Ford's Important Tip For Driving Your Lightning in the Cold: Preconditioning / Pre-Heat Your Battery

[Hugh_Bris]

If they would give us a way to do it on the fly and not have to schedule it with the scheduler, I'd be happy to do it. But I leave the house at unpredictable times and there is no way (that I am aware of), to precondition on the fly, say one hour before leaving. Or am I missing something?

I am in the same boat. Good point

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[TaxmanHog]

If they would give us a way to do it on the fly and not have to schedule it with the scheduler, I'd be happy to do it. But I leave the house at unpredictable times and there is no way (that I am aware of), to precondition on the fly, say one hour before leaving. Or am I missing something?

I am in the same boat. Good point

We've discovered that using your [START] aka "Charge now" button while plugged in and the weather conditions are cold, battery warming will occur, even if your SOC has reached its goal.

Then as you get closer to actual leave time and you want the cabin warmed hit the [FAN icon] button warm up the cab.

See recent posts in these threads:

Winter & Battery, for Canadian buyers.. read this!

My Ford Pass Patience Is Wearing Thin

If you are not plugged in this technique won't work.

 

[Hugh_Bris]

We've discovered that using your [START] aka "Charge now" button while plugged in and the weather conditions are cold, battery warming will occur, even if your SOC has reached its goal.

Then as you get closer to actual leave time and you want the cabin warmed hit the [FAN icon] button warm up the cab.

See recent posts in these threads:

Winter & Battery, for Canadian buyers.. read this!

My Ford Pass Patience Is Wearing Thin

If you are not plugged in this technique won't work.

Thank you!!! Awesome info

 

[scruvs]

Car Scanner: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ovz.carscanner&hl=en-US

Thank you. I’m all setup now with my OBD2 adapter and Car Scanner.

 

[Tclark5]

I just want to drive my truck and not worry about all this, my steering wheel heater and seat heater is all I need when I leave home. If you fuss about all this all the time, people will still keep buy gas vehicles, as they will view this is a reason not to go electric… Imhi…

 

[Whammy Bar]

Imhi…

I'm not sure you having IBS impacts others decision making about purchasing a vehicle.

 

[Tclark5]

I'm not sure you having IBS impacts others decision making about purchasing a vehicle.

In my humble opinion, fyi …wipe

 

[Firn]

I just want to drive my truck and not worry about all this, my steering wheel heater and seat heater is all I need when I leave home. If you fuss about all this all the time, people will still keep buy gas vehicles, as they will view this is a reason not to go electric… Imhi…

So drive it. Just drive it. Just jump in and go, it will do that absolutely fine. You don't have to do a thing, you don't have to do any of this.

You are on an enthusiast forum, this is the same as the "in the winter do you idle your vehicle before leaving" thread.

Where it DOES matter is if you need 100% of your possible range every day, or every charge session. If you do then doing the above steps can give you more range between charges.

 

[farmtruck]

I do not worry very hard about preconditioning, A large part of my winter driving is 30 to 70 miles between stops and no place to plug in at my destination. This means I am going to be operating on cold batteries for a fair portion of the day. Rather than worry about, I just deal with it.
On the plus side, the cabin of the Lightning warms up on a cold start far faster than any of my diesel pickups.

 

[TaxmanHog]

On the plus side, the cabin of the Lightning warms up on a cold start far faster than any of my diesel pickups.

Amen, after 10 years of a cold blooded F250 PSD........

BTW, some like me are suffering PMS (park motorcycle syndrome) my interests in geeking over data tends to keep me sane until spring thaw, it's also worth understanding the actual cost of operation vs. the ideal perfect rolling efficiency number most folks fixate over.

 

[WXman]

If they would give us a way to do it on the fly and not have to schedule it with the scheduler, I'd be happy to do it. But I leave the house at unpredictable times and there is no way (that I am aware of), to precondition on the fly, say one hour before leaving. Or am I missing something?

I agree, @Ford Motor Company we need a "Pre-condition Battery Now" button on the app at a minimum, preferably in-vehicle as well.

100% true. So this still is not a possibility? I do not drive the truck every day, and when I do I don't leave the house at the same time every day. Would be nice to be able to set a timer on a nightly basis for when I expect to have to leave the next morning. Or maybe even a button to hit when I want to start a precondition cycle 90 minutes before I leave or whatever.

 

[chriserx]

100% true. So this still is not a possibility? I do not drive the truck every day, and when I do I don't leave the house at the same time every day. Would be nice to be able to set a timer on a nightly basis for when I expect to have to leave the next morning. Or maybe even a button to hit when I want to start a precondition cycle 90 minutes before I leave or whatever.

Complicating the scheduled departure option is the fact that with variable time starts like I have, if for example, you have multiple departures set for 7, it combines them into one departure 'rule' but the next week my 7 o'clocks may be on different days....Super annoying...

 

[21st Century Truck]

So I have the FCSP and also a dedicated EV Time-of-use electric sub-meter (a pilot program here that is now closed for new entrants but continues as a grandfathered clause for its early entrants).

When at home, thanks to the FCSP's 80 amp firehose of juice (for my 2023 XLT), I set a Winter departure time of 6 a.m. 6 A.M. is when my low TOU rate closes off. I found last Winter that when warmed early in the pre-dawn hours this way this way, the cabin retains its heat for some hours while the vehicle is sitting on the driveway. Therefore, whether I leave the house at 6 a.m. or at 10 a.m. or etc. etc, the cabin is warm / warm enough even in really cold temps.

Thanks to the location setting within the departure menu, this works only while the truck charges overnight at my house, and not on the mornings when the truck is away from home. So it is a perfect method to maximize low TOU electric rates for cabin prep + traction battery prep while we are at home.

When on a long trip in Winter I now have a separate habit developed over many looong Winter trips in two sequential EVs to set a "cabin departure" time for 45 minutes ahead as soon as I plug into a DC Fast charging station. That way, the DC Fast juice also heats the cabin while the traction battery is charging. With DC Fast charging points on the road, I found the juice flows so fast that the delay to fully charging the traction battery is insignificant. This technique matters when Winter long-distance driving in more remote areas makes it important to maximize range, thus sparing the resistor cabin heating circuits from robbing too much of the juice that is available for mileage, for a good hour or so after DC Fast departure until the windchill takes its toll. This cheater technique works even with the relatively puny 50 kW DC Fast charging stations.

Hope this helps.

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