Using charger for the first time.

[Philly Brian]

It looks like I'll soon have a garage to plug in my car and charge it. Based on the pristine way that the cord was packed in the trunk I suspect the previous owner never used it. Based on my limited travel range, I feel like I could be one of those forum members who brags about filling the gas tank only twice a year or so. 

 

Should I have any concerns about plugging it in seeing as the car is now 3 years old, has 19K miles and has never been charged previously? Will the car signal me if something isn't right? (other than, maybe, smoking and catching fire!) Or that everything is okay or normal? 

[theterminator93]

It's also possible the P.O. used level 2 charging. I wouldn't worry too much about charging it up. It will probably take 6 hours or so to fully charge, but I would check it periodically during that time to ensure it charges fully. If there are any problems, the car will stop charging.

[cr08]

IF indeed the PO never charged it, even on L2, you are actually in fantastic shape. Back in some of the earlier days of these vehicles people picked them up off lease and they were never charged and the battery health was still fantastic. Being in hybrid mode all the time the natural charge/discharge cycles use only a tiny fraction of the lifetime charge cycles and the overall load and stress is a LOT less than driving as an EV. These were great buys if you could get them and planned to 'baby' the battery from the start.

 

But yes, there is a chance the PO could have used L2 or even just had their own L1/L2 EVSE at home and left the included EVSE untouched.

 

Best thing to do if you are concerned about the overall battery health is to do a proper test drive to check the current capacity and how much, if any, it has degraded. Here's a copy/paste from a comment I made recently for a C-Max owner. The process will be the same for the Fusion:

 

• Fully charge the vehicle. You can either reset a trip meter now before driving for the final step of the test or rely on the trip summary you get when shutting off the car.
• Drive in EV mode only until the plug-in charge is depleted. Avoid any situations that can cause the ICE to start. This includes no highway driving and don't use cabin heat/defrost. Heated seats or AC are fine. Anything that causes the ICE to start during this trip will immediately invalidate the test.
• Once the plug-in charge is depleted, you can review the trip meter or find a safe place to stop and shut off the car to view the trip summary. You are looking at the kWh used. 5.5kwh is the brand new from the factory capacity. 4.0 or above is still in 'good' territory. Anything below is getting into decent degradation.

The last bit with the battery capacity numbers someone more familiar with the Fusion will have to correct those. I believe those are accurate for the older model years with the original battery size but the newer ones with the increased capacity will be different and I don't know when the cutoff was.

[jsamp]

In 2019 Ford increased the battery capacity by 1.4kWh and added all of it to the EV only portion.  Thus the 5.6/5.5 kWh for a full discharge is ~7.0 for the 2019 and 2020 versions.  So a "good" battery would be somewhere north of 5 kWh.  

 

Charging time would increase by ~1 hour as well.

Edited May 9, 2023 at 05:40 AM by jsamp

[jsamp]

On 5/5/2023 at 3:43 PM, Philly Brian said:

It looks like I'll soon have a garage to plug in my car and charge it. Based on the pristine way that the cord was packed in the trunk I suspect the previous owner never used it. Based on my limited travel range, I feel like I could be one of those forum members who brags about filling the gas tank only twice a year or so. 

 

Should I have any concerns about plugging it in seeing as the car is now 3 years old, has 19K miles and has never been charged previously? Will the car signal me if something isn't right? (other than, maybe, smoking and catching fire!) Or that everything is okay or normal? 

 

Brian - One other thing.... does that cord have a white or black J1772 plug?  The white ones were recalled a few years ago due to potential to overheat.  Ford replaced them free at the time.  I don't know if that still is in effect.

 

[cr08]

On 5/11/2023 at 12:31 AM, jsamp said:

 

Brian - One other thing.... does that cord have a white or black J1772 plug?  The white ones were recalled a few years ago due to potential to overheat.  Ford replaced them free at the time.  I don't know if that still is in effect.

 

They were on a recall so that should remain in effect indefinitely I'd think just like any other safety recall. That said, not ALL white handled EVSEs were recalled. Only ones with certain serial numbers were affected. I don't have the details on that but the OP can certainly check with their dealer if they still have one of the white handle ones and they can confirm/order the replacement if necessary.