Battery cooling - max tow versus standard tow?

[Wolverine7]

Looking at a dealer demo that has come down in price, but one downside is that it does not have max tow.

Since I don’t have specific needs for towing, just the future potential perhaps, how important is the extra cooling performance for the battery and DC fast charging? For those of you without max tow, have you noticed extra compressor cycling to handle the cabin & batteries? How does it perform on a fast charger? Just trying to understand how important this cooling option is in normal operation without towing heavy loads.

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[Maxx]

I don't have any personal experience comparing the two but keep in mind the second compressor with additional tubes have more to go wrong. And you are in Michigan (not hot climate) so getting a standard setup is not all bad.

 

[RickLightning]

Max Tow has no impact on charging, or the high voltage battery. Vehicle will charge the same with or without it.

 

[Wolverine7]

Thanks - good to hear that maybe it's not as critical as other posts have indicated. My concern was that most other posts talk about wanting to buy it for no other reason than it is extra cooling for an EV battery (albeit it is extra weight).

Looking at the Sandy Munro teardown videos, I agree that there is a lot of complexity going with 2; just curious how much back and forth cycling happens to manage the cabin and batteries with a single source.

 

[TaxmanHog]

The truck is designed to operate perfectly well w/o the max tow option, perfect for your use case.

As to the value added on future resale, that would be a miss not having it, but not all folks are looking for the ability to tow, (like you) so your resale won't suffer.

 

[Grumpy2]

Munro video on the Max tow compressor is confusing to me. The max tow compressor seems to only run a chiller. The chiller seems to be the system for the battery and motors only? Does anyone have the cooling system schematic?

 

[TaxmanHog]

Munro video on the Max tow compressor is confusing to me. The max tow compressor seems to only run a chiller. The chiller seems to be the system for the battery and motors only? Does anyone have the cooling system schematic?

I only have a MME version which is a single compressor design.

On the Lightning, the additional compressor is isolated/dedicated to the cabin HVAC.

While the original compressor is solely dedicated to powertrain conditioning.

 

[Grumpy2]

Thanks for the info., I thought it was just the opposite, extra Max tow system for what is stressed during towing: battery and motors.

Ford offered no information on this $1k package during ordering.

 

[RickLightning]

The truck is designed to operate perfectly well w/o the max tow option, perfect for your use case.

As to the value added on future resale, that would be a miss not having it, but not all folks are looking for the ability to tow, (like you) so your resale won't suffer.

The vast majority of people that tow don't know anything about features that the truck needs to properly tow, so it likely would never come up.

Thanks for the info., I thought it was just the opposite, extra Max tow system for what is stressed during towing: battery and motors.

Ford offered no information on this $1k package during ordering.

Always been that way.

 

[TaxmanHog]

The vast majority of people that tow don't know anything about features that the truck needs to properly tow, so it likely would never come up.

There are "informed" buyers out there as well.

 

[RickLightning]

There are "informed" buyers out there as well.

True. But the majority are not. Been on a truck forum for 9 years now, and the towing questions that get posed are quite alarming.

 

[BennyTheBeaver]

Regarding the Max Tow package:

The Max Tow Package adds another compressor to the cooling loop. This additional compressor isolates the cabin/climate controls from the battery and motor in the cooling loop. By isolating the climate in the truck from the rest of the cooling loop, it (in theory) provides more efficient cooling to the batteries, motor, and charging infrastructure. Based on this, Max Tow would be most beneficial when your batteries and motor are under heavy loads (towing/fast charging) while it is warm/hot outside or under constant load (towing uphill for example).

I, personally, got it for my truck, will I use it to its full potential?
Probably not

Is this something that would be cost prohibitive to add after the fact?
Absolutely

Is better cooling/more efficient cooling a big deal for the motor/batteries in electric vehicles?
Yes, but Ford wouldn't release a truck that with standard equipment would fail.

Climate conditioning especially A/C is very important to me even though we only get a few weeks of 100°F weather. That was my justification, along with not being able to easily add after the fact (a little FOMO went into buying that package).

 

[Zprime29]

It gets 110+ every summer and often 100+ May through Sept, so I opted for a model that had max tow. I felt the extra cost was worth the additional peace of mind for summer road trips and daily commutes where it's been sitting in a hot parking lot with no shade all day. I'm also that kind of person who wants all the capability, just in case. Boy Scout motto, "Be Prepared"

 

[Grumpy2]

It is interesting that Ford was able to combine the two systems enough to have only one bottle reservoir. The "valve" where the two systems combine makes it possible. It must be a clever device that can deal with all the various combinations of hot and cold conditions the two systems must deal with.

 

[dovetaildan]

I've seen a few threads mentioning noise issues. Or just folks noticing extra noise's in some trucks. One or two of them mentioned suspicion that the extra cooling with max tow could be the cause of that extra noise. I have no idea if that is root cause of any noise but it has come up once or twice.

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