larryh

Yes, that is at least one small consolation when having your car repaired. You get to compare it to the competition. When I had an improperly installed engine block heater replaced in my car, I was given a Toyota Camry rental car. Although the Camry had better acceleration and felt lighter, the Energi was smoother, quieter and more refined--no engine vibration or noise and the suspension provided better isolation from the road.

The commute is via Freeways/Highways. The trip takes about 1 hour 10 minutes. So the average speed is 48 mph, but that includes a couple of stop lights. The greatest EV range that I have observed for the commute is 27 miles when I used EV auto for the entire trip, which included segments where the posted speed limit is 70 mph. After the results posted above, I now use EV later when the posted speed is about 60 mph and reserve EV auto for the 55 mph segments. I haven't tracked the actual EV range when doing this. I do not always go the posted speed limit. To reduce consumption to 0.6 gallons, I also need to limit max speed to about 60 mph. But it you have a long trip, and can choose the segments that use the least power to reserve for EV, it should not be difficult to get 31 miles from the battery. The articles I have read claim 75% of the kinetic energy captured by regenerative braking is recovered to propel the vehicle. I have measured, using a Kill A Watt electricity meter attached to the electrical outlet, that 72% of the energy from the outlet is used to propel the vehicle. It takes energy to charge and discharge the battery. I don't think the efficiency is 95%. Here is what I have read in other articles: Depending on the battery’s state of charge and your driving, regenerative braking can account for more than 90% recovery of the energy that would normally be lost in friction braking. I think when they say 95% efficiency in the context of the article, they are saying that 95% of the kinetic energy is used to generate electricity and 5% if wasted as heat via friction. The 95% that is consumed to generate electricity and charge the battery is not fully recovered as kinetic energy to propel the vehicle. Only about 75% of the kinetic energy can be recovered.

Yes, the fans should not be running when the car is off and not charging or waiting to charge. There is no reason for the fans to run under these conditions. As long as the HVB is not being charged or discharged, high temperatures will not harm the battery. So I suspect that the module that controls charging/discharging the battery is not shutting down the way it is supposed to.

The following are others experiences with MFM not working: http://fordcmaxenergiforum.com/topic/991-myfordmobile-stopped-working-last-night/. The fuse on the Fusion Energi is on page 232: Cell Phone Passport.

The Ford cloud-computing service connects with your phone via the MyFord Mobile app and with your computer via the MyFord Mobile web site. The car’s onboard wireless module never connects directly with your Mobile phone or computer. The blue-tooth connection between your phone and Sync is a completely different connection. I don’t know why Ford’s server failed to send you a text message notifying you that the battery was low.　 If you have a battery monitor that plugs into a power point, you can use it to monitor battery charge. You should plug it in so that you can read it by looking in through the car windows. I plug it into the power point in the center console and leave the top open so I can read it. If you read it with the doors open, the car will be drawing charge from the battery and you will get an incorrect reading. Wait at least 15 minutes for everything to turn off and things to settle down before reading the voltage. It should read about 12.6 Volts for a fully charged battery. The car only provides power to the power points for a limited amount of time. So if the power has been shut off, just press the start button twice to turn the car on and off, and then wait about 15 minutes to take the reading. If you take a reading while the car is plugged in and charging, or when the car is running, you will see a voltage higher than 12.6. The 12 V battery is being charged. It ranges from about 13+ volts to 14.5 V when charging. You might want to see what the charge is after you turn the car off when you come home and after HVB charging has completed. The 12 V battery should be fully charged. When you leave in the morning, it should be around 12.5 V. After a couple days, it might be down to 12.35 V.

When connecting to the MyFord Mobile web site, you are connecting to Ford's Cloud Server. Their server will not connect to your car unless you have Auto Update set to On under My Account, click on the update button on the main screen, or modify settings that require syncing with the car. So you should not have to worry about draining the battery when you connect to MyFord Mobile. I think you might want to monitor the notifications at the MyFord Mobile site more closely. I was going to ask if you remembered to disable any GO times that you may have set while on vacation. There is a vacation mode. I have observed the car to wake up prior to the next GO time. That would waste power from the 12 V battery. But the battery was low after only one day? I wonder how the car noticed that the 12-volt battery was low. It must have woke up for some reason and then detected that the battery was low. It then must have contacted MyFord Mobile to send out the notification. I wonder why it would be waking up? In your post showing the battery with 255 miles of EV range, I notice that MyFord Mobile says the car is "Out and About" and that the last update was 5 hours ago. "Out and About" means that the car is running. But I believe it was parked at the dealer at that time. So it seems to have been quite confused when it sent that last update to MyFord Mobile. Did you notice a lot of other notifications while the car was parked, meaning it was contacting MyFord Mobile frequently using energy from the 12 V battery? You could buy a inexpensive battery monitor that plugs into a power point in the car to monitor the battery's charge.

If you log on to the MyFord Mobile web site and look at the notifications, clicking in the caption icon near My Account and then view all, do you see any notifications that occurred during the time the car was parked?

I already asked if there was a way to delete the extra windows. They simply noted my request. I only found out that they must be different heights by trial and error. There is no manual. If you don't set the five windows to all have a different height, MyFord Mobile will do it for you as you have seen, and it didn't do it the way you wanted it to work. For the weekend charge windows, simply make 10 PM to 12 AM the lowest cost, 12 AM to 6 AM the next lowest cost, 6 AM to 10 AM the third lowest cost, 10 AM to 5 PM, the fourth lowest cost, and 5 PM to 10 PM the highest cost. The weekday windows are fine. Also, be careful when you set the GO times. If you set the GO time for 3 PM and plug in the car at 7 AM on the weekdays, it will charge immediately. It will make sure the car is charged by your GO time, which means it may be forced to use the higher cost windows. If you do not set a GO time, it will make sure that the car is charged within 24 hours. It will use the lowest cost charge windows during the off peak hours like you want.

The first profile shown is set up incorrectly. You need to choose different priorities for each value charge window. Since that was not done, MyFord Mobile did it for you and you ended up with the second profile shown, which is not what you want. Each of the value charge windows in the profile must have a different height when you set it up. In the first one, it looks like for the weekday value charge windows, 12:00 am to 6:00 am was set to the minimum cost and all the rest were set to the max cost. So MyFord mobile changed it for you. It left from 12:00 am to 6:00 am at the lowest cost, then 6:00 am to 9:00 am the next highest cost, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm at a yet higher cost, etc. You need to change the weekend value charge windows so that 10:00 pm to 12:00 am is the lowest cost, 12:00 am to 6:00 am is the second lowest cost, and then whatever you want for the rest. Since 12:00 am to 6:00 am in the weekday value charge windows has lower cost than 10:00 pm to 12:00 am in the weekend value charge windows, it is going to wait until 12:00 AM to charge. Note that the default profile has 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM as the lowest cost charge value window and the rest of the times are in the highest cost value charge window. It has only two windows.

When modifying a Value Charge Profile in MyFord Mobile, always click the Add Custom Charge Value Window button on both the Weekday Times and Weekend Times tab before pressing the Save button in the Review and Save tab. If the profile is correct, you can always cancel at any time without saving. Also, note on Friday night, it uses the evening schedule from the Weekday profile and the morning schedule from the Weekend profile. Similarly, on Sunday night, it uses the evening schedule from the Weekend profile and the morning schedule from the Weekday profile. Assume that my GO time for Saturday morning is 8:00 AM and that it takes 6 hours to charge. If you look at my profile in the previous post, on Friday night it will start charging at 9:00 PM in the lowest cost window for the weekday profile. It will charge one additional hour and stop at 1:00 AM in the second lowest cost window for the weekend profile. It has charged for 4 hours with 2 hours to go. It will then resume charging again at 6:00 am Saturday morning and stop at 8:00 AM (my GO time) in the lowest cost window to complete the additional 2 hours.

To compute MPGe correctly when you have used gas, you can't just divide the MPGe by 1.4. You need to determine the plug-in energy used and multiply only that by 1.4. You don't want to multiply the gas consumed by 1.4. The car measures gas consumption relatively accurately. So if MPGe was 63 MPGe and you drove 56.5 miles, you have 0.897 gallons equivalent of energy. If you consumed 0.7 gallons of gas, then the gallons equivalent of electricity is 0.897 - 0.7 = 0.197. So the correct MPGe is then 56.5 / (1.4*0.197 + 0.7) = 58 MPGe.

To get 200 MPGe, the average speed must be around 35 mph. The cruising score is based on speed. You are not going to get 100% for a cruising score going 55 mph.

Yes. The wind power option costs $0.40 / 100 kWh. This is in addition to the normal electric rate. So it will cost me about $2.80 more per month.

Anyone is eligible: https://www.dakotaelectric.com/residential/programs/wellspring_wind_energy I assume they would terminate the program if they could not provide that much wind energy. But they have a long way to go at the moment to get to 25% power generation from renewable resources. As more people sign up, they build additional wind turbines. I don't know what power companies in other states offer.

This is from the FAQs for the program: Is wind energy cheaper to produce than conventional generation options? While wind is free, capturing it and converting it to electric power is slightly more expensive than conventional generation options. The government currently provides financial incentives to make the price of wind-generated power more competitive, and as technology advances, wind power becomes more cost competitive. Additionally, the windiest areas are often far from areas that use the most power, requiring transmission line construction and adding to the overall cost of wind energy. So the short answer is that the government, i.e. tax dollars, is subsidizing the cost. Minnesota has passed legislation requiring that a certain percentage of the electricity supplied to residents of the state be generated from renewable resources. The percentage varies by year. It is 25% by 2025. For another power company in MN, it is $0.90 / 100 kWh block as described below. My electric company charges $0.40 / 100 kWh block. Windsource subscriptions are available in 100 kilowatt-hour (kWh) blocks for a small additional premium of $3.53 per block, less a credit for fuel costs. In 2010, the average fuel cost credit was $2.63, making the average net charge for Windsource $0.90 per block.

My car is now powered by the wind. I signed up for the option from the power company to purchase wind energy. It costs $0.40 per 100 kWh of electricity consumed. That amounts to about $2.80/month.

This time when I refueled, the car reported that I used 10.81 gallons of gas. I actually put in 11.344. The car underestimated the gas consumption by 5%. So it seems that the MPG reported by the car is not always accurate.

The electric company providing electricity to my home offers the option of purchasing electricity from wind power. If you sign up for the program they will commit to purchasing the amount of electricity that you consume from Wind Farms. As more people sign up, they commit to adding new wind power generation resources. So for people who want to support renewable energy resources, this is a way to make a difference. The mix of energy sources used for power generation is a big factor in determining the total emissions generated by operating a PHEV vehicle. So if your electric company has similar programs, you have the means of influencing the amount of emissions required to generate the electricity that powers the car. I can choose to have 100% of my electricity come from Wind Power, which means close to zero emissions for the electricity I use and the electricity used to power the car. More than half of my miles comes from plug-in energy. Thus I can significantly reduce total emissions. Note that the normal mix of energy sources for power generation from my electric company is: 42% coal, 38% natural gas, 8% hydro electric, 4% oil, 4% purchased, 2% wind, 2% other The following is another report comparing total emissions of gas and electric vehicles: http://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/ClimateFriendlyCarsReport_Final.pdf

That's just my power company that does it that way. The other one serving the region would require a separate panel. The electrician usually deals with the other power company and was confused about the installation. I'll find out what really happens at the end of the month.

The power company does not use smart meters. However, they state that they may install "load research metering" at their expense for monitoring of consumer load. It would be nice if I could monitor the electricity use from inside the house rather than going outside to look at the meter. All the wiring will be indoors. As explained to me by the power company, the electrician will install a breaker in my existing panel in the basement. So the electricity used by the charger will register on both meters. The electric company will subtract the submeter electricity readings from the main meter readings during billing. It took many calls to the electric company and many revisions to the contract to get the installation correct. The electrician hired by SPX, the supplier of the charger, has been in contact with the power company to determine the requirements. He should have done that from the start and not waited for me to connect him with the appropriate people at the power company.

I have decided to go with the Power Max 30 Amp Charger. The total cost will be $1550. I have a rather complex install that I have been working on now for 3 months. Hopefully I have thought out everything thoroughly by now and there will be no new surprises. It will include a 24 hour timer, a submeter, and the charger. My electric service box is in the basement. They are going to have to go through 35' of floor joists to get to the garage and then go another 30'. The Power Company's ChargeWise program requires a separately sub-metered circuit. So the electricians are going to install a submeter socket, along with a submeter, on the outside of the house to measure the electricity usage of the charger. I will be able to monitor and keep track of how much electricity I use to charge the car.

The air conditioner and heater use between 0 kW and 5 kW of power from the HVB depending on how much heat or AC is needed. I have observed both using up to 5 kW of power. Normally the AC power usage reduces to less than 0.5 kW after about 5 minutes when the passenger compartment cools down.

I think Ford gave the Nav/Sync Lady the name Samantha.

If you are driving around and not at home, this is what you should see on the EV Info screen assuming you have not modified the default profile in MyFord Mobile and have selected Value Charge. I would select Charge Now first and then select Value Charge just to be safe. Under My GO Time in the upper left, the first go Time should be a time in the morning, e.g 5:40 am. At the bottom left, it should say Waiting to Charge. The Start time should be 12:00 am tomorrow. To the immediate right it should say Default Profile. If you are at home and the car is not plugged in, the GO times are the same as above. To the bottom left it should say Waiting to Charge. The start time determines when charging will begin, 9:00 pm in my case. If it is the current time, then you don't have the value charge profile set up properly for your home profile. You can always reset it to the default profile in MyFord Mobile. To the immediate right, it should say XXX Profile, where XXX is the name of your home profile. In my case it says "Home Profile". Below is a screen shot. Note that the profile selected is based on the current location of the car.