I was at the dealer yesterday getting the battery replaced in the Explorer under the 3/36 B2B warranty as some systems were failing such as the auto start / stop and the auto door locks. After a little back and forth with my service writer and a demo of the failed systems, he agreed to cover it which would have $300 otherwise. The Fordpass app was going nuts telling us to drive the car to charge the battery. All of the warning signs were there for anyone paying attention. The next thing that may have happened is my bride would have been stranded somewhere. All of these smart features are pretty cool but they do drain the system over time.

Anyway, the dealer's lot is pretty full of vehicles except Rangers, no one in the immediate area has one. My dealer has four Lightnings and 6 Mach E's. A salesperson came out was trying like crazy to direct me to the EV's. I'm like, "dude, this isn't the right time to buy anything unless you're stranded". He went away.

 

The Bronco Sport Badlands I was given at work in 2021 was my first taste of the newer "bells and whistles" and
I truly hated most of it. I wish I kept track of how many OTA updates and associated bugs this POS had.
Thank god I didn't buy it. I'm certainly not against tech, but the feeling of being a beta tester was pretty strong in that one.
I realize I'm also getting a bit old and cranky, but I really don't want to replace my 2013 F-250 because of this dynamic.
My feeling coming away from the experience is at a minimum, use a good battery tender.

 

it’s not just ford either. A guy lives down the street from me has a newer Subaru that has a mysterious drain problem. its gotten so bad that if he doesn’t drive the car every 2-3 days he has to run a battery tender to the car to keep the battery charged. I told him that’s not normal but he has been to the Subaru dealer numerous times and each time the Subaru dealer told him there was nothing wron and just the electronics. But it doesn’t even have sentry mode cameras like teslas do so it’s just all background activities and garbage data being sent to and from Subaru.

by comparison my 22 F250 does go to deep sleep if I don’t drive it for a week but at least it starts with no issue every time.

my crown Victoria, on the other hand, since it doesn’t get used much I sometimes go months without starting it if it’s parked inside, and never has a problem starting after sitting.


I may be day dreaming but if a small cheap compact EV is ever marketed to the masses, they need to keep the gadgets and cellular functions and activities to a minimum, imagine a Focus, but driven by an electric motor and batteries. One of the best attribute of lithium rechargeable batteries is their abilities to hold a charge over time, it’s a monumental waste if they then cause it to discharge rapidly with constant system activities and background data transfer over cellular modem.

 

Parasitic drain is nothing new. My 2004 has something that kills the battery after 1-2 weeks, and I've given up finding it. I leave it on the battery tender whenever it sits, and had to replace it last month when I forgot before leaving on a two-week trip.

There are tons of small, cheap EVs in other markets, but not over here. The systems are better designed than you describe, though. They all go to sleep when parked because of safety concerns with leaving the HV system energized. The system wakes up when needed to charge the 12v battery. My EV6 even had a bright orange light on the dash to inform people the system was energized.

The Lightning goes even further by entering battery saver mode when the 12v battery hits 40%. Mine entered battery saver this morning when I left my OBD reader connected, and the FordPass app stopped connecting. The system stayed asleep until I went out and started the system, but it will energize on its own when the 12v battery hits 20%. I don't know how well it'll hold a charge when sitting for a week, but I'm guessing almost indefinitely unless the HV battery gets too warm and the cooling system activates.