Proud New Owners

[CarlPace]

We just swapped one of the family cars for an FFE. It's our first EV and we're super excited about it! It's only a 2014 and has a whopping 95,000 miles on it, but the battery was replaced under warranty in 2020. Once we found that little detail out, we pounced on the deal. I think we really lucked out.

It's the nicest car we've ever owned, and I'm looking for pointers on how to take care of it. We're in Los Angeles, so my immediate concern is heat. It'll be parked in the garage, which can get pretty hot mid-day. Does the FFE thermally regulate its battery even when off/parked/plugged in? If not, what if I occasionally remote start it throughout the day?

All thoughts and wisdom appreciated.

 

[Heima]

Congratulations!
I am hoping the car will give you years of trouble free miles.
If you were to use Forscan to see the HV battery temperatures, you might be surprised.
The HV battery does have a bit of thermal mass, so even though it can get stupid hot in LA, your battery temperature will probably be the average of the daytime and nighttime temps in your garage.
If you are concerned, charging at level 2 (240 volt) does permit the vehicle to thermally manage.
I suppose if you were to just turn it on, but not go anywhere, it would thermal manage then as well.

As an aside, is the replacement battery a 21 kW or 33 kW? What is your typical range? Thanks

 

[Sftbldad]

Congrats!! The FFE is a great car! I’m in the La area also… The FFE will regulate battery temp either by heating or cooling if the car is on or plugged into level 2 charging not level 1. Easiest level 2 is an electric dryer outlet if you have one. This can handle a level 2 16amp charger no problems. My car sits outside and has very rarely had to cool the battery down. I just leave it plugged in and set the charging times to 10pm to 4 am as long as the car is plugged into level 2 charging or not it will protect it self…. Steve

 

[Anti_Climax]

I'm in Phoenix and when my cooling worked right, it could cool the battery just fine, but you need to leave it plugged into L2 charging. The compressor can pull more than 3.3kW, so I'd recommend keeping it on a 30A charger, but it will take care of the rest.

 

[CarlPace]

Thanks for the intel, all.

Heima, it's already down to about 65 miles on a full charge, so it must only be the 21 KWh. After perusing the forums, I'm slightly concerned about the prospect of total battery failure. We've already planned around normal degradation. It can lose as much as 40% before we have to start using our ICE car more, but waking up one day to discover the car is a brick on wheels would be such a nightmare.

This Forscan you speak of is new to me. I see a paid version in the app store, is it worth it? It'll connect with a 2014? I do enjoy geeking out over technical stats.

 

[Anti_Climax]

Forscan lite with a dual speed CANBus adapter would tell you everything you need. I use the OBDLink MX+ but there are some cheaper ones that are compatible.

If/when you get that, there are a few data points that will tell you the actual capacity left in your battery. Useful miles is great but it isn't reliable for knowing how much actual capacity is gone. Once you know that, you can figure out where it is on the degradation curve and get an idea of how many miles it's got left before it no longer has enough range for you.

 

[triangles]

Welcome CarlPace!

First a couple of things. The battery thermal management (TMS) is only functional when the car is on or plugged into L2 (240V). At least here in Ohio a car interior can easily get 130F+ in the summer sun. Since the upper pack is partially in the car that means the battery can be exposed to this heat too. For this reason I often leave my windows open when I have to park in the sun (at least where it's mostly safe to do so). Batteries degrade at temps somewhere north of 100F so I have a theory this is what is causing much of the FFE battery failures but I have nothing to support this theory. Back to the battery TMS. It cools the battery when battery temps exceed 95F and heats the battery when battery temps are below 50F Although I have read battery temps with forscan below freezing when plugged in to L2 so I'm not sure what triggers the battery heater.

When new the 23kWh pack had about 18.5-19.5 kWh usable. My 2014 is down to about 17kWh usable. A quick way to estimate this without using anything other than the Enhanced trip meter is to charge to full, drive around until you are down to about 10% battery left (one of the Sync screens has battery%). Then you use a little math. Say your enhanced trip meter says you used 15 kWh and have 10% left (90% used) then it would be simply 15kWh/0.9=16.7kWh usable capacity. You'll lose about 1kWh capacity in cold winter weather, I don't think you get that in LA though :lol: Another useful tidbit is that 100% indicated charge is actually about 90% SOC so while keeping lithium batteries fully charged all the time shortens their life it's actually only at 90% so leaving it plugged in isn't necessarily a bad thing especially in temperature extremes where battery TMS will protect the battery.

Also I don't want to rain on your parade but the warranty replacement batteries are NOT new batteries. They are refurbished batteries where bad cells and components are replaced. So your fears of a bricked car are warranted. Since there are no economically viable battery repair / replacement options, the FFE is unfortunately disposable after the warranty expires if you have a battery problem. Hopefully you will get enough usage out of your FFE before it fails to make the purchase worth it. I am happy to read that you have an ICE backup in case it fails. It would make an FFE failure even worse if you have no other vehicle to fall back on.

 

[Heima]

I prefer to use the paid windows version of Forscan. You can do more than the app versions, and the license is about $10 a year.

I have an OBDLink MX+ as well, and it is great, but for the functionality you need, you can go with the OBDLink EX or the VLinker FS. I also have both. Wow, just checked prices at Amazon. The MX+ is ridiculously expensive. The EX isn't as bad, but the vLinker is only $35.
https://www.amazon.com/Vgate-vLinker-Adapter-FORScan-MS-CAN/dp/B094Z7PBLS

If you decide to go with a different adapter, you need to have dual speed functionality. The cheaper units have a physical switch. Which is annoying to remember to toggle it the right way.

If you will stick with the app on a phone, if that phone is IOS, you will need an IOS compatible adapter. The MX+ is.

If you get a WiFi type adapter, I do not believe you will be able to do more advanced configuration changes, because Forscan software needs to download certain packages to do that. The problem is your computer is attached to the Wifi type adapter, so it cannot be attached to your regular wifi networking router. If you were a computer wiz, you could probably overcome that obstacle, but why make the process more difficult?

If you do decide to get the MX+, it includes a pretty nice app called OBDLink, with free updates and free enhanced OEM addons for many different vehicles and makes. The Forscan software is overall more comprehensive for Ford with configuration editing and module testing, but the OEM addons for OBDLink have a plethora of parameters that I have not found in Forscan. Right now I have OBDLink on my iphone configured to display the leakage resistance of the HV battery, the positive and negative leakage voltages, and the 12V battery current draw of the FFE. I also have a dashboard to show fuel trims, fuel economy, and cell voltages on my friend's Prius.

 

[CarlPace]

Thanks again for all the info as this is a totally new world for me. Am I understanding correctly to say that, depending on what I get, I can not only read various stats of the car, but write as well? If so, has anyone made any tweaks they're particularly proud of?

 

[Anti_Climax]

The mobile versions of the app are made to read and log while the PC version will allow you to edit stuff in the configs. Most of it is very "fill in the blanks" type stuff. Like changing one digit in a numeric code to switch from one startup screen (Like "Ford") to another (Like "Lincoln" or "mustang")

 

[CarlPace]

Fascinating...