Battery conditioning, is it worth it?

[broncoaz]

For me there is only one use-case for preconditioning, and that is when I know that I'll need all the range I can get, which is rare. Otherwise just the occasional cabin heating before leaving, here in the land of absurdly high electrical rates and relatively mild temperatures.

Due to high electricity rates I charge then unplug our EV’s when they are parked in the garage. I don’t generally need all the range I can get in the morning and don’t want to have the constant draw of the truck trying to keep its battery warm.

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[rufustlong]

I've gone back and forth on this matter. I have the Chargepoint EVSE so not the best monitoring but in general by the time the dust settles it costs me an extra ~2-3kw to pre-condition. That's about $0.22-0.33 where I live so this time of year when everything is in the 20's and 30's outside I'm letting it roll. I will go back to just climate when it warms up a bit.

I did test it with the same drive over a few days and charging back to 80% put 4-5 kw back in with preconditioning and this number was like 8-9kw back in without preconditioning. Now as others have mentioned it's like 8kw to precondition but I figure I'd spend half that to just get the climate up to temp so I suppose this really comes down to how expensive one's power is. I would like to think it's talking better care of the cells but I will admit, if I was paying more for power, I'd scrutinize this process much more.

 

[Ragman]

There’s so much conflicting information being tossed around on this forum. I’ve raised these concerns before and many many people have told me these batteries can take care of themselves and that’s that. Preconditioning is to get the full range out of your battery. Nothing to do with the health of the pack.
The intermittent heating taxman has brought up, seems to be something Ford has programmed in for one reason or another. But as far as the battery pack goes, I’ve been assured cold soaking is perfectly fine which I’m betting on since I don’t charge at home and I regularly see -25 Fahrenheit. So what is it really?? @Ford I would like to know the facts from the horse’s mouth, no offense to you experts out there

I don’t believe cold soaking the battery does any damage, cold soaking all the little plastic connectors, wires, solenoids, in the pack then hitting road not convinced worth the risk. Any future repair bill involving electronics will wipe energy savings not plugging in.

if you cold soak for 3 months and truck never moves fine - I’d still start the truck with interior temp off for 15 minutes to let recirc heater warm things up in pack before driving - remote start doesn’t help pack warm off plug.

 

[TMND]

But starting the truck with the heater off, does?

 

[Ragman]

But starting the truck with the heater off, does?

Yep will bring battery out of red/yellow into blue - to clarify get in and hit start - turning off interior heat routes all power to recirc

 

[potato]

Yep will bring battery out of red/yellow into blue - to clarify get in and hit start - turning off interior heat routes all power to recirc

That may be true; can't confirm myself. But I do know in my truck if it is already in the blue, it will not heat the battery further. I watch the HVB coolant inlet temperature and it stays at ambient. So it's not circulating coolant through the battery at all in my "moderately cold" temperatures I've been experiencing (-12 C or higher battery temperatures).

To be fair I've never turned the heat off to see if that makes any difference. But I do watch the coolant heater power. Even when it's settled down to a "steady state" 3-4ish kW for cabin heat it doesn't heat the battery even with 4-5 kW of "spare" heater power available.

Bottom line, I don't worry about it.

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

It would depend on the weather where you live, and the cost of electricity.
Prior to getting the Lightning, I remoted started my V8 RAM and let it run 15-20 minutes a day using gasoline that cost $4.25/gal (USD) in my neck of the woods.
Now I let the truck pre-condition plugged into utility power that costs 2.9Cents CAD (2cents USD) so for me it is a no-brainer - l will let it use some power each morning, the few pennies is fine by me.

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