Pre-conditioning - When?

[Uff-da]

I'm not clear about fast charging. Is it just for fast charging on the road, or is it something I should be doing occasionally before 220v charging at home?

 

[Uff-da]

I'm not clear about fast charging. Is it just for fast charging on the road, or is it something I should be doing occasionally before 220v charging at home?

Sorry. I meant to say I'm not clear about pre-conditioning.

 

[Adnillien]

Sorry. I meant to say I'm not clear about pre-conditioning.

You only need to pre-condition prior to DC fast charging. On Level 2 charging, the BMS will take care of any battery conditioning needed without impacting overall charge time much.

 

[Uff-da]

Great! Thanks, Adnillien.

 

[MorganB]

You should begin pre-conditioning 20 minutes before arrival at the DC fast charger.

 

[JJ_5]

Instead of always using a route planner, I often just plan a trip and the charging stops in my head. Frequently I forget to turn on preconditioning until I'm looking for the exit for the charging station. This has me wondering, does the battery always need 20 minutes of pre-conditioning before DC fast charging? If not, I wish the panel would display how much pre-conditioning time is needed. And, once started, how much pre-conditioning time remains.

 

[joec]

Instead of always using a route planner, I often just plan a trip and the charging stops in my head. Frequently I forget to turn on preconditioning until I'm looking for the exit for the charging station. This has me wondering, does the battery always need 20 minutes of pre-conditioning before DC fast charging? If not, I wish the panel would display how much pre-conditioning time is needed. And, once started, how much pre-conditioning time remains.

Preconditioning is not required. Just recommended. I agree it would be nice to get some sort of status of how much longer the car recommends.

 

[MorganB]

I've noticed now that the Nav allows for auto pre-conditioning that it actually pre-conditions for more than 20 minutes. I haven't determined exactly how long however. I'll try to take note on my drive Monday.

 

[JJ_5]

I've also thought it would be nice to be able to turn on pre-conditioning remotely. For example, if you're on a trip and plan to charge in the morning, you could turn on pre-conditioning when you wake up and the car would be ready to charge by the time you've showered and ready to leave your hotel. We often stop overnight near a charger and charge the car in the morning while we get some coffee or breakfast.

 

[Daniel2022AT]

I’m not entirely sure what preconditioning actually accomplishes. Does it improve charging speed? Battery health? At what ambient temperatures does it do so? I have observed no differences in preconditioning or not from a charging output standpoint. If it invisibly improves long term battery health that is obviously another benefit.

I precondition manually 20 min prior unless I am purposefully not doing so.

 

[Adnillien]

I’m not entirely sure what preconditioning actually accomplishes. Does it improve charging speed? Battery health? At what ambient temperatures does it do so? I have observed no differences in preconditioning or not from a charging output standpoint. If it invisibly improves long term battery health that is obviously another benefit.

I precondition manually 20 min prior unless I am purposefully not doing so.

The best battery temperature for DC fast charging is in the mid 80 degree range. I don't know what Lucid uses because there is also a tradeoff with how soon the battery cooling will have to turn on when charging. If it is close to 80 degrees outside, I would not expect preconditioning to do much. It is most important when it is very cold because charging a cold battery can damage the battery.

 

[JJ_5]

The best battery temperature for DC fast charging is in the mid 80 degree range. I don't know what Lucid uses because there is also a tradeoff with how soon the battery cooling will have to turn on when charging. If it is close to 80 degrees outside, I would not expect preconditioning to do much. It is most important when it is very cold because charging a cold battery can damage the battery.

So a cold battery will need to be warmed and, on a hot day, a battery may need to be cooled? I was thinking that Lucid lowered the DC fast-charging speed on batteries that are not pre-conditioned. Is this true? And if so, does this prolong battery life as well as if you had fully pre-conditioned the battery?

 

[Adnillien]

So a cold battery will need to be warmed and, on a hot day, a battery may need to be cooled? I was thinking that Lucid lowered the DC fast-charging speed on batteries that are not pre-conditioned. Is this true? And if so, does this prolong battery life as well as if you had fully pre-conditioned the battery?

Yes, Lucid lowers the charging speed to protect the battery. I don't think pre-conditioning will prolong battery life but it will allow you to charge faster.

 

[Daniel2022AT]

I know faster charging is theoretically true. I have not observed any difference in charging speed with or without preconditioning with 60-90F ambient temps.

Another poster suggested charging at very cold temps without preconditioning does harm to the battery.

My question is practical versus theoretical. I guess we don’t have enough empirical data to know with certainty.

 

[Sameer]

Should this be driven by how many KW the charger is giving you at the time of charging? I have a 50kw charger at work and do get about 4-6 miles a minute with that.

Should I enable preconditioning for the same? Or as the thread states, it is just a mechanism for lucid to optimize charging speed irrespective of how much juice is being pumped into your Lucid?

 

[Neurio]

Should this be driven by how many KW the charger is giving you at the time of charging? I have a 50kw charger at work and do get about 4-6 miles a minute with that.

Should I enable preconditioning for the same? Or as the thread states, it is just a mechanism for lucid to optimize charging speed irrespective of how much juice is being pumped into your Lucid?

Preconditioning is only important for level 3 (ie DCFC) charging. It's done to optimize battery temperature to try to maximize charging speed. Level 2 (like your work charger) isn't affected by battery temp because the speeds are slow.

 

[Mondo316]

I've noticed now that the Nav allows for auto pre-conditioning that it actually pre-conditions for more than 20 minutes. I haven't determined exactly how long however. I'll try to take note on my drive Monday.

Yesterday I was returning home from a trip to my brothers and had entered an EA location along the way to grab a quick charge. I noticed a notification that pre-conditioning had started, approximately 60 miles from the EA location. Even at highway speeds, I was still a good 50 minutes from plug-in time. SOC was about 45%, ambient temperature was 84*. It seems to me that pre-conditioning started much earlier than needed.

 

[Bobby]

Yesterday I was returning home from a trip to my brothers and had entered an EA location along the way to grab a quick charge. I noticed a notification that pre-conditioning had started, approximately 60 miles from the EA location. Even at highway speeds, I was still a good 50 minutes from plug-in time. SOC was about 45%, ambient temperature was 84*. It seems to me that pre-conditioning started much earlier than needed.

It depends what you mean by "needed." We all assume 20 minutes is best, but is that really correct? Perhaps the car's computer knew better.

 

[Adnillien]

Yesterday I was returning home from a trip to my brothers and had entered an EA location along the way to grab a quick charge. I noticed a notification that pre-conditioning had started, approximately 60 miles from the EA location. Even at highway speeds, I was still a good 50 minutes from plug-in time. SOC was about 45%, ambient temperature was 84*. It seems to me that pre-conditioning started much earlier than needed.

That does seem early since 84 degrees is a pretty ideal battery temp for fast charging. Your battery may have been substantially warmer than ambient.