Gigi

Thanks for the suggestion myersnole. I've put a ton of music on a USB and I'm pleased with that. Pandora over bluetooth also works well. I have listened to Sirius in rental vehicles in the past and I thought the fidelity was much better than what I am hearing in the Ford. I'm hearing all kinds of high frequency effects of compression, a "thready" sound, that just isn't pleasant. larryh. Tell me more about noise cancellation. What do you think the system's response would be? The Titanium is apparently able to deal with frequencies down to 30hz as you have measured. If the sound is being produced by the audio system, shouldn't the SE audio system recognize it as its own and leave it alone? I think I'll take my laptop out to the car tonight and run a sound generator and see how far the system can go. I doubt I will hear a response below 55hz.

My only disappointment with the Fusion Energi SE is the lack of bass response in the audio system. Has anyone added a subwoofer to the stock audio system? What did you use? There are two holes in the parcel shelf where the Titanium subs would be mounted - 6x9 it looks like. I am thinking of building a couple of crossovers and using the existing rear door speakers as midrange, adding the stock Sony tweeters to the rear doors, and sending the bass to a couple of decent 6x9 subwoofers in the parcel shelf. Has anyone tried this? Does the stock audio system have enough "umph" to move bass speakers? I'm not talking about wanting to feel a "thump." I just want to hear more bass range. Oddly, the bass range isn't too bad when playing from the USB or from Bluetooth. It's just the radio and Sirius that sound really thin. The Sirius does not sound anything like CD quality. I can't imagine why anyone would want to pay a subscription fee for the service. My F-150 Lariat has the oem subwoofer option and does a good job of giving me a lower end to my music. I hate that the radio in my truck sounds better than the radio in my new car.

Actually, howardbc, I drive my wife's Energi like I drive my F-150 - like a little old lady. In order to get decent gas mileage in the F-150, I learned to drive as if there were an egg between my shoe and the accelerator pedal. It's a good technique for staying in the blue in the Fusion.

I was going to ask how to "refresh" Sirius and then found my own answer here: https://care.siriusxm.com/retailrefresh_view.action

Real World Mileage: I just got back from a road trip: 467 miles, 11.2 gallons, 41.74 mpg. Left home with only 1/4 battery charge. The first 40 miles were in stop-and-go rush hour traffic and probably excellent mpg. The rest was highway driving just above the speed limit, 64 - 74 mph and some "blue highway" driving at 59 mph. Temperature was cool, so heat was on most of the time and occasionally the AC to clear the windshield. I was able to get in two full charges overnight, which boosted the average some. Before the trip average around town mpg was 67. The most frequent trip is a 54 mile round trip commute. If my wife is able to work out charging at work, I expect that the average mpg will increase substantially. 42 mpg on the highway isn't as good as around town mpg, but it is a lot better than the 23-25 mpg I was getting in the car it replaced. Performance on the road was good. It's not a sports car, but it is able to pick up and go when needed.

Okay. This evening, climbing the hill just before my street, I used the Empower display and kept the blue power bar within the blue box and stayed in battery power while climbing 80 feet in about 800 feet distance, a 10% grade. The car slowed toward the top, but it was all battery. I guess this is about the best I can do for depleting the battery before charging. Thanks, guys.

Help me with a little math here. From a full charge, I see the battery deplete to zero on MyFord Mobile, but each time, it tells me that I have expended 5.5 kWh to do that. That should leave me 2.1 kWh in what I am assuming is the part of the battery reserved for hybrid mode. If 1.1 kWh is the portion of the battery reserved for hybrid mode, that must mean that there is another 1 kWh reserved for another purpose. I wonder why Ford doesn't have the car go into EV+ mode sooner once the car learns where it will be charged in order to use up as much of this capacity as possible. They've got a great idea, but I think it could be more effective. On my drive home, EV+ kicks in when I am at the bottom of a steep hill after I have regenerated as much as a mile's worth of electricity. Going up the hill once I cross the creek, the engine often kicks in because there isn't quite enough juice to pull me up the grade. By the time I'm at the top, I'm on relatively flat ground and nearly home. It's probably small potatoes, but I'd like to get every watt of power out of the battery I can before I plug it in to charge. I'm sure that Ford wants to avoid customers creating tweaking nightmares, but it would be nice if the system were a little more open to users to tweak.

bfenster90, What about change in elevation? If you are going uphill, your EV miles will be lower.

According to the manual, EV+ mode turns on 1/8 of a mile from a frequent destination. I am thinking that there is a lot of charge left in the hybrid battery when I get home. Is there a way to change the setting so that it turns on at a longer distance? A related question: When charging, does the hybrid battery also charge or only the high voltage battery?

Thanks Larryh. Interesting. Mine is showing 548 for hybrid mode after having driven 20 miles after filling up. So far between the two of us, it's looking like 12 gallons usage on the gauge means it's time to get gas.

I am wondering about others' experience filling their gas tank. If you drive until the gauge reads empty or until the range is zero, how many gallons does it take to fill up the tank? I topped off the tank the day we purchased the car and drove 809.6 miles until the fuel gauge was on empty and the range was down to 10 miles. The trip counter showed that I had burned 12.01 gallons. I put 12.6 gallons in the tank. I may have squeezed a little more in than I did the first day when I topped off the tank. I'll check a few more times before I conclude whether or not the trip counter figure is accurate. I suspect that it is. The energi has a 14 gallon tank. How much fuel do you suppose is left in the tank when the trip counter is telling me that I've used 12 gallons? I realize that there is a variable "empty reserve" that we aren't supposed to count on. From the OP, it sounds like 13.5 gallons is the actual capacity of the tank and that 0 miles range means about half a gallon left. If the 13.5 gallon figure is accurate, when I had reached 10 miles range, I had somewhere between 1 and 1.5 gallons remaining in the tank for 40-60 miles in hybrid mode, suggesting that 0 miles range means 30-50 miles. The OP got 29. What do others figure? I don't like white-knuckle driving on empty trying to get to a gas station, but if I have a margin of safety, I'd like to know what it is.

Look up. Before getting a level 2 station, I plugged my 120v charger into the outlet on the garage ceiling for the garage door opener. What I had in mind was that this had a good chance of being a different circuit from the outlet on the wall that has a refrigerator plugged into it.

When I initially tried connecting to WiFi, I had the problem of having only numbers available and no working keyboard. After upgrading SYNC, the keyboard was available and I was able to make a connection. I do wonder how WiFi might be useful. Updating operating systems and apps via WiFi vs. USB would be a good idea. Has anyone heard when apps such as Pandora might be available for this version of SYNC?

11 days after we bought the car . . . 1. 9.5 2. 2003 Honda Odyssey with 259,000 miles 3. Yes indeed, but . . . 1. We bought the SE model because the Titanium came only with charcoal interior. What's missing on the SE is the Sony radio that is available on the Titanium. I'm researching how to add a sub to get a fuller sound. Interestingly, bluetooth and usb sources play with a pretty full range of sound. Only the radio and Sirius sound thin. 2. The last two cars before the Odyssey we also drove for over 200K. The Odyssey needed to have the transmission replaced for the second time. Bluebook value was less than the cost of the transmission and other needed repairs (bushings, boots, etc.). The last time I sunk that kind of money into car repairs, someone ran a red light, T-boned me, and I did not recover from insurance the cost of what I had just put in the car. Never again! 3. I am really happy with the Fusion Energi. It's my wife's commute vehicle. I can't wait to have my turn behind the wheel on the weekend. I'm thinking of buying a Focus Electric for my commute. I just love the idea of driving on electricity vs. gas. I love the styling, the materials, the build quality, and all the "bells and whistles." We got an end-of-the-year deal, $8,000 off in incentives and rebate plus the federal tax credit that made the ticket price reasonable. The "but" is a lifestyle change. I loved the Odyssey because it could haul a lot of people and luggage. We're going to have to figure something out for family trips with 5 adults - 1) pack tons of luggage under a tonneau and ride 3 in the backseat of my F150 at 16-18 mpg on the highway, 2) pack really, really lightly and have the smallest adult ride on the hump in the back seat in the Fusion, 3) drive 2 cars, the Fusion and my son's Focus, or 4) rent a mini-van. With the Odyssey, we didn't have this kind of family vacation question. We just loaded up and went. With more than 90% of the car's usage being with one or two people, the Fusion Energi made more sense than buying another Odyssey. We'll just have to figure out what to do about traveling with more than 2 or three people.

First full charge with the Leviton 16 Amp 3.8 kW just completed - 2 hours 6 minutes versus 5 hours 30+ minutes on the 120V charger. This is going to work well for running errands after work.

I got the Leviton 16 Amp 3.8 kW Level 2 unit for $644.31 from Amazon with free shipping. http://amzn.com/B00B2GWRLQ There was a 240V outlet in my basement that I wasn't using. I just pulled the wire from the box, led it toward the garage, installed a junction box to continue the run to the garage and installed the old outlet in a new box in the garage. Everything I needed was on hand from earlier renovation projects, so the installation cost me nothing but a hour or so of my time. The old outlet was on a 20A breaker and used 12-2 wire. This limited the size of EVSE I could use to 16A unless I wanted to run new larger wire all the way from the electrical panel at one end of the house to the garage at the opposite end of the house and installing a larger breaker. Now I have a problem. I am so happy with my wife's Fusion Energi that I've started thinking about getting a Focus Electric, which means I should have bought the larger 30A unit. If I decide to do that, I guess I'll be pulling 8 gauge wire all the way from one end of the house to the other and trading out the unit I just bought for the more powerful one. I just love the idea of driving on electricity (when my wife lets me). This is fun!

The Sony was not available on the 2013 SE. My main reason for not wanting the Titanium is the black interior. In Georgia in July and August, black is not a good idea. We went with the SE in order to have the Dune interior and with the hope of being able to upgrade the sound system with some new speakers and/or a sub.