L2s and now that I’ve established it as a location, I do set its limit to 90% just because it’s only 150 miles from home and the biggest (yet very small) battery concern is letting the battery sit for extended periods at 100%, not L2 charging to 100%. If my trip was a week, the car would sit 6 days at 100%. At a hotel, I’ll be driving the next day, so I have no reservations about charging to 100%.
Also remember that 100% charge is 100% of usable capacity, not total battery capacity.
I guess my point is yes, it would be nice to be able to easily set an ad-hoc charge limit, but don’t lose sleep about not being able to do it. It’s not going to hurt your truck.

Good discussion!

 

[tls]

They get so many things so wrong - look at all the fancy suspension technology in the S and X and yet the Mach E and F150 ride and handle at least as well; even after just a few days, I vastly prefer BlueCruise to Autopilot, etc. - but Tesla gets the charging UI both in-car and in-app pretty much exactly right.

Ford should throw away what they've done in this area and match Tesla, then start trying to enhance and improve. Going their own way on this was a mistake, what they've produced is just not as good, in my opinion.

 

[Beaux]

You can do it inside the Ford pass app.

 

[tls]

You can do it inside the Ford pass app.

Where?

 

[Beaux]

Where?

When you open the app there is a bar across the bottom that says charging. You can click the details button and it gives you the option to do a few things in that window.

 

[beatle]

For example, if I park my car in a charging space at the airport, I don't want to let it go to 100% and stay there for the entire length of my trip. That's really bad for the battery. I want to set it to 70% or so and then, the morning I'm flying home, tell it to top up to 90% with the airport's free electrons (thanks, Port Authority...) so it's at my target 80% when I get home.

That's really not necessary. Just leave the truck at 90% all the time. It's fine there.

 

[tls]

When you open the app there is a bar across the bottom that says charging. You can click the details button and it gives you the option to do a few things in that window.

Are you saying that, for you, one of those options is to change the target charge level? It is certainly not for me.

For me, the first item in that screen is indeed target charge level, but clicking it does nothing. It cannot, so far as I can tell, be modified from anywhere in the app.

Worse, there appears to be an *awesome* bug: entering that screen resumes charging if you have previously manually stopped it.

 

[Beaux]

Are you saying that, for you, one of those options is to change the target charge level? It is certainly not for me.

For me, the first item in that screen is indeed target charge level, but clicking it does nothing. It cannot, so far as I can tell, be modified from anywhere in the app.

Worse, there appears to be an *awesome* bug: entering that screen resumes charging if you have previously manually stopped it.

It let's me charge to 100% or resume my regular setting. Not sure what more you'd need there.

 

[FlasherZ]

I don't charge anywhere north of 80% if I don't need to. I don't understand why there ought to be a difference between a "new" L2 and an "old" L2 - why shouldn't I be able to set the target for the charge session that's going on right now, without having to mess around with the in-car screen to do so?

For example, if I park my car in a charging space at the airport, I don't want to let it go to 100% and stay there for the entire length of my trip. That's really bad for the battery. I want to set it to 70% or so and then, the morning I'm flying home, tell it to top up to 90% with the airport's free electrons (thanks, Port Authority...) so it's at my target 80% when I get home.

I would like to contest some of the wording that you used - my experience is that charging to 100% and sitting there for a few days is just simply not an issue, and I certainly don't believe it's "really bad" for the battery unless you do it every single day for weeks on end. Over time? In nickel-chemistry batteries, I agree that you generally don't want the car ALWAYS at 100%, but I'm also saying you don't have to treat it with extreme fragility.

2016 Model X P100D - 155,750 miles. Still charges to 92% of original rated capacity. We've been known to let it sit at 100% for a few days before, until the car says "hey, psst, wanna lower me?" If I'm going somewhere the next day, I'll set it to 100% and let it charge up completely (along with doing the BMS balancing cycle, which can take a while after hitting 100%).

There are people who set their alarms to wake up and set the car at 100% so that they leave the MOMENT the car says "charging complete". While I'm not going to tell you that you cannot do that, I'm going to offer that it's completely unnecessary.

 

[tls]

It let's me charge to 100% or resume my regular setting. Not sure what more you'd need there.

What "regular setting"? One of the limitations I'm talking about here is the inability to have any setting other than 100% for a charger you're visiting for the first time. Why on earth shouldn't I be able to adjust the target for the current charge session? Because some product manager in Ford's software organization didn't do their competitive research properly and left this out of their set of user stories?

If I don't need to take my car to 100% I prefer not to. Unlike those here lucky enough to happily own slightly newer Teslas with later generation batteries, I had one of the 85kWh cars which had their charge rate and capacity arbitrarily limited early in their lives and it definitely made an impression: I'm going to baby the battery in my new Ford unless I have a good reason not to. Nobody knows much about the durability of these packs over time, so why not be gentler on mine if I can?

The UI limitations of the current Ford app seem to get in the way of that, however, which seems to me not great.

 

[JacksonHandy]

This is my frustration after 2 days. I just want to easily set a PERMANENT charge level, like my model y, that I can adjust to 100 for trips.

having it fully adjustable in the app is important too

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