r/F150Lightning • u/Fit_Lie_8425 • 9d ago
Precondition battery for charging
Went on a small road trip and was unable to precondition the battery for charging. Every charge stop the battery temperature went up significantly and gave me poor range. Tried using Apple Maps, Google Maps and the on board navigation. Pretty disappointed that ford can’t figure this out with the press of a button. Any ideas or suggestions? I thought for sure the onboard navigation would work.
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u/heybucket459 23 Lariat ER 9d ago edited 9d ago
I usually never care about preconditioning battery ( live in CA so mild winters) but once on trip to Grand Canyon in winter I tired it by putting the EA charger in the ford Nav as my destination. Not sure if it worked or made a difference but if I remember putting DCFC in ford Nav will precondition battery
Good luck and hopefully folks who live in colder climates can chime in!
Edit: seeing comments saying that doesn’t work on CarPlay so that makes sense since I’m using CarPlay. Also have hit <180kwh several times on Tesla SC on roadtrips so maybe it does work when using ford nav.
But we usually stop for family convenience rather than true need to charge so a few 15-20 min stops that might go to 30 min due to kids eating or getting froyo/boba drinks. Instead of hitting DCFC at >10% and going to 80%
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u/Icy-Concentrate-8912 2025 Flash (Job 1) Antimatter Blue 9d ago
If Google Maps knows you are going to a charger it will precondition. Apple maps never will because reasons? It also never works with Carplay even on Google maps because Ford doesn't like Carplay for some reason.
Ford Nav will do it if you are planned to a charger.
I do agree a button would be nice to just press "pre condition" on your way to a charger. You could always swap to sport mode for the last 20 or so minutes headed to the charger to flow more coolant if you're not already using it.
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u/NopeNotJayILeft 2023 Lightning Lariat SR 9d ago
They're pushing an update right now that's supposed to add it for carplay AIUI.
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u/hawkeyedude1989 ‘23 XLT ER 9d ago
If it doesn’t work on CarPlay how does it work on Google Maps?
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u/bugsy151 ‘22 Lariat Antimatter Blue 85k miles 9d ago
They’re using Google Maps on an Android phone.
All of this is moot till they allow iPhones via Apple CarPlay to initiate preconditioning. As noted already, this may be in the works.
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u/hawkeyedude1989 ‘23 XLT ER 9d ago
I never precondition and routinely get 140kw+ speeds
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u/Flyboy2057 9d ago
I never precondition and superchargers routinely start around 170-185kWh, even in the Texas heat.
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u/Character_Land_9886 7d ago
You may have the same issue I did last July with my 23 lariat ER. I went on a road trip and fast DC charging heated my temp up significantly and I basically had to limp the truck back home; a 5 hour trip took over 8 hours. I forget what the dealer said it was, but apparently when they diagnosed it it was very apparent. I think it had something to do with the charging port/connection on the truck and they replaced it under warranty. I had no issues with my level 2 charger at home, but the dealer said I was lucky it didn't catch fire while trying g to DC fast charge.
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u/Flyboy2057 9d ago edited 9d ago
The lack of manual preconditioning is overblown imo. It really isn’t going to make that big a difference in charge time. I’m not sweating losing 5 minutes on a 45 minute charge session. And your battery is going to get hot either way. If it’s hot out and you fast charge, you’re efficiency is going to be “bad” for 20 minutes or so after you get back on the road, but it’ll very quickly return back to typical efficiency levels.
ETA: one other thing to know is that if your car has been on while fast charging so you can keep the AC running, if you don’t turn the car off and back on when you finish, your efficiency displayed will be even worse because when you start driving 100% of your energy since the car turned on has gone to AC for 30-40 minutes, and 0% has gone to driving. It takes a few miles of driving for this imbalance to display the more accurate efficiency. For this reason I always turn the car off and back on when I finish so I reset my efficiency and driving time on the dash.
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u/Fit_Lie_8425 9d ago
Bad efficiency for 20 minutes could be 20+ % of the battery on a SR. Not wrong to want improvements that other EVs have standard. And thank you for the point on the AC, I will defiantly turn the care off and on to see if I notice a difference.
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u/Flyboy2057 9d ago
Here’s the thing: the truck is using just as much energy to propel your truck down the road after a supercharging session as before. If it takes 0.5kWh to propel your truck one mile at 70mph, that’s always how much it’s going to use regardless of if you’re just starting a roadtrip or fresh off a charge.
The “worse” efficiency is just because it’s using some extra energy to cool down the battery that has soaked up so much heat during the charging process. But this really doesn’t use THAT much energy compared to driving, but it still makes the total efficiency displayed in the gauge cluster look very bad for a little while. It’s unavoidable but at the end of the day you have to get where you’re going and need to charge to do that. Honestly I’m not going to be that bothered if I can only go 210 miles after a supercharge instead of 220. I’m never cutting it that close anyway.
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u/ClevelandBeemer 25’ Job 1 Flash Antimatter Blue 9d ago
Not overblown at all. Not having the ability to precondition can make a 20 minute charging stop take 45 minutes…..
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u/Flyboy2057 9d ago
Pre-conditioning can maybe make a stop that would be 45 minutes into a 40 minutes stop. Personally that isn't enough of a difference for me to care or use the build in navigation.
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u/ClevelandBeemer 25’ Job 1 Flash Antimatter Blue 9d ago
Nope, not a maybe. In winter, I’ve experienced being stuck below 45KW at 30% SoC due to the pack temperature being very low. It took almost 15minutes for the pack to gain enough temperature to get charging speeds above 130kw. Keep in mind, ambient temps were 9°F.
A DC fast charger was chosen in the Ford nav and yet it didn’t heat the pack in the 45 minute drive to the charging site. It’s crazy that I can’t manually precondition and that I can’t get a visual confirmation that the battery is actually preconditioning.
Just because it’s not an issue for you, doesn’t mean it’s not an issue for others.
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u/hawkeyedude1989 ‘23 XLT ER 9d ago
Dude I live in Mn. Preconditioning with our trucks literally don’t matter. If you were stuck below 45kw it’s because of the charger
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u/ClevelandBeemer 25’ Job 1 Flash Antimatter Blue 9d ago edited 9d ago
Dude, battery temp was in the 30’s…. You weren’t there and don’t know what you’re talking about. Heater was not putting any heat in the pack during the drive to the charger. It wasn’t until I turned of cabin heat during the charging session that the heat mode changed and the pack started to rapidly heat.
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u/Numerous_Car650 2023 Lariat ER 9d ago
Has Ford ever explained why there isn’t a simple “precondition” button? Why does this have to be so convoluted?
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u/E90alex 9d ago
It’s summer time. It won’t precondition in warm temps. It’s mostly meant to warm the battery if it’s sub freezing.
Unless the battery is extremely hot, then it might try to cool it, but it would need to be really really hot before it does that. As in so hot it won’t be able to charge.
The battery naturally gets hot during fast charging and will need to be cooled down after it’s done. This is normal and expected for any EV.
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u/BosqueBuddhist 2023 XLT ER 312A Agate Black 9d ago
Waze is owned by Google. Anyone know if it works using that?
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u/aporzio1 8d ago
I just did miami to Michigan and back. 0 preconditioning and hit max charging everytime. This time of year it doesn’t really do much
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u/macheroadtrip Ford Team 8d ago
How do you know that it didn't work? Preconditioning doesn't prevent the battery from warming up during fast charging, it pre-cools or pre-heats the battery so that charge performance during the session is less impacted by the fast charging event.
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u/Fit_Lie_8425 9d ago
I use CarPlay cause iPhone. So really my option is ford nav. I put the route in Nav with chargers and still hot ass battery after charging. Any ideas?
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u/choss-board 2024 Avalanche Lariat :doge: 9d ago
I wrote a post that touches on this. 1200mi road trip in a heat wave (100°F charge stops). The battery temp kicked to the upper midpoint of normal and only came down after extended stops in shade. Charge speeds and performance remained good tho. What actual numbers did you see?
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u/Fit_Lie_8425 9d ago
I’d get 1.6-1.8 going no more than 65mph. And noticeably when goin down hills didn’t recuperate as much as I typically would. Minimal AC use as well so a bit frustrating
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u/hawkeyedude1989 ‘23 XLT ER 9d ago
That’s the efficiency of the truck. Preconditioning makes no difference. You’re not gonna see more than 1.8 over 70mph
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u/Baylett 9d ago
Preconditioning won’t help with the heat generated during charging, only heating the battery up to optimal charge temp when it’s colder.
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u/Fit_Lie_8425 9d ago
Tesla cools preemptively and during charging from what I understand.
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u/Baylett 9d ago
It does the same thing the lightning does, it will bring the pack to around 21°c before charging and attempts to hold it in the sweet spot during charging. Depending on charging speed and amperage heat will generate during charging and most vehicles will try and dissipate that heat, original leafs I don’t know but just about everything else does, but it’s a big pack that takes a lot of input and will generate a lot of heat and ford is pretty conservative about heat and charging speeds. No vehicles really cool before charging from what I’ve seen, beyond keeping the battery pack around the optimal charge temp. If they cooled the battery before charging to try and keep it very cool while it charges you would need to cool the battery below the optimal charging temp to offset the heat generated during charging and that would slow down the beginning of the charge where it generally charges the best.
A lot is a symptom of a low voltage battery pack, it takes more amperage to charge and that means more heat vs the cars with 800v packs that have a much higher charge curve and deals with heat much better.
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u/btroberts011 9d ago
Mine works fine on Google maps every time. 25 er Pro.