Gigi

A few more factors that can affect the cost of driving on gas vs. electricity. . . Ambient temperature - You will drive more electric miles and the amount of electricity used will be less when the temperature outside is mild. Batteries are less efficient when it is cold. Think of the regular 12V battery in a car. It has fewer cranking Amps available when it is cold. Running the heater requires warming the coolant, which can happen one of four ways, preconditioning the car using a 240V EVSE (using a GO time), using remote start, which either runs the ICE or uses the battery to warm a heating element in the cooling system, just getting in the car and running the ICE, or just getting in and using the HVB to warm the cooling system and produce heat. The hybrid has only one of these means, the same as any other non-electric car, running the ICE. Preconditioning the car saves electric range, but it draws kWh above the amount it takes to charge your battery. Preconditioning is like starting an ICE vehicle and letting it warm up before you get in and go. It takes gas to do that just as it takes electricity to precondition an Energi or EV. In this week's mild temperatures I am expending only 225 Wh/mile, which means that I am getting 25 miles of EV driving on a full charge rather than only 21. When it is really cold, however, I might get only 15. Driving style - There are a number of techniques that can help you maximize your EV driving. The two most basic are to treat the accelerator and the brake pedal as if you have an egg between your foot and the pedal, and when you see that you will have to stop, start slowing down sooner rather than later. The same techniques help maximize mileage in any vehicle. Choosing when to drive in hybrid mode vs. driving in EV mode - EV mode is more efficient in stop and go traffic and at speeds of 45 mph or less. Because of the exponential rate of increase of drag in relationship to speed, the faster you go, the more efficient it will be to use your more powerful ICE rather than the electric motor. Like jeff_h, I switch to EV Later when I get on the highway and drive in regular hybrid mode saving my battery for when I am back on surface streets where EV mode is more efficient. Maximize charging - If I plan to charge for free somewhere in the middle of a trip, I make sure that I have used every EV mile available in the battery before I get there. I don't charge the Energi at public charging stations where there is a fee. $1.00 per hour of charging at a public station yields only about 10 miles of range per hour. I can go 10 miles in regular hybrid mode on $0.77 of gasoline at $3.299 a gallon. This is a different story with our Focus Electric where an hour's charge can give 20 miles range and where charging may be necessary in order to get home. Charge at every opportunity - On the weekends, we typically make a number of short trips, grocery shopping, going to the mall, going out to eat, visiting friends, etc. Usually, we return home between these trips. Plugging in as soon as we pull into the garage helps maximize the number of miles driven on electricity even if we go back out before the car is fully charged. How often you drive long distances where 21 miles of electric range becomes relatively insignificant - On a long trip, once the battery is depleted, lugging it along affects gas mileage, factoring into the difference in rating between the Energi 43 mpg and the Hybrid 47 mpg. The Energi weighs about 300 pounds more than the Hybrid. On one long trip in bad weather and with four passengers, we averaged only 37 mpg. The mpg in a hybrid might have been a little better since there would have been 300 pounds less weight to carry. This is not an exhaustive list of factors. Others may think of more. For my wife and me, driving our combination of Fusion Energi and Focus Electric works wonderfully. In the last six days, for 400 miles of driving, we used a total of $10.00 of electricity and $1.20 of gas vs. the $77.00 we would have spent for gas in our previous two ICE daily drivers. If you have the tendency, maximizing the number of miles driving on electricity may become an obsession. At least it's an obsession that can save money.

This is a number used to figure MPGe - miles per gallon equivalent, which refers to the amount of energy in a gallon of gas and is not necessarily related to your cost of driving on electricity versus gasoline, which can vary greatly depending on what you pay per kWh for electricity and the price of gas on any given day. It takes about 7kWh of electricity from your wall to charge the Energi 5.6kWh, enough to go 21 miles, assuming 80% charging efficiency. At your cost of electricity, $0.15 per kWh, it would cost you $1.05 to drive the Energi 21 miles on electricity. Driving a Fusion Hybrid the same distance at the rated 47 mpg would take 45% of a gallon of gas. For me, today, in my neighborhood, that is $3.299 per gallon. 21 miles in a Fusion hybrid at that cost for gasoline would be $1.47. You would save $0.42 driving an Energi over driving a Fusion Hybrid for those 21 miles. Your cost and savings will vary depending on the cost of gasoline. If you can charge at work for free, that is the same as cutting your cost for electricity for your commute in half. For your 70 mile round trip commute, in an Energi, you would spend $1.05 on electricity and $2.15 for gas assuming you were paying $3.299 at the pump and assuming the Energi's rating of 43 mpg. If you drove a Fusion Hybrid that same distance, you would be spending $4.91. So your cost would be $3.20 in the Energi versus $4.91 in the Fusion Hybrid, saving you $1.71 on those days that you commute and you charge for free at work. Whether it is worth it for you to drive an Energi versus a hybrid has a lot to do with the variables of the kWh rate you pay your electric company and the cost of gasoline at the pump. The more trips you are able to make without having to use gasoline, and the higher the cost of gasoline, the more economical the Energi will be. There is a hassle factor plugging the car in every time you pull it into the garage or stretching out your portable cord to plug in when you are away from home, but if you are committed to the idea of driving on electricity, it can be worth the effort. My commute is only 26 miles round trip and I am able to charge at work. I filled the tank three weeks ago and have driven 528 miles using 4.6 gallons of gasoline (114 mpg of gas). 421 miles were EV, 78% of the total miles. If my wife had not used the car for work a couple of days when it was cold, the percentage of EV driving would have been higher and the car would have used less gas. I think that the Energi fits my driving pattern well and probably makes good economic sense. It might be helpful if some smart person sat down and worked out a formula that could handle all the variables - purchase price, EVSE installation, cost of electricity, cost of a gallon of gas, commuting distance, cost of charging at work, mpg of the Energi vs. the hybrid, charging efficiency of 240V vs. 120V, and whatever else I have forgotten. If you can maximize the number of miles driven on electricity, the Energi may be worth it economically. There is one more factor, the pleasure of the quiet of driving on electricity, which you have more opportunity to experience in an Energi rather than in a Hybrid.

Congratulations. Tell us how you like it.

I would like to make a suggestion. MyFord Touch and Sync can be cumbersome when adjusting climate settings. I wish someone would program an option for drivers to set a number of express commands that would go directly to user predefined settings. I would love to be able to tell Sync something like, "Climate: Preset One" and have the climate system turn on and go to a vent, temperature, fan, AC, and recirculate setting I have preset. In mild weather, I like to drive without heat or air conditioning with air blowing through the panel vents at a low speed. In order to accomplish this with Sync, I need to say, "Climate: Panel On," "Climate: Temperature Low," "Climate: AC Off," "Climate: Decrease Fan Speed" Four commands with all kinds of beeps and pauses. "Climate: Preset One" would be so much easier. Possible?

You are going to love this car. Lots of positive experiences to draw from on this forum for learning how to get the most out of it. There is very little that could make me happier with "Gigi."

So glad to hear that you were not more seriously hurt and that your son is okay. Best wishes for healing and rehab on your wrist. After watching my wife go through that for a broken wrist, I would hold out for compensation for pain and suffering. It looks like the Fusion did what it is supposed to do, cushion the blow. Amazing.

I was finally able to get "Gigi" into the dealer today. As Fat Fusion predicted, they reprogrammed the PCM, BECM, and SOBDM-C modules as per TSB 14-0020. All is well.

Nice pics. Pretty color combination. You're gonna love this car.

I find that how I exit the app makes a difference. If I hit the home button I'm fine, but if I hit the back button to get out, it causes the problems you describe. Something I have found helpful is to load an app called "fast reboot" and use it whenever MFM doesn't want to open or close. It clears non-essentials from memory without restarting the phone. I'm using a Galaxy S4 phone.

Thanks.

Since Tuesday, 01/28/14, MFM has not been displaying all the values in the Trip & Charge Log it was showing previously. For the FFusionEnergi, it displays total trip mileage, but it doesn't display kWh used, brake score, EV miles, or EV %. Some trips it does not display at all, some it does. For the FFocusElectric, it displays total trip mileage, kWh used, and Wh/mi, but does not display brake score or driving score. For both cars the charging log information seems to be okay. What do I need to do, delete both cars from MFM and re-enter them? I'm not a fan of getting on my back in a cramped compartment to pull a fuse I can't see.

Great video, Larryh. When I was a kid, my parents had an extra set of wheels for both cars mounted with snow tires that stayed in the basement until needed. The last time this happened (2011) I was thinking of getting a couple of extra wheels for my truck and a pair of snow tires. This week, I ordered a set of these for each car in the household to put in the trunk for when we get another severe winter weather alert. I hope I never have to use them. http://amzn.com/B000VAFN60

If your vehicle begins to slide, the system applies the brakes to individual wheels and, when needed, reduces engine power at the same time. If the wheels spin when accelerating on slippery or loose surfaces, the system reduces engine power in order to increase traction. (manual, p. 170) My F-150 has a limited slip differential that keeps one or the other of the drive wheels from spinning and maintains power to the wheel that has the best traction. This works really well. It sounds like the traction control system in the Fusion relies on individual wheel brakes to stop wheel spin rather than a limited slip differential and that somehow it reduces engine power when it detects wheel spin. My wife said that at times it seemed as if the engine speed was increasing all on its own. Perhaps she wasn't noticing when the engine power was reduced by the TCS and was instead noticing the power return to normal.

Thanks.

Thanks. This is helpful.

Hmmm. The manual doesn't mention "limp home mode." What year hybrid do you have? Googling limp home mode, I found this about the NHTSA response to customer complaints: http://www.newsomelaw.com/blog/2013/02/26/nhtsa-announces-investigation-estimated-724982-ford-vehicles-after-more-1400-%E2%80%98limp-m Reading this description to my wife, she confirms that this does seem to be what was happening. She was able to get off the road safely after about an hour of this behavior, stop, and get the system rebooted. I wonder what was the cause. If there is a problem, I'd like the service department to find it and fix it.

It frightened my wife and that's not a good thing in the midst of 5 and a half hours stuck in snow and ice gridlock.

3 driving cycles is what it took to get the "Service Engine Soon" light to go out. With as much electronics as this thing has, I expect that there are bound to be communication faults between various systems from time to time. The strange behavior of the car accelerating when my wife took her foot off the brake is concerning. And no, she did not have the cruise control on. Responding to stop and go traffic on ice going uphill is bound to be a challenge for an automated system. I imagine that the program may have gotten overloaded with data and if the cold and ice took out a sensor or two, that could only make matters worse. Strange that a service department wouldn't want to know about the DTCs you read.

Tuesday afternoon, as my wife was creeping home in the Atlanta Snow Jam 2014, the Stability Control and the Check Engine light came on and remained on. She got a message, "Service AdvanceTrac See Manual," and another that said "Hill Assist Not Available." It seemed as if when she took her foot off the brake, the car would begin to accelerate. Needless to say, with snow falling, cars upside down along the roadside, and drivers struggling to make progress on sheets of solid ice, this was stressful for her. When she called, I told her to pull off the road, turn off the car, and see if the system would reset itself. It did on the second try; however, the check engine light remained on. Yesterday, I walked to retrieve the car from a mile and a half away and to move it closer to our neighborhood. The Check Engine light was still on, but the traction control seemed to be working okay. Today, I was able to drive the car to a store and then all the way home. By the time I got home, the Check Engine light had gone off. I put in a call to the local service department, but they haven't gotten back to me yet. I suppose they have their hands full. Anybody have any experience with this?

I have a Samsung. Mine do show up. Did you pair with MFT before or after you added the contact photos? If you added the photos after pairing, disconnecting the phone, pairing again, and downloading the contact info to MFT again might do it.

Congratulations, LuAnn. If your experience is like mine, you are going to love this car. Good for you for "going the extra 900 miles" to buy your car. The salesman you spoke to at your local dealer doesn't deserve your business. If you want to rub it in, you could go show him your new car.

In Atlanta we have regular HOV lanes on 75 and 85 inside the Perimeter. The northeast expressway, 85, has Peach Pass lanes outside the Perimeter that are variable fee depending on traffic volume. It is possible to get an AFV plate for an Energi here, which allows use of the HOV lanes by one driver and to get a sticker for free use of the Peach Pass lanes, but the driver has to swear that more than 85% of the miles driven are on electricity only. If you are caught not telling the truth (I don't know how they would know) the penalty is that you forfeit your registration. What you have to do to re-register your car as a regular vehicle, I don't know and I wouldn't want to have to find out.

Need a smartphone.

I was talking with a friend who said he had driven a Prius as a rental on a recent trip and that he wasn't impressed with the gas mileage he got, only 37mpg. He asked what I was getting in the Energi. When I told him 64, he was visibly surprised. One of my goals in buying the FFEV, is to minimize the number of miles we drive on gasoline. Once it is warm enough for my wife to drive the FFEV to work (without getting anxious about range) and for me to drive the FFEnergi to work where I can plug in, I'm looking to push our mpg in the Fusion out to 100+.

You see, it is confusing! I really like the Ford Focus Electric. Driving in EV mode in the Fusion was so smooth and pleasurable, I wanted to ditch the ICE altogether. The Fusion is a smoother and quieter riding car than the Focus and it has a few more features. The Focus has sportier handling and a firmer ride, but without riding as rough as the C-Max. I like that the controls are so similar between the two cars. It makes it easy to trade cars back and forth with my wife depending on what kind of trip each of us has to make. After doing the math, the deal on the Focus EV was too good to pass up. I will nearly be able to make my lease payment on the Focus with what I am saving on the gasoline I was putting in my F-150. As far as I was able to tell, there was only one dealer here in the Atlanta area that had Focus EVs on the lot. They had four of them as of last weekend. Now they are down to just two. Of the the two cars I was choosing between, both came from other dealers, one from Texas and the other from Virginia. I see Leafs all over the place around here. I think that Ford has a good thing in the Focus EV and I wish they would produce and sell more of them. They are a lot nicer to look at than the "froggy" looking Leafs.