While charging 110v overnight, I actually lost miles added instead of adding miles :(

[Lightning Rod]

Hello fellow Lightning Lovers. We stay a weekend at these beautiful state park cabins way out in the woods, several times a year.

I always plug in my Ford Mobile Charger at 110v overnight and i usually add about 30 miles or so back into the battery overnight.

Last night before we went to bed, I checked and I had added 8 miles and 4.8 kwh to the battery. When I woke up about 7 hours later, I was expecting to see mid to upper 20s miles added. Instead I saw that only 2 miles were added in about 13 hours of charging!

I went from 73 to 82 SOC, but only added 2 miles (less than the 8 miles that was added before I went to sleep. )

So I'm figuring that going from 45 degrees F last night to 34 degrees this morning, is the reason that I went backwards on my charging progress. What do you guys think about this?

Here's what Google AI says about this...




Losing miles on the Ford F-150 Lightning Guess-O-Meter (GOM) while plugged into a 110V (Level 1) charger overnight is a common occurrence, usually caused by the energy required to manage battery temperature in cold conditions. A 110V charger typically only adds about 2 miles of range per hour, which is often insufficient to overcome the power consumption of the battery heater or other vehicle systems while parked.
Here is a breakdown of why this happens and what to watch for:

Primary Causes for "Lost" Miles

• Battery Heating/Conditioning: In cold weather, the Lightning uses electricity to warm the battery to an optimal temperature for charging. If the outside temperature is low enough, the power spent on heating can exceed the energy being added by the 110V charger, resulting in a net loss of range, even while "plugged in".
• GOM Recalculation: The GOM (Guess-O-Meter) is not a gas gauge; it estimates range based on recent driving, outside temperature, and battery efficiency. If you drove inefficiently the day before, or if the temperature dropped significantly, the truck will revise your range estimate downward in the morning.
• "Top Off" Inefficiency: The 110V charger is very inefficient for maintaining a high state of charge in cold, as the truck may run systems that consume more power than the 110V provides.

Tips for 110V Charging

• Trust the Percentage, Not the Miles: Focus on the battery percentage (e.g., 75% to 78%) rather than the miles displayed, as the GOM can be highly variable.

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[K6CCC]

Guess-O-Meter is just that, a guess. The 73 to 82% sounds about right with an ER battery.

 

[TaxmanHog]

So I'm figuring that going from 45 degrees F last night to 34 degrees this morning, is the reason that I went backwards on my charging progress. What do you guys think about this?

 

[potato]

The battery doesn't hold miles. It holds kWh. Only the battery percentage matters.

The truck has no way of knowing if you're going to be towing a trailer at 90 MPH uphill with a head wind, or putt-putting around town. It is literally impossible to have an accurate measure of future range.

 

[chriserx]

So I'm figuring that going from 45 degrees F last night to 34 degrees this morning, is the reason that I went backwards on my charging progress.

As @potato said, only kWh added matters. What you said here is the reason for the low miles, when you checked the miles, the system is expecting to need to run the heater for the run. What it doesn't factor in, is it's the morning and the day usually warms up, it doesn't even attempt to use a forecast for it's mileage...ummm...forecast.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Last night ~1900 hrs I charged my ER battery to 90% this was the range estimate

22 hours later, it has not been driven today but the weather is a little cooler than last evening.

EDIT Monday 2/16/26 temperature is 30°, the projected range remains at 256 miles at 90% unplugged.

 

[JRDM2]

A sudden cold blast would do that. Below 40F (give or take) the range starts dropping.

 

[Calvin H-C]

The battery doesn't hold miles. It holds kWh. Only the battery percentage matters.

Only the percentage matters to the battery management system.

To a person, percentage doesn't matter so much when it comes to driving somewhere. Unless one is some kind of battery operation nerd, people don't go around thinking or saying things like, "I'm 32% away from home"

They think of how far they need to go in either miles or kilometres, not SOC percentage. So the GOM has relevance, but it is important that the 'G' stands for 'guess'.

Fortunately, it is not a guess that is pulled out of the air or someone's ass. There is some method to the madness, but it is NEVER a guarantee of how far you well get. It is a reasonable tool to let you know if you will need to stop to charge and where you should plan to do so.

It is important to understand and realize the situational awareness that the GOM uses an algorithm that takes multiple factors into consideration that can change be the minute. SOC is but one of those factors, but so is temperature and your recent driving history to name a couple.

As this thread shows, temperature can have a greater effect when it drops while the SOC rises, but the GOM ends up dropping.

 

[JMD359]

I’ve had mine do the same thing in every case it’s when the ambient temperatures are really cold. The battery is cooling off as you’re charging it very slowly and that’s all it comes down to the battery is getting cold so it’s capacity being reduced so even though you’re adding state of charge the temperature is causing reduction in its capacity at the same time

 

[Aminorjourney]

This will happen when the temperatures aren't warm. When we did our road trip last week, we had one night where we added 3% to the battery overnight.

It was... not fun.

 

[chl]

I went from 73 to 82 SOC,

You added some energy to your battery and your SOC went up.
The range prediction went down due to lower temperatures as others noted.

If it were really really cold, you might have seen a lot less energy added to your battery depending, like @Aminorjourney reported.

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