larryh

In my car, the torsion bars that hold up the trunk up rattled. They rattled against the rear deck (they are right below it) and against each other. I simply slid a glove I had in my trunk between the bars and around the bars near the middle where the bars come together (they have a plastic tie to hold them together) and are close to the rear deck there.

There are two sets of DTCs: Ford proprietary DTCs which are displayed in ET mode (generally when the wrench light is on), and ODB II DTCS which can only be displayed using a scanner (generally when the MIL is on). I don't know if they will be able to find any DTCs.

If the wrench light comes on, you may be able to see the DTCs in ET mode.

The car does draw power from the charger when it wakes up and when you contact MyFord Mobile. However, it is not necessarily charging the 12 V battery when it does that. If it decides to charge the 12 V battery, it will continue to draw power from the charger for two hours. Sometimes it does that and sometimes it does not.

The car may or may not charge the 12 V battery when the car is connected and the HVB is fully charged. Sometimes when I wake up the car by connecting to MyFord Mobile and request an update, it will decide to charge the 12 V battery. Other times, it does not. For the HVB, it is better to leave it at a lower SOC than 100% for extended periods of time (which would mean that you don't want to leave the car plugged in).

You aren't going to see any DTCs when the check engine light is on for the reason you have posted. It is on because you are not in the run mode where you can drive the car. Did you ever see the "Ready to Drive" indicator on the display before attempting to drive the car?

The Battery Management Systems cannot accurately compute SOC and energy in the HVB. It is only an estimate. Both depend are a function of battery temperature. You loose 0.5 kWh of capacity when HVB temperature falls to 40 F.

This is the next advancement after lane keeping. My only question is who gets the speeding ticket when there is no one in the drivers seat? https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=zY_zqEmKV1k&t=1m11s

If you only have a desktop, you would have to purchase an ELM 327 Wifi OBD II adapter and use the Windows network manager to connect to the adapter to run ForScan. I don't know anything about MaxiScan OBDII.

No, unfortunately there is no easy way to tell the car to charge to only 96%. You have to stop charging manually before it reaches 100%.

You will need to use your Windows laptop to run ForScan. You first need to establish a Bluetooth connection (or WiFi if the adapter is a WiFi adapter) to the device using Windows. I'm not sure how to pair Bluetooth devices using Windows 7. But after that, ForScan should work without adjusting any settings. If you have a WiFi connection, you will need to set the IP and port addresses.

The car will not allow regen if the actual SOC of the HVB exceeds 98.5%. The car does not show the actual SOC of the HVB. What you see on the MFT screen is displayed SOC. When the displayed SOC is 100%, the actual SOC is between 96% and 100%.

ForScan (forscan.org) is the best program to use to detect errors codes. You can also try ET mode to see if it reports any errors.

Neither MFM or MFT allow us to set the maximum SOC for charging the HVB. The car always charges to 100% (as displayed by MFM and MFT) which is about 4.1 V / cell. We might be able to get a few miles more of range, on an occasional basis, if they would allows us to override the maximum charge to 4.2 V / cell right before we leave for a trip.

I have been looking at data logged by Tesla owners with the 85 kW HVB. At 0% SOC, the Tesla HVB voltage is 322 V and at 100% SOC, it is 405 V. From Wikipedia, the 85 kWh battery pack contains 7,104 lithium-ion cells in 16 modules wired in series. Each module contains six groups of 74 cells wired in parallel; the six groups are then wired in series within the module. From this, I deduce that there are 74 parallel connections of 7104/74 = 96 cells in series. Thus the individual cell voltage varies from 322/96 = 3.35 V at 0% SOC to 405/96 = 4.22 V at 100% SOC. For the Fusion Energi, the individual cell voltage ranges from 3.38 V at 0 % SOC (you can't actually drain the battery to 0% SOC) to 4.1 V at 100% SOC when the HVB temperature is around 100 F. The 0% SOC levels for the cell voltages are approximately the same for the two cars. However, the Energi does not allow you to discharge the cells below 14.5% SOC. The Tesla allows you charge the cells up to 4.22 V (but the recommended maximum SOC is 80% which is about 4.05 V per cell). The Energi only allows you to charge up to 4.1 V per cell. Based on this information, the Energi seems to maintain the HVB SOC within a safe range to assure HVB longevity. Now if only it could do a better job at controlling temperature.

This is the real reason Tesla chose one foot driving--the solution to range anxiety. Merely hitch a ride to any passing truck and leave your foot off the accelerator for 70 kW of regen. The car will be fully charged in no time--almost as fast as a supercharger.

It cost me $70 for the meter socket and $130 for the electrician to install it.

You don't have the best case scenario. My electric company offers a $500 rebate for installing an EVSE. Furthermore, the rate from the electric company is as low as $0.04/kWh (vs the normal $0.12/kWh) if you install a separately metered EVSE. In addition, at least in the past, you have been able to get a tax credit for installing an EVSE.

Looking at videos of the Tesla dashboard, it appears that the maximum regen for the Tesla is 65 kW. The maximum regen for the Energi is 35 kW. The curb weight of the Tesla is 4650 lbs. The curb weight of the Energi is 3920 lbs. From regen power P = -mav, where m is the car's mass, a is the deceleration (negative), and v is the speed of the car: the Tesla decelerates (65/35)*(3920/4650) = 1.57 times faster than the Energi during regenerative braking.

I have had no problems with preconditioning. The car has always been preconditioned in the morning for my commute to work. I had several of the modules reprogrammed by the dealer in the car: BCM, BECM, PCM, and SOBDMC. You can see the affect the this programming on the 12 V battery in this post: http://www.fordfusionenergiforum.com/topic/1683-obd-ii-data-for-hvb/?p=19490

One more thing to note is that the specifications for the Tesla HVB state that the car should not be left outside when the temperature is below -22 F for more than 24 hours. I assume that the Tesla does not use the battery heater when it is unplugged so the HVB temperature will fall well below 0 F when temperatures are this cold. This suggests that extreme cold temperatures will damage the HVB. It is probably not a good idea to leave the Energi outdoors for an extended period of time, with the car off, when temperatures fall below -22 F either.

In the Tesla, I think the only way to get regenerative braking is by letting off on the accelerator. If you press the brake pedal, that stops the car the same is in conventional cars using friction. If you set regenerative braking to Low, you will not be able stop very quickly without using the brakes, and hence will be unable to capture much regen when stopping. By setting regenerative braking to Low, you are going to lose a lot of kinetic energy to the friction brakes. In order to drive efficiently in the Tesla, you have to learn how to exert greater control over the accelerator than in the Energi. You don't want unintentional regen, which means, you need to carefully control the accelerator to maintain constant speed (probably best done using cruise control). In the Energi, you get regen by letting up on the accelerator and by pressing the brake pedal. That means you can place the shifter in Drive (to get limited regenerative braking by letting up on the accelerator) and then pressing the brakes to get the maximum possible regen. If you cause unintentional regen by letting up on the accelerator, you won't slow down the car much in Drive. But you can still stop quickly and get maximum regen by using the brakes.

In some cars, the Telematics Control Unit fails to shutdown when the car is turned off draining the 12 V battery.

Some things to note about the Tesla in the link provided in post #330. Regenerative braking is disabled in the Tesla when the battery temperature falls below freezing to protect the battery. Charging the battery when it is too cold with damage it. The Tesla uses a resistive heater to warm the battery prior to charging with an EVSE when the battery is too cold. The Energi also disables regenerative braking when the HVB is too cold (below around 0 F). If you attempt to charge the HVB with an EVSE when the HVB temperature falls below 0 F, it uses a fraction of the normal power used to charge the HVB at warmer temperatures. It is probably not a good idea to let the HVB sit in cold weather too long when it is discharged and in hybrid mode, allowing the HVB temperature to fall below 0 F. To precondition the car, the Tesla draws up to 12 kW of power, 6 kW for the battery heater and 6 kW to heat the cabin. The Energi draws up to 3 kW to heat the cabin, but lacks a battery heater. It takes a lot of energy to warm both cars. To warm the cabin, both cars uses a resistive heater. The Energi supplements the electric heater by pulling in coolant warmed by the ICE. The electric heater is going to have a hard time keeping up when it is below 0 F. That is why the ICE starts. Since the Tesla doesn't have an ICE, it uses the coolant warmed by electric motor and inverter instead.

The Tesla has a battery heater. See the following link. While the car is plugged in and when you first start out, it warms the battery. A cold battery has significantly less energy. http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/entry.php/194-Cold-Weather-Driving