larryh

There are two displays in the car that show energy use for climate control and accessories: the Energy Use display and the Accessory Power content choice available in the MyView display. When the heater is on, the two displays agree. However, when the A/C is on they show different values. The Accessory Power display shows power separately for Climate vs. Accessories. The Energy use display is labeled Climate, so I assume that it only shows power used by the heater or A/C. Each bar on the Energy Use display is 1.25 kW--there are four bars and the maximum value displayed is 5 kW. On the Accessory Power display, each bar is 1 kW--there are five bars and the maximum value displayed is 5 kW. For A/C, the Energy Use display and the climate power usage in the Accessory Power display show one bar. That means it is 1.25 kW on the Energy Use display and 1 kW on the Accessory Power display. It is not warm enough here for the A/C to use more than one bar of power, so I can't see what happens when higher amounts of power are required. So which display is showing the correct power used for A/C? Or maybe it is the Heater that is displayed incorrectly. Maybe the Energy Use display is supposed to display the power used by both climate and accessories. If that is the case, then the power values for the Energy Use display and the climate portion of the Accessory Power display should not match when the heater is on.

It appears that the HVB charges to 99% SOC with about 7.0 kWh of energy. When the SOC reaches about 21.5% with 1.5 kWh of energy, the car switches to showing the hybrid battery display. When the SOC reaches about 14.5% with 1.0 kWh of energy, the ICE turns on. Thus the maximum plug-in energy available from the car is approximately 7.0 - 1.0 = 6.0 kWh. The car does not appear to charge the HVB to the maximum capacity of 7.6 kWh nor discharge it below 1.0 kWh.

I don't have a Scan Gauge, so I am not quite sure what you are measuring. This is what I see for the 120 V charger that came with the car. Kill-A-Watt meter shows 11.55 amps at 115 V = 1330 Watts. Input to charger in car is 11 amps at 111.4 V = 1225 Watts. Output from charger in car 3.4 amps at 296.5 V = 1000 Watts. Input to HVB is 3.4 amps at 296.5 V = 1000 Watts. The electronics and fans in the car are using about 1330 - 1225 = 105 Watts The charger is losing 225 Watts converting ac to dc, or 82% efficient (significantly less efficient than the 240 V charger). I see only minor fluctuations in these values. I would verify the Scan Gauge codes for reading current flowing into the HVB.

I am now able to account for the energy used to charge the car with a Level 2 charger. The charger inside the car consumes 14 amps of electricity at 240 V, which is 3360 Watts of power. The on-board electronics and fans required to power the charger in the car consume about 65 Watts of power. So the car consumes a total of about 3425 Watts of power from a Level 2 charging station. The charger inside the car outputs about 10 amps at 300 volts, or 3000 Watts. So the charger inside the car looses 360 watts of power converting AC to DC, or is about 90% efficient. Of the total 3425 Watts of power consumed from the Level 2 charging station, only 3000 Watts makes it to the HVB, a total loss of about 12.5%. However, the HVB is not 100% efficient in storing energy. I have measured the overall charging efficiency of the battery to be around 82%, i.e. for every kWh of electricity consumed from a Level 2 charging station to charge the battery, you can extract 0.82 kWh of energy from the battery. That means the efficiency of the battery itself is 94%, you get 94% of the energy out that you put into it.

This is what I observed for my commute home today at 23 F. The HVB battery temperature was 25 F. For the EV portion of the drive, the motor consumed power from the HVB while the generator generated a small amount of power. The ICE RPMs were 0 and the torque was minimal. As usual, the motor and generator RPMs were equal, but in opposite directions. While driving on the freeway with the ICE on in EV later mode, the roles of the generator and motor were reversed. The motor generated about 6.5 kW of power, while the generator consumed 4.2 kW of power. The net SOC change on the battery was a small loss of 0.1%. I have no way of determining what happened to the net 2.3 kW of power between what the motor generated and the generator consumed. Some of it when to power accessories, but they consumed probably no more than 0.3 kW. Some of the loss is associated with charging and recharging the HVB. Some of it is associated with converting electricity to mechanical power and vice versa which is not 100% efficient. But I don't know what happened to the rest.

By disengage, I mean the car does whatever is necessary to remove the ICE from the planetary gear system. The ICE RPMs are zero and the Torque applied to it are minimal when the ICE is off. In addition, the Generator and the Motor now both spin at the same RPM, but in opposite directions, at a rate which is 10.4 times as fast as the front wheels spin. I can observe the RPMs and Torque on all three: the ICE, the Generator, and the Motor.

I updated the chart in post #3 above to correct for the fact that Absolute Load is not linearly correlated with Torque as I had previously assumed. I have determined the correlation between Torque produced by the ICE and and Absolute Load and attempted to correct for the non-linearity. The ICE appears to consume about 220 grams of gasoline for every kWh of energy produced when operating in its most efficient region (rather than 270 as indicated in my previous post). If that is really the case, the efficiency of the ICE is about 37%. Note that these measurement should really be done at 70 F rather than in the middle of the winter when it is 0 F. That may be impacting computations since I am not adjusting for the cold.

If the above data is correct and the ICE consumes 270 g of gas for each kWh of mechanical energy produced, then the efficiency of the ICE is about 30%. The remaining 70% of the energy from the combustion of gas is lost as heat warming up the engine and as exhaust through the tailpipe. Looking at the power consumed by the electric motor vs. its output power, the efficiency of the electric motor is around 87%. Thus the EV MPGe should be about 2.9 times the ICE MPGe.

I was able to read the 12 Volt battery type from the BdyCM module as follows: Varta 43 Ah 390 CCA T4 Case

The chart below shows the ICE Engine Map that I have constructed from several recent trips (mostly highway/freeway driving). It shows the fuel consumption in grams per kWh of energy output by the ICE for various RPMs and loads. The horizontal axis shows ICE RPM. The vertical axis shows Absolute Load, which is linearly correlated with torque (I determined that this is not true--I have corrected the chart for the non-linear relationship between Absolute Load and Torque). I estimate from the data that I have recorded and information available about Absolute Load that the maximum Load is about 95%, which should correspond to the maximum torque of the ICE which is 175 Nm. The colored contours show the fuel consumption per unit of energy. The most efficient region, the least amount of fuel consumed per unit of energy output by the ICE, is the red region in the center followed by the green region surrounding it (ignore the blue region--the values in this region is not significantly smaller than the red region--Excel arbitrarily decided to split the contour here even though there is no significant difference). The curved white lines are lines of equal power output. If the ICE operates anywhere on the line in the upper right corner, it is produces about 35 kW of power. Power roughly correlates with the vehicle's speed on a level road. The light blue markers are actual operating points that I have recorded on my trips. These show the regions in which the ICE actually operates. Note that the contours are only valid in regions containing red markers. The contours in other regions are computed by extrapolating the data from regions which do contain data. For example, the efficient red region in the upper right corner was computed by extrapolating the observed measurements from the other regions. (Note that does not mean the car uses least amount of fuel in this region. It uses the most fuel in this region. However, it also produces the most power in this region. The net result is that it uses the least amount of fuel per unit of energy produced in this region). Since I have no fuel consumption measurements for that region, I can't be sure that it is really one of the most efficient operating regions. (That region no longer exits in the updated chart). The least efficient regions are the lower right and upper left. The ICE can't actually operate at the top left corner--that would exceed the maximum torque that the ICE can produce at a given RPM. You can see from the data that the ICE mostly operates in the efficient red and green regions at the lower left between 20 kW and 25 kW of power. The points that exceed 25 kW were most likely recording during accelerations/decelerations or going up hills. When more power is demanded, the ICE cannot always operate in the most efficient regions for driveability reasons. I would not be happy if the car prioritized operating in an efficient region and totally disregarded my desire to quickly increase output power for acceleration--I would perceive the car has having very weak acceleration. I had to make a lot of assumptions to generate this data, so it may not be entirely accurate.

testing link:

Here it is: http://www.fordparts.com/Commerce/PartDetail.aspx?n=zFzo5S6J%2bhRe4We6D8O5Rg%3d%3d&id=270031670&m=2&search=true&year=2013&make=Ford&model=Fusion The video above shows the clutch plate at the left.

The generator is used to control the planetary gear system. The chart above shows how the RPMs of the generator are no longer proportional to the car's speed when the ICE is on. The generator has slowed down significantly and there is now significant torque supplied by the generator. I believe a clutch is used to disengage the ICE when the ICE is off.

The following is a plot showing the RPMs (the RPMs shown in the chart have been divided by 100 to fit on the graph) and Torque for the generator. Initially, the ICE is off (Absolute Load of the ICE is 0%) and the generator RPMs is proportional to the car's speed. The torque is negligible--it is just spinning and not consuming or generating much power. When the ICE turns on, the torque increases and is proportional to engine load. The RPMs slow down. The ICE is spinning at 1500 RPM.

The generator, electric motor, and ICE are all interconnected through a planetary gear system. The ICE has a clutch to disengage it, but the generator (and most likely the electric motor) do not. When the car moves, they are forced to spin. I have plotted OBD II data showing the RPMs and torque of the generator (I do not have any data for the electric motor). When the ICE is off, the generator speed is proportional to the speed of the car, and the torque on the generator is essentially zero. The generator is forced to spin, but is not generating any power.

I was able to read some more DTCs from the various computer modules in the car. I observed the following which explains why the car rebooted the display: Code: U0155 - Lost Communication With Instrument Panel Cluster Control Module One possible explanation is the display software crashed and stopped communicating with the rest of the car. I also observed the following communication errors: Code: U0121 - Lost Communication With ABS Control Module Code: U0146 - Lost Communication With Gateway A Code: U0401 - Invalid Data Received From ECM/PCM Code: B130C - Load Shed Control - Circuit Short To Ground Or Open With all the traffic that goes on with the CAN Bus, apparently intermittent errors occur once in a great while.

The following plot shows the operating region of the ICE similar to the one above with data from several trips. I added a solid black line that estimates the maximum Absolute Load at a given RPM. Note the ICE does not normally operate below 1900 RPM. It only operates at 1500 RPM while warming up. It is difficult to estimate the maximum Absolute Load. The OBD II data contains Calculated Load and Absolute Load. When the Calculated Load Value is 100%, the engine is at maximum output at a given RPM. So I can look at the OBD II data to find points where the Calculated Load Value is close to 100% and extrapolate what the corresponding Absolute Load Value would be if the Calculated Load Value were 100%. Unfortunately, the relationship between Calculated Load Value and Absolute Load Value is non-linear, so there is lots of room for error in the solid black line showing maximum engine output. I also made the assumption that the maximum absolute load is typically 95% (know as volumetric efficiency). The specs for the ICE indicate that the maximum torque is 175 Nm at 4000 rpm. So I drew the line through 95% at 4000 rpm. The specs also indicate that the maximum horsepower of the ICE is 141 hp at 6000 rpm, or about 165 Nm of torque, or 165/175 = 94% of maximum torque. So I drew the line through 89.5% at 6000 rpm. I don't have much data for RPMs greater than 2700. The ICE would operate there only during heavy acceleration. I don't want to ruin my driving score.

The following plot shows the preferred operating regions for the ICE for a recent trip obtained driving on highways by recording OBD II data from the car. The x-axis is engine RPMs. The y-axis is Absolute Load (Volumetric Efficiency), i.e. the percentage of maximum airflow into the engine. Absolute Load is linearly correlated with brake torque (force) of the engine. Engine power is then proportional to torque x RPMs. One would expect the car to operate in the regions where it is most efficient. While the ICE is warming up, it operates at a constant 1500 rpm. Only the load varies. The electric motor makes up any difference in required power. At highway speeds, it likes to operate at around 2000 rpm and vary the load between 45% and 75% as needed to supply the required power. The ICE runs the generator at times which increases the load on the engine. Only when power demand is very high (for example accelerating to pass), does the engine speed exceed 2300 rpm. The results may be different for city driving. It would be nice to also show normalized fuel consumption at each operating point (such a map for a Prius can be found here: "http://fordfusionhybridforum.com/topic/6775-what-is-an-ecvt-how-does-it-work-here-is-the-answer/?p=74047"). But that would require a lot of data. The OBD II measurements are not synchronized. There may be more than a second difference in time between when each of the measurements (rpms, load, fuel rate) are taken. A lot can happen in one second. This following chart has errors due to this issue.

The following plot illustrates the loss of efficiency of regenerative braking with colder temperatures for a 7.8 mile commute to work. When it is in the 70's, about 2.25 miles of my EV range comes from regenerative braking. When it is below zero, about 0.75 miles of the EV range comes from regenerative braking. Thus when it is warm, 2.25/7.8 = 29% of the EV range results from regenerative braking. When it is cold, 0.75/7.8 = 10% of the EV range results from regenerative braking. So, I am losing about 19% of EV range when it is cold because regenerative braking is less effective.