120v Charging Outdoors

Hello everyone, I am considering a pre-owned 2013 FFE with 7000 miles. I test drove it today, and I got 55-60 miles range at 70mph with AC on. Not great in my book. I am concerned about my daily commute.

I have a heated garage and a 30 mile all highway drive from the St. Louis suburbs into downtown. I have 120v outlets available for use at my garage. I understand that I should be able to half charge the car in about 9 hours, thus I should have a good 90-100% charge on my way home on a sunny and 75f day. Here is my concern. I know the focus uses power to heat/cool the battery while charging. I don't foresee this being a problem in the summer; it does get 100f here but I'm under a covered garage so no sun heating the car up excessively. But in the winter, St. Louis gets cold. This year was one of the coldest on record. It regularly dropped below 0f during the day. So here's my question: it's -5f outside, I drive to work with the heat on 72, seat warmers on, etc, and my GOM is showing 15-20 miles (if that) when I pull into the parking garage at work. Is there any chance in this cold that the car will charge back to 100%? I get the whole "drive efficiently, turn the heat off" thing, but I'm not going to buy that as my daily driver. To me, I would like the FFE to run 72f winter and summer, just like a normal car would.

I just want to know if the 120v charger is up to the task in the deep freeze winter, or if I'll be left stranded when the mercury drops. I know the 120v charger charges at a rate of 3-4 miles/hour under ideal conditions. How does it do under bitter cold conditions when the batteries not only need charging but also heating as well? If I can get up to 80-90% on the way home, I figure I shouldn't have too much trouble getting home in the cold (even with the heater on).

Thoughts?

Regards,

Doug

douglas685 said:

I test drove it today, and I got 55-60 miles range at 70mph with AC on. Not great in my book. I am concerned about my daily commute.

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If your commute is mostly freeway, I'm afraid you will not achieve the EPA range for the FFE driving at speeds like 70 mph.

You will achieve closer to the EPA numbers if the keep speeds within 55-65 mph, which usually translates into an average energy consumption of about 255 Wh/mile (which is what you need to maintain to go the rated 76 miles). Doing 70, you were probably averaging closer to 300 Wh/mile.

A/C will not affect range very much (eats a few miles). Heat, however, will kill range (potentially eats tens of miles).

Hey WattsUp, sorry I should have been more specific.

I'm not overly concerned about the 55-60 miles range at 70mph (I can slow down to 60mph to extend range, but I guess I didn't know it really helps THAT much, so thanks for the advice!!), what I'm more concerned about is cold charging. My garage at home is heated, but my parking garage (a standard multi-level downtown garage) is obviously not climate controlled. I will be plugging in at my garage at work.

My question is: how does the 120v do when it has to charge the car in subfreezing or even subzero temperatures?

If on really cold days I have to drive 60mph, that's no problem. But I need to know that the car will still charge up at my work even at the very cold temperatures, and that the charger will make noticeable charging gains to the battery (3-4mph) instead of just wasting the energy heating the battery without actually providing much charge (1-2mph). Anybody in the cold areas have any expertise on this?

You shouldn't have much of an issue as you are plugging in right after your commute. Your battery will be relatively warm from driving in. So the time the 900 watt battery heaters will be running will be minimal. For what it's worth, in -15F weather, I ran out of charge 2 miles from my destination. I stopped at a beer distributor and charged on a 120V NEMA 5-15 outlet for 45 minutes and got 3 miles back. Long story short, I don't think you'll have any issue leaving it plugged in all day and being affected by cold. The act of charging the battery will also generate heat keeping it warm.

sefs said:

Long story short, I don't think you'll have any issue leaving it plugged in all day and being affected by cold.

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Sort of. Sure it will charge just fine, but the power consumption is the issue. Driving to work with the temp set at 72F will consume a ton more electricity during those <0F days. Thus you'll end up with a much lower charge than in the summer.

My round-trip commute is 30 miles: This past winter on those really cold days (< -10F--yeah I'm in Michigan) my 30 mile commute with the heater running would leave me with 10% or so of the battery left (Since I have a Level 2 at home I'd be back to 100% in the morning). So after your 30 mile commute in in the dead of winter I'm not sure 8 or 9 hours on 120 V will be enough to get you back home (unless you did some more extreme cold driving--like driving with the heater off, wearing thicker jackets/a blanket, etc.
Some of the things I use to cope with the cold: http://jamiegeek.myevblog.com/2014/01/10/turning-the-corner-on-winter/ )

Also remember that the heat draws power over time. Spend more time with the car running and your total kWh consumed by the heater will be larger.

For example, suppose you could spend 60 minutes driving at 60 MPH or 50 minutes driving 70 MPH. The higher speed may use less Wh/mi because 10 minutes saved by going faster saves a lot of electricity that would have gone to the heater otherwise.

Also, be sure to preheat the car at home with Go Times as this will help boost range by reducing how much heat is needed at the beginning of your commute.

If you're up at 400 Wh/mi for a really bad commute with heat and speed, your 30 miles will take 12 kWh. The capacity at very cold temperatures drops to about 16.5 kWh. You could charge up 10.368 kWh assuming 9 hours charge time, 80% efficiency (that's low), charging at 1.44 kW. So you would arrive at work with 4.5 kWh remaining, charge back up to 14.868 kWh, leaving you arriving at home with 2.868 kWh or 7 miles of range pulling in your garage. 400 Wh/mi is pretty bad efficiency, and you should be able to do much better in warmer temperatures. Plus, in warmer temperatures you will have closer to 19.5 kWh of battery capacity. So you should be okay as long as you know you have that 120V outlet all the time. I would make sure there is a fall back you can charge at incase your EVSE breaks or the outlet goes out of commission for some reason.

jmueller065 said:

sefs said:

Long story short, I don't think you'll have any issue leaving it plugged in all day and being affected by cold.

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Sort of. Sure it will charge just fine, but the power consumption is the issue. Driving to work with the temp set at 72F will consume a ton more electricity during those <0F days. Thus you'll end up with a much lower charge than in the summer.

My round-trip commute is 30 miles: This past winter on those really cold days (< -10F--yeah I'm in Michigan) my 30 mile commute with the heater running would leave me with 10% or so of the battery left (Since I have a Level 2 at home I'd be back to 100% in the morning). So after your 30 mile commute in in the dead of winter I'm not sure 8 or 9 hours on 120 V will be enough to get you back home (unless you did some more extreme cold driving--like driving with the heater off, wearing thicker jackets/a blanket, etc.
Some of the things I use to cope with the cold: http://jamiegeek.myevblog.com/2014/01/10/turning-the-corner-on-winter/ )

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I'll second this - my commute is on surface streets 30-45 mph and on those really cold days this past winter I was only able to do a shade over 50 miles on a full charge.

sefs said:

If you're up at 400 Wh/mi for a really bad commute with heat and speed, your 30 miles will take 12 kWh. The capacity at very cold temperatures drops to about 16.5 kWh. You could charge up 10.368 kWh assuming 9 hours charge time, 80% efficiency (that's low), charging at 1.44 kW. So you would arrive at work with 4.5 kWh remaining, charge back up to 14.868 kWh, leaving you arriving at home with 2.868 kWh or 7 miles of range pulling in your garage. 400 Wh/mi is pretty bad efficiency, and you should be able to do much better in warmer temperatures. Plus, in warmer temperatures you will have closer to 19.5 kWh of battery capacity. So you should be okay as long as you know you have that 120V outlet all the time. I would make sure there is a fall back you can charge at incase your EVSE breaks or the outlet goes out of commission for some reason.

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Great analysis Sefs, very nicely done. I performed similar analysis assuming a "slightly slower (2-3mph)" charge and came to relatively similar conclusions. I ran the guestimations with serveral different variable scenarious and came to a general estimation of 5-10 miles remaining when I get back home in the evening. Not ideal, but enough. One of my estimations showed me at literally 0 miles, which was an estimation for a 20% temperature penalty, 2 mph recharge at 9 hours, with 20% battery-life degradation (a 4-6year estimation due to my expected 20,000 miles per year usage and daily 240v 20-32amp quickcharge at home). Even still, getting home at 0 (getting towing on the insurance plan to make sure I'm not footing a very large bill) on the coldest days 4-6 years from now is OK with me. By then, several factors could have changed the outcomes. For example, my work is very progressive, and it would not surprise me if we see 240v quickcharging stations installed. Also, who knows if I've sold the car by then.

In summary, I think the consensus is that it will be tight, but doable with slower driving (60mph), preheating at the home garage, and slower but still useful outdoor 120v charging. Am I off base in any way?

Please feel free to challenge or critque my above hypothesis, I want an EV but I need to know that with minmal planning and buffers that the risk of being towed is essentially 0 for normal daily driving to and from work. I also plan on buying a much older Dodge Ram v6 or a ford f150 v6 for longer drives (about 20mpg highway, so not TERRIBLE highway mpg, plus a lot of practicality for me). Case in point, I need 100% certainty of a successful commute despite weather, including assurance that cold weather will not drop the effecive charge rate of the battery below 2mph, and then from there I can quickcharge or switch vehicles if necessary.

Again, thanks for the comments. Please let me know if I have missed or over/under estimated variables so I can know exactly what I'm getting into if I buy a FFE.

Regards!

douglas685 said:

240v 20-32amp quickcharge at home

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A level 2 charge is not a "quickcharge" in as much as it doesn't degrade the battery like a true quick charge (80% battery charged in 20 minutes).

There are people on here with over 10,000 miles and more on their FFE's which they Level 2 charge daily and they are showing no battery degradation. In short I think your estimate of battery degradation is a bit high. (I'm at 12,000+ miles with no appreciable loss of battery capacity and I charge daily at 24A--sometimes multiple times a day.)

Do your winter efficiency calculations account for the increased rolling resistance of driving on snow covered roads? I've found in our FFH that the rolling resistance of snow is huge and thus causes the ICE to run a lot more because we get less out of the HVB.

From my experience 3" of snow over 15 miles consumed an extra 800Wh of power, not that much:

http://jamiegeek.myevblog.com/2014/01/30/bad-battery-and-clear-roads/

Douglas - the simple answer, in the winter you will see between 50 and 58 miles range on a full charge. My experience has been when it gets below 45 degrees, the range drops to that level - no matter how much colder it gets.

In the winter, with your 30 mile commute, you will have to charge at work or you won't make it home. You will have 20 to 28 miles of range left when you get to work. However you charge the car, you'll need to add at least 15 miles of range. Even at 2 mph of charging, you'd get that in 8 hours.

You will have more than enough range in the summer without charging at work. The problem in the winter is heating the cabin, it takes a ton of energy.

Also consider, that with these calculations you should be able to make it even on the worst days. If you just use the navigation to calculate your distance to the next charging station (your home when coming back from work) you can keep an eye on your surplus. If things seems like they are not going well one day, shut down the HVAC. I don't foresee this happening often, but keep in mind, it is an option that should definitely get you home and negate the need for a tow.

sefs said:

Also consider, that with these calculations you should be able to make it even on the worst days. If you just use the navigation to calculate your distance to the next charging station (your home when coming back from work) you can keep an eye on your surplus. If things seems like they are not going well one day, shut down the HVAC. I don't foresee this happening often, but keep in mind, it is an option that should definitely get you home and negate the need for a tow.

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This is an excellent suggestion. And when you don't want to have to listen to Samantha (the name of the MFT voice) tell you where to turn when you know where you're going you can just mute the guidance.

hybridbear said:

sefs said:

Also consider, that with these calculations you should be able to make it even on the worst days. If you just use the navigation to calculate your distance to the next charging station (your home when coming back from work) you can keep an eye on your surplus. If things seems like they are not going well one day, shut down the HVAC. I don't foresee this happening often, but keep in mind, it is an option that should definitely get you home and negate the need for a tow.

Click to expand...

This is an excellent suggestion. And when you don't want to have to listen to Samantha (the name of the MFT voice) tell you where to turn when you know where you're going you can just mute the guidance.

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Good tip. I always have navigation muted. I just use it for range/surplus tracking.

You know if you go into the main setup menu and turn Sync to "Advanced" you'll shut up "Samantha" completely and all the system will do is beep instead of blabbing all the time. In addition from the Nav Screen Menu select Navigation Preferences and set "Tone Only".

Set those two items up and you'll almost never hear her blabbing...(and your interactions with Sync will be MUCH quicker.)