[joebruin77]

I just completed my first road trip in my 2023 iX and overall it was a great experience. And that included 4 DC fast charges at Electrify America.

The only issue I ran into was that I was unable to manually activate preconditioning of the battery before my DC fast charging sessions.

The first time I charged at EA, I used the BMW navigation to navigate there. The iX preconditioned the battery about 20 minutes away from the EA station and it worked great. But I much prefer Apple Maps. So on the next leg of the trip, I navigated to the next EA station using Apple Maps. I tried to manually activate preconditioning about 20 minutes away from the EA station but it failed to start.

Any ideas as to why or what I can do to successfully manually activate battery precondioning for my next road trip?

Thank you,
Joe

[LVBMW]

Originally Posted by joebruin77

I just completed my first road trip in my 2023 iX and overall it was a great experience. And that included 4 DC fast charges at Electrify America.

The only issue I ran into was that I was unable to manually activate preconditioning of the battery before my DC fast charging sessions.

The first time I charged at EA, I used the BMW navigation to navigate there. The iX preconditioned the battery about 20 minutes away from the EA station and it worked great. But I much prefer Apple Maps. So on the next leg of the trip, I navigated to the next EA station using Apple Maps. I tried to manually activate preconditioning about 20 minutes away from the EA station but it failed to start.

Any ideas as to why or what I can do to successfully manually activate battery precondioning for my next road trip?

Thank you,
Joe

Did you receive any error message when activating pre-conditioning manually? Could it be that the battery was already at optimal temperature and required no preconditioning?

[joebruin77]

Originally Posted by LVBMW

Did you receive any error message when activating pre-conditioning manually? Could it be that the battery was already at optimal temperature and required no preconditioning?

Yes, an error message did come up. I think it said something like "Failure to activate precondtioning due to ,,," and I could not read the rest of the message because it was cut off on the screen.

Perhaps it was already at optimum temperature.

[darylp310]

Yes, if you live in Los Angeles like me, it's very rare that we actually require battery preconditioning due to the temperate climate. I don't think I've ever been able to manually enable pre-conditioning. And even when I do show up to an EA charger without pre-conditioning, it gets right up to 180kW+ pretty quickly if I have a low state of charge. At most maybe you are saving 2-3 minutes to warm up the battery before plugging in so it's probably not worth worrying about.

[javapro]

Originally Posted by joebruin77

Yes, an error message did come up. I think it said something like "Failure to activate precondtioning due to ,,," and I could not read the rest of the message because it was cut off on the screen.

Perhaps it was already at optimum temperature.

You can read the full message only when parked. It basically gives you various reason that you HV battery couldn’t be preconditioned, e. g. already at optimal temperature, high state of charge, vehicle already charging, etc.

[chanders]

Originally Posted by javapro

You can read the full message only when parked. It basically gives you various reason that you HV battery couldn’t be preconditioned, e. g. already at optimal temperature, high state of charge, vehicle already charging, etc.

This is some good info here, thanks. Do you know below what temperature the battery requires pre-conditioning?

[NomoTesla]

Originally Posted by chanders

This is some good info here, thanks. Do you know below what temperature the battery requires pre-conditioning?

On a recent road trip the pre-conditioning indicator went off with ambient temps in the 50s and low 60s.

[chanders]

Originally Posted by NomoTesla

On a recent road trip the pre-conditioning indicator went off with ambient temps in the 50s and low 60s.

In that case I may never have to precondition because our temperature never drops below 70!

[darylp310]

Originally Posted by chanders

In that case I may never have to precondition because our temperature never drops below 70!

A good rule of thumb is that the battery likes to be the same temperature as a human. So under 60 degrees is too cold and over 90 is too hot. The fans and heat pumps will work to maintain that range for optimal performance.