Left unplugged to cold soak?

[Tundra]

Why not use departure time and move the 80% on up to 90 or 95%? Your battery will be warm, your cabin will be warm and you'll have more charge to make it through the day if needed.

Remember Ford is still hiding about 10% of the battery from you that you can't touch or get to.

I will probably start going to 90-95% for these colder days.

I am using the departure time and warming at home before work. At work though I am parked outside, and that can be 8-14 hours depending on the day, it is the after work where I am burning through the range.

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[cal]

Ok finished my trip 88.8 miles at about 20 degrees F Started with a 86% charge so I took my final battery charge 47% when I got home and subtracted it from my initial trip charge of 86% to get a 39% trip consumption. Our home utility rate is 8.16 cents/wk. We did use the cab and seat heaters for about half of the trip. Never went over 60 mph on the highway. The other days are just for my reference. Sometimes I use the actual energy added from the FordPass app charging details and other times I use charge logs section which is only a % charge. They actually match up pretty well.
The other days were in the 40's. I'm pretty happy to have a truck that is this cheap to run. God I'm so glad I read this thread this morning. The GOM went crazy after just a couple of miles. I think it dropped about 15 miles. Once it stabilized everything seemed to go back to normal. I had just gone from a 45 degree garage to a 17 degree road ride.

 

[Heliian]

When the truck is plugged in to 240v, it warms the battery. Maybe not as much as preconditioning but it's enough to have the power meter at 100% when it's - 20degC a few hours after charging. I plug in every night in the winter and have no problems. I have cold soaked my truck for 3 days at - 15 to - 25 C and only lost 3%. I don't recommend doing it but it wasn't the end of the world.

Nothing likes to be cold soaked.

 

[Shawnson]

That power meter picture is exactly what I was looking for, can you confirm how long it was outdoors? And if it was plugged in at all? That looks so much better than what I was dealing with in my Tesla!

it was outside over night at -36. So about 18 hours. I tried plugging it in to 120v with the mobile connector but apparently it’s gives up when it’s this cold and won’t even heat the battery on 120v so you can consider it unplugged.

 

[Green1]

it was outside over night at -36. So about 18 hours. I tried plugging it in to 120v with the mobile connector but apparently it’s gives up when it’s this cold and won’t even heat the battery on 120v so you can consider it unplugged.

I don't know if that's unplugged or not to be honest. at 110v it's likely that it wasn't able to keep the battery warm, but it's also likely that it did manage to put some heat into it (even if not enough).
keep in mind that 110v is only about 1.3kW, that's tiny by EV standards, but it's also not "nothing". It's quite likely that the battery would have needed double that to fully keep warm, but that the amount it had managed to put some heat in.

 

[RickLightning]

Yesterday I was at work for 12 hours, and the temp was just slightly below 0F. Even driving quite conservatively I certainly burned through the state of charge on the way home. I am curious once things get down to -40F here.

I have a 52 mile round trip commute, about 32 miles of it is highway (not ideal); I am not worried about making it to work and back, but for my SR if I am charging it to 80% when it is cold like this I probably am not going too many other places in a day, without charging somewhere that is.

Charge to 90% daily, as Ford recommends...

it was outside over night at -36. So about 18 hours. I tried plugging it in to 120v with the mobile connector but apparently it’s gives up when it’s this cold and won’t even heat the battery on 120v so you can consider it unplugged.

Ford Mobile Charger is rated to -22. So not surprising that it won't work.

 

[Shawnson]

Charge to 90% daily, as Ford recommends...



Ford Mobile Charger is rated to -22. So not surprising that it won't work.

The charger itself was in the garage, cable under the garage door. So the charger itself was warm.

 

[Shawnson]

I don't know if that's unplugged or not to be honest. at 110v it's likely that it wasn't able to keep the battery warm, but it's also likely that it did manage to put some heat into it (even if not enough).
keep in mind that 110v is only about 1.3kW, that's tiny by EV standards, but it's also not "nothing". It's quite likely that the battery would have needed double that to fully keep warm, but that the amount it had managed to put some heat in.

It was erroring and saying it was plugged in but not charging.

 

[TaxmanHog]

It was erroring and saying it was plugged in but not charging.

It might be a subtle way of saying the trucks thermal condition was not suitable for charging at this time, with the low 1.3 KWH there isn't enough energy to get the pack temp up to a chemically safe charging temp, so the truck would not allow a charge to damage the battery cells. A higher amp EVSE is called for in this situation, 110v won't cut it.

 

[Green1]

It was erroring and saying it was plugged in but not charging.

Just because it isn't charging, doesn't mean it isn't still putting some heat into the battery. For example, I know in my Tesla that in a similar situation it will use the entire 1.3 kW to heat the battery, and none to charge until the battery gets up to temperature, if that never happens the heating will continue, despite no charging happening (in an early software version you could actually lose range in such a situation as it used the battery to supplement the heater, but they realized eventually that was dumb and made it so you at least wouldn't lose range by plugging in)

 

[Shawnson]

if that’s the case, what I see happening on my Tesla makes much more sense and is more obvious because on the Lightning the Mobile charger goes to a status light of orange.
I ordered a 14-15 30 foot extension cord so I will be able to use my mobile connector for level 2 now when I park on the driveway instead of the garage. Super excited either way to avoid this issue.

 

[Shawnson]

It might be a subtle way of saying the trucks thermal condition was not suitable for charging at this time, with the low 1.3 KWH there isn't enough energy to get the pack temp up to a chemically safe charging temp, so the truck would not allow a charge to damage the battery cells. A higher amp EVSE is called for in this situation, 110v won't cut it.

that’s exactly what I thought the issue was. In my model 3, it’s enough but the pack is bigger obviously and ford is probably less efficient. So I ordered a 14-50 extension cord so I can plug in the mobile charger to level 2 when I have to park on the driveway. Problem for me at least should now be solved.

 

[mefly2]

if that’s the case, what I see happening on my Tesla makes much more sense and is more obvious because on the Lightning the Mobile charger goes to a status light of orange.
I ordered a 14-15 30 foot extension cord so I will be able to use my mobile connector for level 2 now when I park on the driveway instead of the garage. Super excited either way to avoid this issue.

I am on a 15 foot 50 amp extension but was told that it is against code ... what have you heard? The mobile charger seems to work just fine on 220 and I have not even considered installing the FCSP.
RVers use a 50 amp extension all the time ...
Oh, yes ... we hit negative 40 F here yesterday!

 

[Shawnson]

I think technically it’s against code to use extension cords for “permanent” installs. But as for plugging in to a 14-50 receptacle, many chargers come with a 14-50 dongle already pre-wired. So things are pretty subjective in my opinion. (Allegedly, I might have 2 cords already, one to my garage heater and one to my Tesla wall charger that I just swap in between and don’t pull out while the appliance is on, and I think that’s the primary safety concern. And then soon to be 3 I guess as I will have the one to extend to my mobile charger as well for when on the garage.)

I am on a 15 foot 50 amp extension but was told that it is against code ... what have you heard? The mobile charger seems to work just fine on 220 and I have not even considered installing the FCSP.
RVers use a 50 amp extension all the time ...
Oh, yes ... we hit negative 40 F here yesterday!

 

[YellowstoneLightning]

I left my truck in the mountains in Montana for nearly six days this past week where it got around 0F each night. I parked at 52% SOC and returned to my truck at 52% SOC. It was about 20F and sunny when I got back (black truck, I think the sun makes a difference) and the power was cut to 61%. As I drove 100 miles to the nearest fast charger, the power came up to 81% and the battery temp reached the optimal range (power was derated because of SOC). I managed to get good range and my efficiency for the return trip was excellent, mostly because I came down 2000' in elevation. Prior to this trip I had left the truck for two days in the cold and also saw no drop in SOC. However, the following drive showed low efficiency, which lead me to believe that the BMS was calulating SOC based on measured battery output and not voltage or some other SOC indicator. This latest trip, with the range and efficiency figures, assuages those concerns for me. I'm very impressed by the lack of vampire drain on the F150! It makes planning for backcountry excursions a lot easier.

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