larryh

I'm not sure that is even possible to warm the car up to 70 F when preconditioning in cold weather. If you set climate to auto, the car will do whatever it takes to get the temperature to what you set it to. I notice that when I turn down the temperature (with climate in manual mode), cooler air comes out of the vents. If you set climate to manual and the temperature to LO, the ICE will probably remain off if it is not too cold. It will clear the windows, but cold air will blow from the vents.

It is the service engine soon light (engine icon) that comes on for me. But for the FFH it is the powertrain fault. I have not contacted the dealer. I believe that the Ford engineers are currently investigating the issue. I don't know if they have a solution yet. The light turns off after cycling the engine off and on about three times. http://fordfusionhybridforum.com/topic/8074-dtc-p1a18-p1a19-p0aee-p0bcd-when-using-engine-block-heater-under-investigation/

In the morning, after preconditioning in a garage that is above zero, turning on climate with the temperature set to 60 or above is what causes the ICE to turn on when the outdoor temperature is below zero. At least that is what the EV Info Power screen states: Engine on due to heater settings. I assume that if I had the temperature set to LO instead that the ICE would not come on for me either. The Engine on due to heater settings only seems to happen when the temperature is below zero. Above zero, it does not happen. After sitting out in the cold, the conditions for turning the ICE on are different. Leaving climate control off does not prevent the ICE from starting. This morning when the temperature was below zero, the power consumed by the heater is maxed out regardless of the temperature or fan settings.

Yes, the criteria for turning on the ICE doesn't seem to be consistent. This afternoon, at around 2 F, the ICE started right up. It stayed on for about 2 miles. I was then able to make it almost home in EV mode (1 mile remaining on the HVB) before it displayed a notification stating that EV Now mode is not available (the EV mode selection screen appeared with EV Now and EV Later crossed out). However, the ICE did not start. I made it to my driveway and then the ICE started. I can't discern any regular pattern to when the car decides to disable EV Now mode in cold weather. Others in the C-Max Energi forum claim that the amount of power used by the heating element is affected by fan speed. The higher the fan speed setting, the more power the heating element draws. Same is true for A/C. I will have to try that out tomorrow (but not the A/C).

I precondition the car in an attached garage that is about 20 F warmer than outside. I have only been able to make it to work entirely in EV mode once when the temperature was below zero (-5 F). For all my other trips (several of them), the ICE has come on (with climate on). I don't know what criteria is used to turn on the ICE. I have always been able to get to work entirely in EV mode when the temperature is above zero.

On my return trip home from work lately, it has been around 0 F. I set the mode to EV Now. I am able to drive about 3 miles before the ICE starts. Eventually, I will get a notification that the engine is enabled due to system performance. However, the ICE does not come on at that time. It has basically switched to EV Auto Mode, but the left display still indicates it is EV Now mode. In the Empower screen, the ICE turn on threshold outline now appears. The threshold is normally absent in EV Now mode. In addition, the EV now symbol below the battery icon, the square box containing EV, is now yellow, which I assume means it is disabled. Finally, the fuel gauge, which is normally greyed out in EV Now mode, is no longer greyed out. The display looks identical to what it would look like in EV Auto mode, except for the yellow box containing EV below the battery icon. A mile later, the ICE does come on and I am no longer able to choose EV Now or EV Later modes. The EV mode selection screen pops up on the display with the EV Now and EV Later choices crossed out. The display is now the normal EV Auto display. I am not sure why the car displays an intermediate stage with a yellow EV icon below the battery icon before finally disabling EV Now and EV Later modes of operation and what criteria prompts the car to enter these two modes of operation.

Preconditioning will work much better with your 240 V charger. The 120 V charger is not up to the task.

I have not experienced any problems. You can read about others experiences here: http://fordcmaxenergiforum.com/topic/1924-electric-charging-door-freezing-closed/?hl=%2Bcold+%2Bdoor+%2Bcharge

The post with 55.8 MPGe is correct. The price of gasoline or electricity does not affect MPGe. The 33.705 kWh is the energy released by burning 1 gallon of gas. So 33.705 kWh electricity and 1 gallon of gas provide the same amount of energy. The electricity used for preconditioning is not shown by the car's odometer. The amount of electricity consumed for preconditioning can be significant. Today, it took 3 kWh of electricity to precondition the car. The temperature in the garage was 1 F. The temperature in the car after preconditioning was not all that warm. The factor 1.23 is only a estimate. The true value can vary greatly depending on temperature and various other factors.

MPGe is computed using equivalent gallons of gasoline. Divide the total number of kWh of electricity by 33.705, i.e. 6.93*40/33.705 = 8.22 equivalent gallons of gasoline. So MPGe is then 798 / (8.92 + 8.22) = 46.6 MPGe. A more accurate way of computing the electricity consumed is to reset one of the trip odometers each time you fill with gas. The odometers record the total kWh of plug-in energy used. However, this reflects the amount of electricity that was drawn from the battery. To compute MPGe accurately, you need the amount of electricity drawn from the wall outlet. The car generally reports that it drew about 5.7 kWh from a fully depleted HVB. The amount of electricity required to charge a fully depleted HVB using a 240 V charger is about 7 kWh. Thus you would need to multiply the plug-in energy displayed by the car's trip odometer by 7 / 5.7 = 1.23 to get a more accurate estimate of plug-in energy consumed. For the 120 V charger, it takes about 8 kWh, so you would multiply by 1.39 instead. This method is only semi accurate. The actual factor that you need to use varies with temperature. In addition, if you precondition the car, the car will not record the amount of electricity that was used. I have a separately metered circuit for the charger, so I can always look at the meter to determine how much electricity was used.

I wonder how the backup slot in the console works. Is this going to reliably start the car if the car fails to recognize the Intelligent Access Key (IAK)? This is the second time the car has failed to recognize the IAK when left outside overnight in temperatures that reached -15 F. After starting the car using the backup slot and letting it run for a minute or two, the IAK key works fine again.

I left my car outside all night. The temperature was about -15 F this morning. Even in EV Now Mode, the ICE started immediately. I had to put the key fob in the backup slot in the center console to start the car. It wouldn't recognize the key fob otherwise. The battery range shown on MFM was down to 11 miles from 19 yesterday when it was in the 20s.

The MPGe reported by the car is not computed correctly. It is based upon the energy extracted from the HVB. The correct way to compute MPGe is to use the energy drawn from the wall outlet to charge the HVB. The HVB is not 100% efficient. You can't extract all the energy that was put into it. After depleting the HVB, the car generally reports about 5.7 kWh of electricity was used to power the car. However, it required about 7 kWh of electricity from the wall outlet to charge the HVB. So the MPGe reported by the car is about 7 / 5.7 = 1.23 times the true value. In addition, the MPGe reported by the car does not take into account any electricity used for preconditioning. The car would need to track the amount of plug-in energy that was drawn from the wall outlet to provide accurate MPGe or cost information.

I would avoid that web site. They cannot be trusted.

I think this is the EBH that was installed at the factory in my car: http://www.fordparts.com/Commerce/PartDetail.aspx?n=YmBRW5G8VuOau0dujZzbbA%3d%3d&id=262938190&m=2&search=true&year=2013&make=Ford&model=Fusion

I turn climate on, go to the climate screen, and select any of the vents: windshield, panel, and/or floor. That puts me in what I think of as "manual" mode. The auto light is off. It now stays in manual mode when I turn the climate on and off. Note that when I turn off the climate control and then turn it back on, the fan speed starts out at the minimum speed. It doesn't always seem to remember the previous fan speed setting when I turned it off. I think fan speed remains in auto mode. It probably is waiting for the heating element to warm up the heater core before restoring the fan speed? This is rather annoying when I am trying to optimize climate use. I want the fan speed to be restored to its original speed when I turn climate back on. For my short 13 mile trip, there is no need to run climate for the entire trip after preconditioning the car. I just turn it on occasionally to defrost the windows. I also leave the temperature set to around 60 degrees to minimize energy usage for climate control.

I do not notice any difference when selecting the floor, windshield, or panel vents as long as I am in manual mode.

The car seems to behave differently when I precondition the car in the garage which is about 25 degrees warmer than the outside temperature vs. leaving it outside in the cold. When I leave the car outside in the cold (below 0 F) and use EV Auto, the ICE will come on soon after turning on climate. I have climate on manual. If it is sunny out and the car is warmed by the sun, I can leave climate control off. However, the ICE will eventually start after about 3 miles even in EV Now. The battery charge is initially around 50%, but within 3 miles it rapidly falls. When it reaches about 20%, it disables EV Now mode and the ICE starts. I'm not sure what criteria is used to start the ICE, whether it is more than just the SOC of the HVB. An experiment would be to see how far I could go if the car were outside and fully charged with climate control off in EV Now mode. Does it disable EV Now mode before the SOC reaches 20%? That is generally not possible since the windows will most likely frost up long before then. I find the the threshold for turning on the ICE for EV Auto vs. EV Now to be significant. As I mentioned in another post, engine coolant temperature is also a factor in determining when the ICE comes on.

I think the physics of cold weather overwhelms all other factors. For EV operation during the 8 mile commutes, at around 70 F, the best MPGe is around 160. At 0 F, it is around 100. Thus it requires 60% more energy at 0 F vs. 70 F. These numbers assume preconditioning the car. For the 60 mile commute, the best MPGe at 70 F is around 70. For 0 F, it is around 42. It requires about 67 % more energy to operate at 0 F vs. 70 F. The 60 mile commute requires relatively more energy probably because the ICE needs time to warm up to reach optimal operating temperature. It doesn't operate as efficiently until then. In addition, the impact of preconditioning is less for longer trips. I am able to use the the heater sparingly for the 8 mile commute since the cabin temperature will not cool off that much during the 13 minute drive. However, for the 60 mile drive, the commute time is 75 minutes. The heater is required to keep the car's interior warm. The coolant temperature cools very rapidly when the ICE isn't running. After about 3 or 4 miles, the electric heating element has to turn back on heat the interior. The ICE simply has to run more to keep the cabin warm. To prevent the heating element from turning on, I am forced to frequently switch operation between EV Auto and EV Later. In the summer, I generally switch to EV Later when going 60 mph or more. So probably 60% more energy is required due to the physics of cold weather, i.e. greater aerodynamic drag, more resistance, greater fluid viscosity, etc. Another 10% is probably required just to keep the car's interior warm and inefficiency of the ICE until it reaches optimal operating temperature. Does an electric motor require more power to operate when it is cold vs warm? Does it have an optimal operating temperature like the ICE?

Did you look at the coach display in the car? Probably the acceleration, braking, and cruising indicators were all reset to 0. If so, it will take a while to build the scores back up. I have noticed that the driving scores for my latest trip reported by MyFord Mobile are a function of previous trips in addition to the latest trip. To get the best score for the current trip, you need to have previously built up the acceleration, braking, and cruising indicators close to 100%.

I notice the following in the Vehicle Health Report: Your vehicle's Intelligent Oil Life Monitor uses actual engine and operating conditions to calculate when you need an oil change. The computation takes into account your driving habits when determining when it's time to change the oil. The Oil Life Remaining percentage you see is the calculation sent from your vehicle when this report was sent. You still have Oil Life Remaining. Your vehicle Intelligent Oil Life Monitor uses actual engine and operating conditions to calculate when you need an oil change, instead of having to follow a preset schedule. Keep in mind, if it's been a year or 10,000 since your last oil change, you will need to change your oil. For the Vehicle Health Report settings at SyncMyRide, it provides the following options to choose from: Operating Preferences:Normal ConditionExtensive idling and/or driving at low speedsOperating in Dusty Conditions So the oil life monitor is supposed to use actual engine and operating conditions to determine the remaining oil life. The actual operating conditions then come from the preferences selected above by the owner? Does SyncMyRide download this information to the car so it can use it to compute the remaining oil life? Also, the statement that oil needs to be changed every 1 year or 10,000 miles conflicts with what the manual states, which is 2 years or 20,000 miles. For my Vehicle Health Report, the computation seems to be based on using 8,200 miles out of 20,000 miles.

I would suggest that you consider which options are most important to you when selecting a 240 V charger. Power capacity is one of the most important, but there other features that you might find important, such as cord length, delay timer, on/off switch, portability, weatherproof, etc. You will also need to decide if you want a plug-in model or a hardwired unit. Finally, you might want to check with your power company to see if there are any special rates available for charging electric vehicles. There will be no difference in charge time regardless of the charger that you select. The Energi only draws 3.4 kW of power from the charger. All 240 V chargers supply at least that amount of power. But you might want to buy one with more capacity in case you decide to purchase a vehicle in the future that can take advantage of the additional power.

I just ran a vehicle health report today. The Sync web site reports the Sync software on my car is up to date. It is now working correctly. They must have fixed it. It indicated that Sync was not up to date the other day. Murphy, what type of error conditions did the VHR display? Does it show actual DTCs? The Service Engine Soon light comes on sometimes when I use the EBH (a known issue that the Ford Engineers have not yet resolved). However, Engineering Test mode and VHR fail to display any DTC error codes. All the VHR states is that the Service Engine Soon light is on. That's not very helpful--I can see that on the display. The TSB associated with this issue mentions various DTCs. Do I need to connect to the OBD-II port to read the codes? Has anyone ever seen any DTCs in the VHR or displayed in Engineering Test Mode?

The following posts list a possibility. I don't have a jumper or a battery charger. http://www.fordfusionenergiforum.com/topic/1220-preparation-before-your-12-volt-battery-dies/?p=9333 http://fordcmaxenergiforum.com/topic/1309-long-period-of-no-use-and-battery-discharge/?p=13264 http://www.amazon.com/Clore-JNC300XL-Jump-N-Carry-Ultraportable-12-Volt/dp/B000XQ9MGE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1382495853&sr=8-2&keywords=battery%20jumper&tag=viglink121645-20 Whenever I measure the voltage on my battery, it usually seems to be about 12.7 V. Of course, if one of the 70+ computer modules fails to shut down properly when turning the car off, that could drain the battery without any advance warning.

The comment above is incorrect. I had previously only plugged the EBH into the car for about 1.5 hours prior to leaving for work--that was not long enough. This morning, it was -5 F. I plugged the EBH in 3 hours prior to departure. I was able to drive to work this morning entirely in EV mode. I checked the coolant temperature when I arrived at work. It was 30 Celcius. Apparently, the cold weather conditions under which the ICE starts when in EV now mode are something like this. If it is above zero F, the ICE does not start until the HVB nears depletion (maybe 15% SOC remaining). If it is below zero F, the ICE starts when the coolant temperature is below a certain threshold or the HVB nears depletion. The threshold is probably no more than 30 Celsius. I think if you leave climate control off, the ICE would probably not start. But at -5 F, you have to run climate control or the windows will frost up so I can't test that. Also, it appears the engine coolant does not circulate when the ICE has not started. Otherwise, the coolant temperature would not have still been 30 Celcius after the 13 minute drive to work at -5 F. I am basing the coolant temperature on what the car reports in Engineering Test mode.