wxdude

My feeling is that there will be change for the 2018 model year. Why else would they be switching over and pushing "2017's" so soon? To me that means they are getting 2017 production done and out of the way to give time to focus on a new 2018 design.

I have always have had good mileage off my battery, I pick and choose on when to use it and when to use the ICE depending on lots of things like heater usage, road topography and so forth. Over the past couple winters I have had this car the mileage would drop from summer numbers of 23-26 to winter numbers of 17-19 for my driving. Yesterday I noticed that it was at 14 when I got in the car, rare for me unless the wife has driven it. After getting to work I saw that it only used 4.5 kW which seemed low. I will say that is has been a while since I have activity paid attention to kW usage and that is why I went to MFM but it doesn't go back very far. However the data it did have for about a week and a half all showed 4.5 kW used. About two weeks ago I had an oil change and during that they did several recall items along with a PCM upgrade, as was told to me by the rep. I was more wanting to verify that the battery state I am seeing was due to a slow reduction in capacity as I would expect at 61K and not related to a possible issue with a software upgrade. Saying that, when I initially saw the 14 I chalked it up to being sloppy on the heater. I was not watching the water temps or hvac draw and let the heat strips kick in for a while, I normally cycle EV/ICE to keep the strips from kicking in. So yesterday i drove my normal battery saver way with reduced speed along with using semi's, no heater and all that. I got 14 EV miles listed on MFM for that trip. Today I showed 15 miles when I got in the car. i did drive a tad faster, 3 mph more on the cruise, no heat and only got 12.9 EV miles listed in MFM. Like I said above I have not been keeping close track on kW usage, its all been based on my drive distance and it has been pretty steady on the distance I can go on my commute to work up until recently. Also the temps have been pretty mild and the HVB temps have been pretty steady around 35-38 degrees in the morning when I get in, its kept in a garage, with a rise to around 50 by the time I get to work. This is in no way a complaint on my winter mileage stinks and so forth. I fully expect my mileage to drop in the winter, it was the level that it has dropped to and the abruptness of the change that got my attention. I was hoping to be able to use MFM to either rule out or give the possibility that a software update changed the available battery capacity and come to an explanation of this situation.

It would be nice if the website had the ability to pull up data from further back. I noticed a few days ago I noticed that I am down to about 4.5 kW on a full charge. I would of liked to pull up historical data to see its loss of capacity over time, to me it seems the change to 4.5 was pretty abrupt but can't verify with MFM.

Another one bites the dust. Flying home tomorrow and I thought I would check MFM. No connection..at least I know before I got to the car and can have someone waiting for me. 9 Days. I had planned on doing a remote start during my trip to charge the 12v but I forgot.

A full charge usually takes a hair over 7 KWH, if my memory serves me correctly, using my kill a watt meter. Paying about 9 cents per KWH I spend about $.65 per charge. Compared to gas I would spend about $1.6 to $1.7 this time of year for the same distance, so I save about a buck per charge. To me its not really about money saved, because honestly you don't save much getting an energi over a hybrid for long commutes, which is what I have. It is about the techy aspect, managing the batttery, utilizing the proper drive mode for the conditions and so forth. Don't get me wrong, I do love the electric side of the car, and I love it when I have to make a quick trip into town. What it comes down to is what you would use it for and what you want. If you are looking at the bottom line, you will probably have a hard time justifying this unless you are a single car household living within 5-8 miles of anything you need. If you are like me, and many others, you will really enjoy playing with all they systems of the car and figuring out how to squeeze every watt from the battery in the most efficient manner. Cheers to both! On a side note, my wife has started to drive my Energi some now. The other day she asked how far I get in electric mode and I told her. She looked at me kinda funny and said I get way less than that, 3-4 miles less. I then started going into what I do...and she gave me that look. The look of "what in the world are you saying..." I stopped what I was saying and told her to keep doing what she is doing. :p

Driving this car is changing how I operate to some degrees though. Before this I was filling up every 4-5 days...so I was not worried about condensation building up in the tank during the cooler times of the year. Now with me filling up once every two to three weeks I have filled up a time or two sooner than I normally would. A couple weeks ago we got up into the low 70's and dew points in the 60's, so it was very humid. The next day it dropped down into the teens and twenty's so I made it a point to fill up prior to the temp drop so the warmer..moister air in the tank wouldn't condense when it cooled. I do not know how much of a difference it would make, as in how much water it takes to really mess up your fuel system, but it makes me feel better when I do that vs not.

I am not an engineer or mechanic but I believe that the majority of the pump cooling comes from the fuel flowing through the pump. My main theory behind that is engineers wouldn't design a system to operate in an environment where its cooling supply could be reduced below the min required easily. Take the engine oil for instance..you need x amount of quarts and there is normally a small range to operate in. For my old 65 f100 the 300 would run on 4 qt but was full at 6 qt. So on the dipstick if you had 4 qt in it you would be on the bottom line and 6 would put you up top. Now take that to the gas tank. If you needed 1/4 tank to keep the pump cool then the fuel gauge should show E, or low or however you want to word it, when you hit that 1/4 tank, or whatever amount the engineers decided needs to always be in the tank. Sitting here writing this has me thinking that something like that is already built in based on earlier posts saying you can go past E. That there is an amount still in the tank when you show E that could be just for this issue....to make sure the pump is always covered. As for #2 I have always driven, only 17 years, my vehicles like this and have never had issues with the pump or filter filling with crap. I think that if you constantly run it down to E that you never give gunk and trash a chance to really build up to a point that it would clog up the fuel system. I do think that both have valid points and yes can do harm if you are not careful. If you are running your car out of fuel over and over...yes I see that burning out a pump. And if you do not normally drain your tank to E and you did it once in a blue moon I could also see all the trash built up messing with the fuel system as its not designed to take a big shot of trash. It can handle small bits through out its operation though, and that's the area I operate it in.

I tend to do a mix of EV and EV later modes. I have a 28 mile commute with one mile to the interstate and one mile from the interstate to work. On days where I go to work in the afternoon I tend to use EV now for the entire drive to work till the HVB is dead with no heater. When I have to go to work in the morning I typically use EV now for the 1 mile to the interstate then go into EV later. I do this because my windows will start to condensation up about 5 minutes into the drive. I refuse to waste electric on the heater for my commutes...so I will put it in EV later, get the engine warm and then turn on the heat. I will then use the battery on and off for my drive into work, warm up the cab and clear the windows then go back into EV now. Wait for the electric heater to kick on then switch it back to EV later.

I have never believed the dash mileage liar. Fuelly is my friend when it comes to gal used. Good info on being able to go past E as I like to drive it all the way to e every time.

1. 10 2. 2011 Ford F250 Diesel 3. Without a doubt. It was a drastic change and I do miss my truck, but everything that I get with this car trumps all of that. About the only thing I would like to see is diesel hybrid/PHEV's, I just love the smell and sound of a diesel. However there is a lot of additional systems that has to come along with a diesel powerplant vs a mogas burner that I imagine is holding this back from seeing it anytime soon.

I have always seen it as a gimmick....another way for someone to take a buck out of my pocket for no reason. Also, for you to fully see the advantages you would need a tire with 100% nitrogen in it. There is no way that is going to happen with a street tire.

How often do you leave yours open when you leave the house. I end up doing this ateast once a week.

I have hooked up my scangauge II and watched the charging rates for driving in L (Maximum engine breaking mode). I see around 50 amps going into the battery when fully off the accelerator. Depending on the grade and length that could be a fair amount of electrons you could build up. Would the end of drive info show if you only charged the battery...and how much it was charged? For instance would you be able to start the car at the top of the hill, with less than a full charge, then stop at the bottom and shut it down and it show you how many Kw's you charged? Might be worth a try to see if it would.

I went from a F250 Diesel using 150 gallons a month to my Energi using about 18 gallons a month. Cant beat that!! If you want to add in electricity I use about about 16 bucks worth of it charging the car a month. With diesel around 3.80 here right now and mogas at 3.05 I am saving about 500 a month on fuel. I did like driving my tank around but I had never used it as intended so decided it was time to get into something a little more inline with the driving I am doing. I do miss the whine of the turbo along with the sound and smell of the diesel though.

Where is the square root of 2 coming in from? I do not know the specifics of the charger on our vehicles; however I will say that they are designed to fully utilize the input voltage. If the manufacturer said it is designed for a 110 or L2 charger, it will be engineered to fully utilize both systems. Here is some simple Ohm's Law. (Keeping it simple, not accounting for efficiency loss and so forth.) Amps times Volts equals Watts. Input 120V 11 Amps That is right around 1300 Watts pulling from the AC outlet. If the charger was 100% efficient that would give a little over 4 amps charge rate for a 300 volt battery. Input 220V 11 Amps That is around 2600 Watts pulling from the AC outlet. That would give over an 8 amp charge rate on a 300 volt battery. (I do not know the amp draw for L2 chargers so I am putting a number in here) The important thing to note is that as the voltage changes the only change is the wattage going into the battery. As I said before the engineers have designed this vehicle for multiple charge sources and have taken all of this into account. They would not design a vehicle that would not fully charge on a standard 110 plug, esp when they include a 110 charger with the car. Hope this makes sense.

I don't see how charge rate would effect the final charge state of a battery. I work with LiPo batteries in RC helicopters and the only thing that increasing the charge rate does is cut down the charge time. Once the battery is charged, it is fully charged no matter what rate it was charged at. I hope Murphy isn't trying to say you get more out of your battery with a L2 charger. It is more efficient charging the HVB, using less KW from your wall outlet...but at the end of the charge the battery is at the same state as a 110 charge.

I get from 18 to 20 miles on the HVB, depending on the traffic. Almost all of my commute is on the interstate at 70 mph. In heavy traffic I find I get upwards of 20 miles and on an empty interstate I get right around 18 miles. Drafting difference maybe? Both are done at 70 mph.

I'm not talking about using the 150 watt outlet already in the car. I'm looking in the direction of getting a 1kw+ inverter and running that off the 12v system. From reading around on the other hybrids/EV's the Leaf has an 80 amp dc-dc converter, it could supply 800 watts or so. Prius' have a 100 amp converter that can safely supply 1kw. I have been unsuccessful to see what the dc-dc converter is rated for on the fusion though. Even found some threads on other sites about this with no answer. I would rather spend a little cash on a good 1kw inverter than on a genny that will probably never get used.

In years past I have used vehicles as a generator in emergency situations. I have looked around the internet and found cases where hybrids were used as standby generators by hooking up a power inverter and leaving the car in run. I am wondering if anyone knows what the wattage of the inverter is that charges the 12V system on the car? The Prius folks have said their system is good for a 1k dc to ac inverter. Does anyone have some numbers for the 12V system in the energi?