sly_karma
Crew Member
Ran the battery down fairly low yesterday. Ford's battery management system is very much geared toward protecting owners from themselves. It progressively reduces power output as state of charge drops, so a driver has less ability to make stupid decisions with the throttle pedal.
The picture shows the battery has 9% of charge remaining, and power output is restricted to 40% of nominal. It's not the lowest SOC I've reached, but it is the most power restriction I've seen. It wasn't noticeable on city streets though, and I was curious so I did boot it off the line a couple of times. Still had that quick early surge to 50 km/h.
The management algorithm is complex. I've run down to as low as 6% on a highway trip, but the power output had only reduced to 70%. I had home set as the destination, so the vehicle knew what was coming: distance, temp, elevation change, speed limits. Driveability appeared unaffected.
Yesterday, the math was a lot different. A run to Kelowna and back, with multiple short runs between errands in both places. No destination set in navigation, so the truck doesn't know what is coming. Plus the stops allow the battery to cool down, so each restart means a reheat. More energy used, plus no predictability. Result is what we see in the picture, a fairly aggressive move to prevent the battery from becoming seriously depleted.
This is a far cry from the unmanaged or very lightly managed lithium batteries in phones and cordless tools. I can see why people transfer what they know about lithium based on phone and tool batteries, leading to the assumption that EV packs will be toast after 5 years too. But a better analogy would be the engine in a modern ICE vehicle. The management system there does a lot to protect the ICE from damage, monitoring and controlling air and oil temp and pressure, head temp, fuel level and flow, and so on. It knows how long since last oil change, and gives other maintenance warnings. Both management systems are there for the same reason: to make the vehicle perform at its best, and to preserve the expensive main drive system.
Ford has 8 year/160,000 km battery warranty. That's considerably greater cover than what they offer on ICE series, power trains where they have over a century of experience.
The picture shows the battery has 9% of charge remaining, and power output is restricted to 40% of nominal. It's not the lowest SOC I've reached, but it is the most power restriction I've seen. It wasn't noticeable on city streets though, and I was curious so I did boot it off the line a couple of times. Still had that quick early surge to 50 km/h.
The management algorithm is complex. I've run down to as low as 6% on a highway trip, but the power output had only reduced to 70%. I had home set as the destination, so the vehicle knew what was coming: distance, temp, elevation change, speed limits. Driveability appeared unaffected.
Yesterday, the math was a lot different. A run to Kelowna and back, with multiple short runs between errands in both places. No destination set in navigation, so the truck doesn't know what is coming. Plus the stops allow the battery to cool down, so each restart means a reheat. More energy used, plus no predictability. Result is what we see in the picture, a fairly aggressive move to prevent the battery from becoming seriously depleted.
This is a far cry from the unmanaged or very lightly managed lithium batteries in phones and cordless tools. I can see why people transfer what they know about lithium based on phone and tool batteries, leading to the assumption that EV packs will be toast after 5 years too. But a better analogy would be the engine in a modern ICE vehicle. The management system there does a lot to protect the ICE from damage, monitoring and controlling air and oil temp and pressure, head temp, fuel level and flow, and so on. It knows how long since last oil change, and gives other maintenance warnings. Both management systems are there for the same reason: to make the vehicle perform at its best, and to preserve the expensive main drive system.
Ford has 8 year/160,000 km battery warranty. That's considerably greater cover than what they offer on ICE series, power trains where they have over a century of experience.
