Gigi

Incredible!

WOW! I've been thinking that at a certain point mpg becomes almost meaningless. The total cost for gas and fuel per month seems more meaningful. And that is fantastic compared to buying gasoline.

If I only commuted to work and used the car for the occasional trip into the city, I could go months before needing gas. It's the out of town trips now and then when the Energi fulfills it's second role as a regular hybrid that ruin a perfectly good run of all electric driving.

. . .because my wife needs to drive the Energi tomorrow for a trip longer than our Focus Electric's range. This tank of gas lasted 7 weeks. It'll be a while before I can string together a couple of months for another high mileage tank without it being cut short by an out of town trip. I figure that this 1,600 miles cost about $66 for gas and electricity, a savings of $303 compared with driving my F-150. EV mileage should read 1,375, not 375.

Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but the EV distance displayed includes the EV distance driven while in hybrid mode, not just the distance driven in EV only mode. If you calculate mpg of gasoline by subtracting EV distance from total miles and dividing by the number of gallons used, it is a horrifyingly low figure because it does not include the EV miles that are a part of driving as a normal hybrid.

I've crunched a lot of numbers and been amazed by how much money my wife and I are saving by driving an Energi and an Electric. More satisfying than the numbers is the feeling I get driving around town in EV mode. It's so quiet and smooth. I really like that.

When I got our Energi in November, I used existing wiring and breaker to put in a 3.8kW EVSE. After falling in love with driving on electricity, we added a Focus Electric to our household. Now, on my list of things to do is to upgrade my wiring and breaker so that I can change out the 3.8kW unit for a 7.2kW EVSE, which will charge the Focus more quickly. If you think there might be any chance of adding an electric to your household anytime in the future, you might consider wiring for and installing the more powerful EVSE now. A unit that is more powerful than you need presently could come in handy later. Enjoy your new car. Atlanta is a great place for EV driving.

Seems to me that the car is behaving as if it were plugged in to an EVSE that has no power. Electrical/mechanical problem with the charging port? Problem with the J1772 signaling circuit? Please let us know how the dealer solves the problem for you and what was at fault.

If it takes you 5 hours to charge (9:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m.), it sounds like you must be using a 120V EVSE (charger). You may not find 120V to be very effective for preconditioning your car since it provides only 1.4 to 1.9 kW of power (depending on whether it is a 12 Amp or 16 Amp unit) and your heater requires more than that to warm the car effectively. If you install a 240V EVSE, you should get better results pre-heating (or cooling) your interior.

Welcome aboard, Rocketfan & Gerdia. It really is a great and amazing car. The more you are able to charge, the more you may be amazed!

How long the engine needs to run in order for the thermostat to open and circulate the warmed coolant to the climate system will depend on outside temperature and how hard the engine is running. I have done the same thing and it works. I agree that it makes sense to use wasted heat from the engine to warm the interior rather than to burn electricity. If I remember correctly, the climate system will use battery power to heat the coolant in EV Later mode just as in Auto mode until the engine warms up. If you want to avoid using battery power, leave the climate system off until you think the engine has warmed up. I have the "Climate/Other" indicator as one of my "My View" displays. This allows me to monitor when the battery is being taxed and how much. As murphy notes, if you have 240V available, GO times are the best way to get the car to the temperature you desire.

The key to getting just outside air through the vent is to be sure that you have selected the panel vent and that your temperature is set to LO. You can adjust the fan speed to whatever suits you. If you don't select the panel vent or the floor vent, the system will place itself in Auto mode and the AC compressor will run if you have the temperature at LO.

After driving minivans for the last 22 years, packing in 8 cubic feet of space has been an adjustment. Glad to hear that there's someone out there such as yourself for whom the Fusion Energi's trunk is a welcome improvement! I love this car. Hope you will as well.

Welcome, Steve! The more often you can plug in the more money you will save. I filled the gas tank 5 weeks ago, have traveled over 1,220 miles since then, and have used 8.6 gallons of gas. The exceptional trips when I have had to go over 21-25 miles are the reason I have used those 8.6 gallons of gas. If I could eliminate those, I'd be driving 100% EV, but those trips are one of the reasons we bought this car. I wanted to be able to drive as an EV most of the time and still have the ability to drive comfortably on long trips getting hybrid gas mileage. I hope that your car works out for you as well as ours has for us.

Exactly! Thus the reason for my initial post. I would like to see some more simple controls. If the system is so complex that presets are needed to make these, then let's get them programmed in. Back in the olden days before cars had electronics, just basic electricity, if I was driving down the road and I wanted some air coming out of the panel vents, there was one button I needed to push that would open the vent. That was it. I wish it were this simple today.

Typical. Often, you will find better information here than at your dealer. As I understand it, there is one battery and the vehicle merely switches from EV to hybrid mode when the battery reaches a certain state of charge. I don't think it is like a hard drive on a computer that is partitioned into different "drives" that are actual physical sections of the disc. Somebody correct me if I am wrong about this, please. With enough downhill driving, I have seen my battery indicator reach the top when driving in hybrid mode. Others here have seen the indicator switch back to EV mode and seen miles increase on the indicator with very long downhill drives in the mountains.

Agreed. Apparently when a vent isn't selected, the system selects Auto mode. If the temperature is set to low, it assumes that AC is needed and turns it on automatically without lighting the indicators that would show that it is on.

My experience is that yes, it does turn it off, but only if you have the panel vent selected. There is a strange quirk in the MFT system. If you set the temperature to LO but do not select a vent (floor, panel, or windshield), air will come out of the panel vents and the AC compressor will run. What is odd is that the AC indicator light on the MFT climate screen and the light on the button below the radio will both be off, yet the Climate/Other indicator on the left instrument panel display will show that the climate system is drawing power, obviously to run the compressor, since the air from the panel vent is ice cold. I keep the Climate/Other indicators displayed on the My View display so that I can tell when the climate system is drawing power, indicating that I have inadvertently not selected the panel vent and turned the AC on. Our Focus Electric has more physical buttons for the climate system. I can turn it on by selecting a vent, control temperature with a knob, and reliably turn the AC on and off with a button. All of this I can do by touch without having to take my eyes off the road.

Not yet, but the mention of them triggers a sense of dread in me. Is there some kind of film that could be used as a protector?

Yep. Normal. Pretty much anytime you take your foot off the accelerator, the engine shuts off. Use the "Enlighten" information display and you will see the threshold for when the car will switch from electric to gas.

I'd go with number 2 and add "Thank you" at the end.

Sounds great! When you go for service at Cherokee, work with Jeff. He's the service rep. who is trained on Energis and he appreciates the cars. The tandem breakers should work fine to make room for the 30A. Got my Energi from Cherokee and my Focus Electric from Sandy Springs. So far so good with both dealers, but I do get annoyed with the requests from Cherokee to give excellent ratings for everything they do. If people don't give them honest feedback, they're not going to learn anything about how to improve their service.

Several people here have observed that GO times are not very effective on 110V. The problem, as I understand it, is that the cabin heater draws more current than the the 110V unit is able to make available. Something is likely better than nothing, but don't expect 72 degrees on a cold day.

My experience of going downhill in my Focus Electric in L with a full battery and feeling the car go into "free fall" suggests to me that the electrical resistance of the motor/generator was turned off when the battery was back up to capacity. The brake pads would have clamped the rotors then to slow the car making heat and creating brake dust. Yep, energy always goes somewhere.

When I bought our Energi, I installed a 3.8kW EVSE on an existing 20A circuit, which was fine for charging the Energi. Soon, I fell in love with driving on electricity and decided to park my F-150 and add a Focus Electric to our household just two months after buying the Energi (nearly making the lease payment with what I was paying for gasoline in the truck). At this point, I am sharing one 3.8kW EVSE between two vehicles. It's going fine since the Focus charges after I go to bed and it doesn't really matter whether it takes 3 or 5 hours to charge at that time, but I could foresee situations when one of us might want to charge to Focus more quickly than the 3.8kW unit is able to support. I wish I had upgraded the wiring and breaker on the circuit and installed a 7.2kW EVSE initially because the Focus Electric is able to draw 6.6kW to charge and could charge more quickly during the day with the heavier unit. If you think there is a possibility of getting an Electric sometime in the future either as a replacement or as a second vehicle and if you are needing to install a 240V circuit anyway, my suggestion is to go ahead and install a 40A circuit now and get a 7.2kW EVSE so that you can give an electric the power it can use when the time comes. A second suggestion is to install the EVSE in a place where you can share the cord between two cars. I installed mine in the middle of the wall the cars drive toward. It is easy to unplug one when it is finished charging and transfer the plug to the other. Welcome to the forum. Congratulations on your purchase. Did you get it from Cherokee or Sandy Springs? I'm next door to you in the top right hand corner of Cobb Co. If you see a White Platinum Energi or a White Focus Electric blink its lights, honk, or wave at you, it's me.