Preconditioning

[XLTTOM]

If you just plug in without going to app are you preconditioning

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[TaxmanHog]

If you just plug in without going to app are you preconditioning

You need to set a schedule, either in the truck or via the Fordpass app.

 

[Heliian]

Plugging in to level 2 will keep the battery from being too cold or too hot.

Setting the schedule will make sure the battery is at ideal temp for departure.

 

[Maxx]

Not sure if anyone has done the math here at different temps to see if the power lost to heating the battery is less than the power you get back from a warm battery. Pulling some imaginary numbers out of my....hat here to make my point: If you have a standard battery at 100% SOC, and 90% power, you spend 2 KWh getting it to 100% power, you have recovered roughly 10 KWh. Then you drive 20 mile round trip and use up 10 KWh. Park the truck in driveway and battery pack gets cold again. So you loose 9KWh of that 10 KWh you recovered. you are still losing 1KWh (more if you were bellow 100% SOC when you left).

When I travel and I need the range, sometimes I do precondition but more often than not, I just charge before I leave and that heats up the battery. When I have enough juice for local drives, I just leave cold.

I love to see real numbers if someone has looked into it.

 

[XLTTOM]

So is plugging in better then nothing ?

 

[luebri]

So is plugging in better then nothing ?

if the charging is occurring near your departure time. Yes. (e.g. Leaving at 7 AM and your charging occurs between 4 and 7am)

if the charging occurs way prior to your departure and then shuts off when at the target SOC then their is virtually no benefit. (e.g. leaving at 7 AM and your charging occurs from 6 to 9pm the evening before)

 

[luebri]

Not sure if anyone has done the math here at different temps to see if the power lost to heating the battery is less than the power you get back from a warm battery. Pulling some imaginary numbers out of my....hat here to make my point: If you have a standard battery at 100% SOC, and 90% power, you spend 2 KWh getting it to 100% power, you have recovered roughly 10 KWh. Then you drive 20 mile round trip and use up 10 KWh. Park the truck in driveway and battery pack gets cold again. So you loose 9KWh of that 10 KWh you recovered. you are still losing 1KWh (more if you were bellow 100% SOC when you left).

When I travel and I need the range, sometimes I do precondition but more often than not, I just charge before I leave and that heats up the battery. When I have enough juice for local drives, I just leave cold.

I love to see real numbers if someone has looked into it.

Yes it is been pretty much agreed upon by the cold weather and experience lightning owner that preconditioning only is providing "optimal energy efficiency" if used on longer trips. Shorter daily commutes probably does not make sense.

That said, the best thing to do is just set your charge window to be prior to your morning commute (assuming you have a normal morning commute) and you kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

 

[XLTTOM]

That helps alot. I love the lightning but not very technically advanced. Thanks for the help.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Most of the time my weekly miles would be covered by a once a week charge, and with that I could further minimize the battery heating overhead costs to one cycle a week instead of 5/6 daily events a week.

The negative issue though is that the battery will have reduced performance, ie. mine started the week with a top off charge early monday morning, and warming the battery as it charged to 80% then we made a few short trips.

I did not go out in Tuesday's snow storm.

Today the truck had 75% and 100% available power, I put on a few more miles and a couple 'off the plug' remote starts, finishing the day with 59% SOC and 95% available motor power, parking this evening the nagging pop up appeared to remind me to plug in to maintain battery temps.

I did plug in but have deferred my charging routines to a time period when it won't be plugged in 10 to 11 am, I will roll out of the garage around 8 am Thursday and be out all day on errands or parked in the driveway.

My intentions are to see if the trucks thermal management system makes any effort to warm the battery outside my narrow charging window and improves the available power output, I suspect it won't and I'll wake up to 95% or less.

If I can make her last the remainder of the week, Saturday is the last driving day for the Lightning, then we use my wife's car [ICE] on Sunday, I will plug the truck in Sunday evening and calculate the number of hours I need to replenish the battery to 80% early Monday morning to be ready for a drive at 8am.

I'm hoping that I'll minimize the waste energy to prepare the battery for charging. If this works well I may continue the M/O unless there is a need to make a long road trip.

 

[TaxmanHog]

That helps alot. I love the lightning but not very technically advanced. Thanks for the help.

How many miles a day and week are you driving and what size pack (SR or ER)?

 

[XLTTOM]

Around 40 miles a day. SR

 

[Maquis]

That helps alot. I love the lightning but not very technically advanced. Thanks for the help.

You can do no harm by simply plugging in every time you get home as long as you have a charge limit set.

 

[brewski]

I have not idea if there is any real value to preconditioning the battery.
I do know that it is delightful to precondition for cabin comfort, especially an early morning departure.

 

[RickLightning]

If you just plug in without going to app are you preconditioning

So is plugging in better then nothing ?

I think there's some confusion here.

If your truck is charged to the limit, say 90%, and you then plug in, nothing happens UNLESS the battery gets near freezing, at which time the truck can pull juice in short spurts, like 15 minutes, to keep it above freezing. Mine's in a garage, no heater in garage, just attached to the house, and this happens a handful of times a year.

If you're charging, then the battery warms a little while charging. If it completes charging and you're not going anywhere, it starts cooling. Depending on how long you charged for, and at what charging speed, impacts how warm it got, but it's nowhere near the temp that a departure time would reach, which is mid 60s.

If you're doing a 40 mile drive without turning the truck off, a departure time will give you more range. If you're driving 10 miles, shutting it off, letting it sit for a while, then another 5 miles, ... and totaling 40 miles that day, you likely would waste energy by setting a departure time, i.e. the benefit would be lost.

You should ALWAYS be plugged in when at home, which lets the truck pull juice when it wants to. Keep it at 90% so you're always ready to go, 100% for a trip.

 

[RickLightning]

I have not idea if there is any real value to preconditioning the battery.
I do know that it is delightful to precondition for cabin comfort, especially an early morning departure.

Remote start warms the cabin. Preconditioning with a departure time warms the battery AND the cabin. Uses a lot more energy, and only gives value for a drive that is long enough to benefit from that battery warming.

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