murphy

It just dawned on me that I can determine if it is an AGM battery or not. I have to take the battery out of the car and shake it to see if I can hear the fluid sloshing around. The electrolyte in an AGM battery is Absorbed into the Glass Mats (hence AGM) and is not free to slosh around. I wish I had thought of that when I had it out previously.

As I said I hope it is an AGM battery but don't know for certain. The battery appears to have caps but the battery label is pasted over them. The entire plastic label would have to be destroyed to get to them. I am certain that would cancel the warranty on the battery. The battery has vents at both ends. The one facing the front of the car is plugged with a plastic plug. The one facing the rear of the car has a vent tube which goes down through the floor of the battery area and I presume comes out under the car. The standard battery (BXT-96R-590) has the same vent ports so now I am wondering if it is a standard battery. That would have been a really poor design decision on Fords part IMHO as an Electrical Engineer.

Charging with an external 12 volt battery charger. The charger has a screen that indicates the SOC of the 12 volt battery while it is being charged.

I have found that my Schumacher XC103 (3, 5, 12-30 amps) always gives a low SOC when charging first starts. After about a minute it jumps to a higher value and then increments in 1% steps to 100%. I don't know what method it uses to determine the SOC. It also has settings for Regular, AGM, and GEL batteries. I have been using the AGM setting.

The battery is not, as far as I can tell, a standard car battery. The BXT-99R-390 and the BXT-57R-390 from my old 2010 Fusion Hybrid are batteries that were designed by Ford. They are not available anywhere other than from a Ford dealer. I do not know who manufactured them for Ford. There are no specifications published for them other than the 390 CCA number on the battery itself. It is my hope that it is an AGM battery because that is what is called for in this application. The Owner's Manual calls out the wrong battery. It lists a BXT-96R-500 or a BXT-96R-590 on page 302. Those are for the gasoline only Fusion. They are full size batteries and do not fit in the battery tray of the Energi or the Hybrid. I had one jammed into my Energi for about a week and it performed much better than the little one. However I didn't leave it in because if that kind of battery went dead there is a strong possibility that the battery would never work again.

The lowest voltage I have seen is 11.1 volts. The car goes into run mode fine but the radio can't be turned on by itself. When the battery is this low turning on accessory mode (push the start button without foot on brake pedal) does not turn on the center stack or the power outlets and charging does not start. Almost immediately the battery saver messages appears and after the progress bar completes the car shuts down. I have a battery tester that puts a 100 ampere load on the battery for 10 seconds and shows the voltage. The voltage must stay above 11 volts at the end of the 10 seconds for the battery to be considered good. The test is done after the battery is charged to 100%. My battery passes this test but this is a "starter" battery test and doesn't say much for the condition of an AGM battery.

A Volt has a gasoline engine.

If they don't make you pay for the electricity to charge a PHEV the non PHEV drivers could make a case that they should be reimbursed for the gasoline they use to drive home. The easy way out is to ignore the problem.

OT: Replacing windows has the potential to create a lot of dust. Dust in the smoke detector chambers can render them useless. Many smoke detectors have a procedure for cleaning the chamber. They also should be replaced about every 10 years. If a lot of dust is expected during construction the chambers should be covered to protect them.

Did you turn the A/C on? That would drop the mileage estimate the instant it was turned on.

The hard master reboot cleared out the accumulated MPGe reading. When the car was driven after that it started at 0 and at every new calculation would show a higher number. This would continue until the reading stabilized at the correct value. The dealer installed update is bogus. It is the same one (3.6.2) that I installed myself when it came out. Ford's computer systems and the syncmy ride website are messed up. There is a report on the forum somewhere that says a Ford person said they are trying to fix the website.

For reference here is a plot of my 12 volt battery for slightly over 24 hours. The horizontal scale is a reading taken every minute. The sequence was as follows: Parked car in garage and let it sit for 10 minutes. The HVB was about 50 % full. Hooked up recording voltmeter to 12 volt battery at 10:51 AM set to take a reading every 60 seconds. Connected 240 volt charger at 11:36 AM HVB charging completed at 12:35 PM. 12 volt battery charging completed at 3:05 PM. Battery voltage slowly dropped until 1:00 PM the following day. The voltage was 12.25 volts It then jumped up slightly and flatlined at 12.4 volts. I think this was the battery protection kicking in and dropping every load that it could.

Requesting a brochure does not guarantee that you will get a coupon. I got a coupon without requesting anything, probably because I was an existing Ford customer with a four year old car.

As far as electrical inspections are concerned they have to follow the National Electrical Code. They don't get to make it up as they go although some try. You can always request that that they show you the paragraph in the NEC code book that backs up what they are telling you. http://www.nfpa.org/catalog/category.asp?category_name=National%20Electrical%20Code%20%28NEC%29&cookie_test=1

The point of a community maintained spreadsheet was that anyone that had data to contribute would add it. It hasn't worked very well since the state rebate information for only three states has been added.

TSB 13-7-11 ENERGI—HIGH VOLTAGE BATTERY CHARGING TSB 13-7-11 MESSAGE—IS VEHICLE PLUGGED-IN?—DTC U019B AND/OR P0CF7—BUILT ON OR BEFORE 4/15/2013 tsb13-07-11_HVB_charging_is_veh_plugged_in.pdf

I just pinned the community driven spreadsheets that already have a lot of this information. http://www.fordfusionenergiforum.com/topic/947-tsbs-and-tax-credits-community-driven-spreadsheet/?do=findComment&comment=4567 Note: you must have a Google account to access the spreadsheets.

It depends on how big the charger is. If it's one of those 6 amp ones it will take a long time to charge the battery. If it's a big one like 30 amps may as well let it finish the job. Either way once the battery has enough charge to be stable at 12 volts turning the car on would be the fastest way to complete the charge although it will impact your mpg.

My Garmin always told me to keep left or right when approaching a Y intersection in spite of the fact that it was obvious which way the main road went.

I wouldn't expect it to work. Most battery chargers supply pulsed DC to charge a battery. They may do a full wave rectification of the incoming AC but don't add a filter capacitor since in this application the battery is the best filter available. The computerized ones would detect the missing battery and shut down. You don't need a big battery to supply the holding current. The last time I did it I used the battery in my lawn tractor. A 12 volt 5 amp-hour gel cell is probably enough to get you going. They go for about $15. Once the car has voltage provided by the gel cell it can be put in run mode and the car will take over the job of charging the battery. Was the car still plugged in when the 12 volt battery died?

Yes. I have charged my 12 volt battery using the posts many times. I've also used them to attach another battery to keep the electronics from resetting while I had the regular battery removed from the trunk. Do not turn the car on while the battery charger is connected.

It appears to be a mistake on the web site. At least one person reported going to their dealer and being told there was nothing to install since the update had already been installed.

I have one that is permanently wired to my Leviton charger. I record all power usage to charge the car. I have never gone to the trouble of matching what I got from the wall with what ended up in the battery. The efficiency is what it is and isn't going to change so there is no point in recording it.

Is that the total amount of your bill divided by the number of kWh? My generation charge is 8.36 cents per kWh but after adding the distribution charge and the fixed service charge it comes to 15.9 cents per kWh. The Kill-A-Watt is a 120 volt device. An L2 charger is a 240 volt device. A 240 volt power meter costs slightly over $100.

EV Later forces the car to run in hybrid mode but doesn't put the hybrid battery symbol on the display. The hybrid battery symbol only appears when the "big" battery is empty. The 12 volt battery is being charged when the car is in run mode by the DC to DC converter. When the hybrid battery reaches its lower limit the ICE comes on to propel the car and recharge the hybrid battery. The part of the HVB that was reserved when EV Later was enabled is not used for anything while in EV Later mode. There is only one high voltage battery. The hybrid battery is a 1.1 KW part of the main battery. The electronics will never let that "battery" be completely discharged.