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Ford Mustang Mach-E Recalled Because Battery Can't Handle Owners Flooring It

29 points by zolbrek 3y ago

delusional 3y ago
Good on them. It's good to see car manufacturers are still taking their responsibility of delivering an actually correctly functioning car seriously. In the tech world we would have artificially limited the power throughput, providing no information or remedy to the customer. This seems like the right move. While you can argue that Ford should have specced the bar correctly to start out with, I'm happy to see that this is the response. Get it back to a technician, and swap out the part, at no cost to the customer.
- dylan604 3y ago
  Good on them? Yes, let’s give them a pass for even allowing this car to be shipped as is. It’s a freaking mustang, and they never floored it in any of their tests during development of the car? Nobody ever sat down with pencil and paper and did the math on the extreme conditions on what would happen if the max power was requested? No where in the computer code for throttle control has a software limiter to prevent surge requests like this? Just seems like shit design process to me, it sure, let’s pat them in the back for doing a mea culpa
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    It would be interesting to hear the real story here. These cars tend to have artificial power restrictions for reliability. It is possible that they did test it, but there were late software changes to reduce the power restrictions for marketing reasons. And maybe things weren't retested as much as they should be? It could be as simple as them doing the engineering analysis, finding the potential problem, and then being overridden because someone thought it wouldn't happen in the real world.
    - ballenf 3y ago
      Could be, but if the marketing department can push spec change past tested conditions on critical safety components without retesting then there's an organizational/cultural lapse running very deep. We're talking about the relay that turns off high voltage in accidents and can weld itself in a permanent "on" state if people drive their sports car too sporty.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - chankstein38 3y ago
    The person you're replying to is named "delusional" I'm not saying they didn't mean their comment in earnest but, at the very least, the name fits lol
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jandrese 3y ago
    I remember when Top Gear got to test one of the early Tesla Model S on their track. They also managed to overheat the batteries and got it into limp mode. The 1% use case is hard to plan for apparently, especially for your first real effort at building a production EV. This isn't unique to EVs either. You will find no shortage of people telling you to never buy the first model year of any vehicle if you value high reliability.
  - K0balt 3y ago
    While I agree that this is a serious error in the design or tuning of the vehicle, a modern car is an extremely complex piece of kit and it would be miraculous if any new design didn’t incorporate several similar flaws. Engineering to factory is a very complex path fraught with noise from the process, and very subtle and seemingly insignificant tweaks often add up to significant problems in complex designs. That there was a flaw in the process is not the least bit surprising or even disappointing, every single new vehicle design brought to market will have numerous tweaks and modifications or recalls over the first few years of fielding the design. That the flaw was safety critical is unfortunate, but that a major automaker that typically handles things responsibly (with some notable historical exceptions) responded in an appropriate way is the system functioning nominally as it should. That new companies with a more “tech” oriented approach would probably have silently pushed a performance degrading software update instead of fixing the problem is a harsh indictment of a deeply flawed engineering culture.
- pjc50 3y ago
  They did artificially limit the power in a software update, like an iPhone, but realized that this doesn't undo damage already done.
Ajay-p 3y ago
As a child I wanted to own a Mustang one day so I could "floor" it and hear the 5 liter V8 roar. The Electric Mustang is not the same for me...
- nextweek2 3y ago
  My Mach-e has a switch to turn on engine noise through the B&O sound system relative to the pedal. I’m not polluting the local environment and people outside the car aren’t bothered by engine noise.
- jgoodhcg 3y ago
  People who are into loud bikes and cars seem obnoxious to me. This comment especially doesn’t seem to care about performance or speed. Is the appeal really just to be loud and get attention?
  - treepunch 3y ago
    Breaking news: People like different things about different products.
    - DangitBobby 3y ago
      As I understand it, the sound of certain car engines is carefully engineered and it shows, they certainly have some appeal. But loud cars disturb everyone around them, particularly people trying to exist in the surrounding homes. Hence some pushback against people who say they like it is to be expected.
  - accrual 3y ago
    It could also just be fun for the other commentor, the feeling of getting pushed into your seat, roar of the ICE, etc. They could do it on a track or some rural road where it wouldn't bother anybody, though of course it's unsafe to go ripping around on public roads.
    - Ajay-p 3y ago
dboreham 3y ago
A friend has owned one of these vehicles. It stopped working while driving on the freeway (twice).
rapsey 3y ago
If you're buying an EV, it seems buying one from traditionally ICE manufacturers is a bad idea. With the exception of Hyundai. They all seem to be quite shit.
- jonkoops 3y ago
  Kia ain't doing so bad either.
  - hexagonwin 3y ago
    Isn't Kia the same as Hyundai?
    - Gare 3y ago
      It's the same group, but they are separate companies. They do share a lot of parts and platforms, though. KIA EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 are built on the same platform.
    - brodouevencode 3y ago
      Hyundai Motor Company (the parent owner of Hyundai, Genesis) has a controlling stake in Kia, but my understanding is that they pretty much let the Kia designers do what they want.
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  The Mercedes EVs are beautiful and really do a good job of representing the brand.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  BMW seems to be doing pretty well at everything but styling.
  - outside1234 3y ago
    and pricing - wildly overpriced for what they are. and software in the console - which is also awful
ballenf 3y ago
Wow. 35,000 recalls. Each recall is estimated to take ~25 hours -- requires dropping battery and accessing the relay inside. Even if a service department can streamline this, this could be a very, very costly issue. I wonder if the "fix" will be to sharply reduce maximum power draw and reduce charge rates, instead of replacing the under-spec'd part. That would make for a lot of unhappy customers, but they likely wouldn't have a lot of recourse. > Another concern is just how swamped Ford's techs might be with replacing the HVBJBs in nearly 35,000 cars. The part itself is located inside of the sealed battery pack, meaning that in order to replace just the part, the 1,300-pound battery pack must be dropped from the car and opened on order to access the HVBJB. According to another user on Mach-E Forums, a high voltage battery swap takes approximately 25 hours on a warranty replacement.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Smart money will try to dump the cars on the used car market before the news catches up with vehicle values (if this materially nerfs vehicle performance). Considering the time required and labor shortages, the backlog for this work could be months if not over a year.
- enragedcacti 3y ago
  > I wonder if the "fix" will be to sharply reduce maximum power draw and reduce charge rates, instead of replacing the under-spec'd part. That would make for a lot of unhappy customers, but they likely wouldn't have a lot of recourse. They already tried the software fix. The solution will almost certainly be just replacing it with the new part that has been going into Mach-Es for the last year.
MBCook 3y ago
A bit of a TLDR from some who had been through this and knows the saga: The battery is fine. The issue is the part responsible for connecting/disconnecting the high voltage battery from the rest of the car when it’s off. The relays can overheat from high current and weld open or closed. This is more prevalent in the higher performance models. Higher external temperatures, flooring it, and DC fast charging can all be part of the equation. Hit the wrong combo at the wrong time and… you lose the lottery. This has been known for quite a while. Ford had a new part that fixes it which all the new vehicles had. But older cars weren’t given it until it failed (like mine). This has been a very sore spot with owners. This recall fixes that. And it’s good they’re doing it, though way later than they should have. There was a software update to “fix” the issue but it didn’t work. I think what it really did was try to help ensure the cars could limp to a dealer if it happened instead of just refusing to start. I’m not clear, but it’s well known in the community it didn’t fix it.
maxdo 3y ago
Looking at all this struggles, charging not working etc, why just not buy tesla :) I was at charging station yesterday and Nissan at EvGo struggled to start charging for ~3 minutes. While he was trying to plug I was half way to charge to my desired level to continue the trip. Tesla is selling massive amount of cars, they all work fine, it's a big support from customers. Yet, I see comments here and there how horrible tesla panel gaps because one blogger said so.
- conception 3y ago
  EvGo is probably more the issue here. I’ve had endless problems with their chargers at various locations. I don’t even bother anymore.
WirelessGigabit 3y ago
I wouldn't be happy with the software fix which limits power. So I feel like this is the right approach. And it's on them for having such a design that takes 25 hours to replace the actual connector.

29 points by zolbrek 3y ago

Good on them. It's good to see car manufacturers are still taking their responsibility of delivering an actually correctly functioning car seriously. In the tech world we would have artificially limited the power throughput, providing no information or remedy to the customer. This seems like the right move. While you can argue that Ford should have specced the bar correctly to start out with, I'm happy to see that this is the response. Get it back to a technician, and swap out the part, at no cost to the customer.

dylan604 3y ago
Good on them? Yes, let’s give them a pass for even allowing this car to be shipped as is. It’s a freaking mustang, and they never floored it in any of their tests during development of the car? Nobody ever sat down with pencil and paper and did the math on the extreme conditions on what would happen if the max power was requested? No where in the computer code for throttle control has a software limiter to prevent surge requests like this? Just seems like shit design process to me, it sure, let’s pat them in the back for doing a mea culpa
- _ea1k 3y ago
  It would be interesting to hear the real story here. These cars tend to have artificial power restrictions for reliability. It is possible that they did test it, but there were late software changes to reduce the power restrictions for marketing reasons. And maybe things weren't retested as much as they should be? It could be as simple as them doing the engineering analysis, finding the potential problem, and then being overridden because someone thought it wouldn't happen in the real world.
  - ballenf 3y ago
    Could be, but if the marketing department can push spec change past tested conditions on critical safety components without retesting then there's an organizational/cultural lapse running very deep. We're talking about the relay that turns off high voltage in accidents and can weld itself in a permanent "on" state if people drive their sports car too sporty.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- chankstein38 3y ago
  The person you're replying to is named "delusional" I'm not saying they didn't mean their comment in earnest but, at the very least, the name fits lol
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jandrese 3y ago
  I remember when Top Gear got to test one of the early Tesla Model S on their track. They also managed to overheat the batteries and got it into limp mode. The 1% use case is hard to plan for apparently, especially for your first real effort at building a production EV. This isn't unique to EVs either. You will find no shortage of people telling you to never buy the first model year of any vehicle if you value high reliability.
- K0balt 3y ago
  While I agree that this is a serious error in the design or tuning of the vehicle, a modern car is an extremely complex piece of kit and it would be miraculous if any new design didn’t incorporate several similar flaws. Engineering to factory is a very complex path fraught with noise from the process, and very subtle and seemingly insignificant tweaks often add up to significant problems in complex designs. That there was a flaw in the process is not the least bit surprising or even disappointing, every single new vehicle design brought to market will have numerous tweaks and modifications or recalls over the first few years of fielding the design. That the flaw was safety critical is unfortunate, but that a major automaker that typically handles things responsibly (with some notable historical exceptions) responded in an appropriate way is the system functioning nominally as it should. That new companies with a more “tech” oriented approach would probably have silently pushed a performance degrading software update instead of fixing the problem is a harsh indictment of a deeply flawed engineering culture.
pjc50 3y ago
They did artificially limit the power in a software update, like an iPhone, but realized that this doesn't undo damage already done.

Ajay-p 3y ago

As a child I wanted to own a Mustang one day so I could "floor" it and hear the 5 liter V8 roar. The Electric Mustang is not the same for me...

nextweek2 3y ago
My Mach-e has a switch to turn on engine noise through the B&O sound system relative to the pedal. I’m not polluting the local environment and people outside the car aren’t bothered by engine noise.
jgoodhcg 3y ago
People who are into loud bikes and cars seem obnoxious to me. This comment especially doesn’t seem to care about performance or speed. Is the appeal really just to be loud and get attention?
- treepunch 3y ago
  Breaking news: People like different things about different products.
  - DangitBobby 3y ago
    As I understand it, the sound of certain car engines is carefully engineered and it shows, they certainly have some appeal. But loud cars disturb everyone around them, particularly people trying to exist in the surrounding homes. Hence some pushback against people who say they like it is to be expected.
- accrual 3y ago
  It could also just be fun for the other commentor, the feeling of getting pushed into your seat, roar of the ICE, etc. They could do it on a track or some rural road where it wouldn't bother anybody, though of course it's unsafe to go ripping around on public roads.
  - Ajay-p 3y ago

dboreham 3y ago

A friend has owned one of these vehicles. It stopped working while driving on the freeway (twice).

rapsey 3y ago

If you're buying an EV, it seems buying one from traditionally ICE manufacturers is a bad idea. With the exception of Hyundai. They all seem to be quite shit.

jonkoops 3y ago
Kia ain't doing so bad either.
- hexagonwin 3y ago
  Isn't Kia the same as Hyundai?
  - Gare 3y ago
    It's the same group, but they are separate companies. They do share a lot of parts and platforms, though. KIA EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 are built on the same platform.
  - brodouevencode 3y ago
    Hyundai Motor Company (the parent owner of Hyundai, Genesis) has a controlling stake in Kia, but my understanding is that they pretty much let the Kia designers do what they want.
brodouevencode 3y ago
The Mercedes EVs are beautiful and really do a good job of representing the brand.
_ea1k 3y ago
BMW seems to be doing pretty well at everything but styling.
- outside1234 3y ago
  and pricing - wildly overpriced for what they are. and software in the console - which is also awful

ballenf 3y ago

Wow. 35,000 recalls. Each recall is estimated to take ~25 hours -- requires dropping battery and accessing the relay inside. Even if a service department can streamline this, this could be a very, very costly issue. I wonder if the "fix" will be to sharply reduce maximum power draw and reduce charge rates, instead of replacing the under-spec'd part. That would make for a lot of unhappy customers, but they likely wouldn't have a lot of recourse. > Another concern is just how swamped Ford's techs might be with replacing the HVBJBs in nearly 35,000 cars. The part itself is located inside of the sealed battery pack, meaning that in order to replace just the part, the 1,300-pound battery pack must be dropped from the car and opened on order to access the HVBJB. According to another user on Mach-E Forums, a high voltage battery swap takes approximately 25 hours on a warranty replacement.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Smart money will try to dump the cars on the used car market before the news catches up with vehicle values (if this materially nerfs vehicle performance). Considering the time required and labor shortages, the backlog for this work could be months if not over a year.
enragedcacti 3y ago
> I wonder if the "fix" will be to sharply reduce maximum power draw and reduce charge rates, instead of replacing the under-spec'd part. That would make for a lot of unhappy customers, but they likely wouldn't have a lot of recourse. They already tried the software fix. The solution will almost certainly be just replacing it with the new part that has been going into Mach-Es for the last year.

MBCook 3y ago

A bit of a TLDR from some who had been through this and knows the saga: The battery is fine. The issue is the part responsible for connecting/disconnecting the high voltage battery from the rest of the car when it’s off. The relays can overheat from high current and weld open or closed. This is more prevalent in the higher performance models. Higher external temperatures, flooring it, and DC fast charging can all be part of the equation. Hit the wrong combo at the wrong time and… you lose the lottery. This has been known for quite a while. Ford had a new part that fixes it which all the new vehicles had. But older cars weren’t given it until it failed (like mine). This has been a very sore spot with owners. This recall fixes that. And it’s good they’re doing it, though way later than they should have. There was a software update to “fix” the issue but it didn’t work. I think what it really did was try to help ensure the cars could limp to a dealer if it happened instead of just refusing to start. I’m not clear, but it’s well known in the community it didn’t fix it.

maxdo 3y ago

Looking at all this struggles, charging not working etc, why just not buy tesla :) I was at charging station yesterday and Nissan at EvGo struggled to start charging for ~3 minutes. While he was trying to plug I was half way to charge to my desired level to continue the trip. Tesla is selling massive amount of cars, they all work fine, it's a big support from customers. Yet, I see comments here and there how horrible tesla panel gaps because one blogger said so.

conception 3y ago
EvGo is probably more the issue here. I’ve had endless problems with their chargers at various locations. I don’t even bother anymore.

WirelessGigabit 3y ago

I wouldn't be happy with the software fix which limits power. So I feel like this is the right approach. And it's on them for having such a design that takes 25 hours to replace the actual connector.