Just about ran the battery out yesterday,barely made it home

For the record, today I had my first encounter with an empty battery.

We were just getting home from a range-stretching trip out of town, involved a couple charging stops along the way, and during the last mile the battery gauge read 1 mile to go. During the last hill climb in my neighborhood (nothing big, just two blocks heading up a slight hill) the range clicked down to zero and the warning popped up:

Depleted battery
Stop safely now

We were about 1500 feet from home at that point so I kept going, but was eyeing empty spots on the side of the road to pull into (urban neighborhood with lots of cars parked at curb) if the drivetrain did shut down. We were only going 10-20 MPH and I didn't try to go faster, but it did make it those 1500 feet all the way into my driveway and my trusty Clipper Creek EVSE

From previous tales here I had thought that SSN meant imminent drivetrain shutdown, but I guess it's variable. I got a good third of a mile more out the car, at very low speed.

I was able to go about a mile on an uphill grade after getting the "Charge Depleted" message. I did not get a "Stop Safely Now" message though... in my case it said "Pull Over Safely".

Glad to hear you made it all the way home! I wasn't as fortunate...

My son (age 18) ran ours down to 0 miles and kept driving just shy of 2 miles before pulling into our driveway. He had some up-hill and some down, but overall he finished at a higher elevation. But don't count on this. Others have gone less than a half mile before it shut down.

I ran out yesterday about 2 miles from my house and that was after "0" miles had been on for about 2-3 miles (mostly coasting)

Question:

What DO YOU DO in this case? In my case I brought a 3500W gasoline generator with the 120 charger provided but that took 1 1/2 hr before I could drive the last 2 miles to my house.

I could probably have pulled the FFE with a tow rope with my F250?

Too bad I did not have my son's truck with the 10kw+ generator with a 220V welder plug on board.

I am now checking into the smallest generators available since the 120V charger is only 1500w anyhow.

hcsharp, thanks for your report. I posted in this old thread because it had the most information already about this behavior, including your own report from a last year.

v_traveller, you may be right about the actual message. I wasn't able to take a picture of it

I found this thread by searching* for "stop safely now" (and ignoring the threads about the older SSN sudden drivetrain failure problem). If I now search this site for "pull over safely" I get a whole bunch more threads about this behavior. OK, so now I know even more

* searching in spite of this site's broken search feature, that is ...

ChrisC said:

hcsharp, thanks for your report. I posted in this old thread because it had the most information already about this behavior, including your own report from a last year.

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Oops. Sorry for posting the same info again!

It's interesting having an 18 yr old around. We recently went away for the weekend and left him with the FFE. We told him he could only take it to work and back and ride his bike everywhere else. We charged it full and took the cable with us (so he couldn't charge). There should have been at least 20 extra miles of range after he got back from work on the last day.

Sure enough, when we got home there were 0 miles on the car! We never heard the story for how it got there, or how far he drove _after_ it got to 0. :shock:

fbitz - roadside assistance and have them flat bed the car to your house or a charging station. Ford provides that service for free. Do not have the car towed on the ground - FLAT BED only. Ford is abundantly clear about that in the owner's manual.

You would have been about even time wise compared to the generator.

EVA said:

fbitz - roadside assistance and have them flat bed the car to your house or a charging station. Ford provides that service for free. Do not have the car towed on the ground - FLAT BED only. Ford is abundantly clear about that in the owner's manual.

You would have been about even time wise compared to the generator.

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Ok but I hate using roadside assistance for such a short distance...3 people could have pushed the car easily as it was pretty flat.

I had my truck there so you are saying that towing with a chain and car in Neutral is not good?

I can't imagine towing the car a short distance would do any harm. How is this any different than coasting down a hill?

hcsharp said:

We charged it full and took the cable with us (so he couldn't charge).

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I assume your son hasn't heard about public charging stations?

unplugged said:

hcsharp said:

We charged it full and took the cable with us (so he couldn't charge).

Click to expand...

I assume your son hasn't heard about public charging stations?

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Lol

If they wanted to see how far he drove all they'd have to do is login to MFM. With key personalization they could also see GPS info about where his trips ended.