AVERAGE Range on a Full Charge

[rbort]

Interesting Larry… So charging does warm up the battery...I wonder if you can do the same test and charge with the 120 V trying to see if it warms up any less to verify my predictions. You'll have to try to match the same situation to make the test as similar as possible--charge level, temperature, Hours cooling, etc.

 

Bear has a good idea to let the fans cool as soon as possible, I like it :-). I used to manually put some charge it right away if the battery was low because I don't like leaving it low with this the system does it automatically.

 

-=>Raja.

Edited June 1, 2015 at 12:34 PM by rbort

[Hybridbear]

I don't know the SOC threshold which causes the car to start charging the HVB immediately when plugging in under value charge. It only charges immediately when the HVB is sufficiently depleted.  MFM will show the car is charging when it does this, but the time to complete charging is the next day.

Does the Trip & Charge Log then show the few minutes of charging that it did immediately? I have never seen this in the Fusion. The Focus Electric will charge immediately when the HVB is below 50 F in the winter to warm it up since charging is the most efficient way to heat the HVB. The Focus Electric stops charging once the HVB reaches 50 F and then waits to finish charging until the Value Charge time.

Edited June 1, 2015 at 04:32 PM by Hybridbear

[stevedebi]

You should plug it in immediately so that the fans can cool the HVB. Use a Value Charge profile to delay charging until the early morning hours. This will ensure that your HVB is as cool as possible. Leaving the car unplugged with a hot HVB is worse than plugging it in to let the fans run.

Bear,

Actually, I did that just this last weekend. I no longer charge during the day. Electricity here is not less expensive at night, but I've set my home location up to charge only between midnight and 0600 hours. That way, when I get home and plug in my car, the fans run to cool the battery, but all charging occurs at night when it is cooler. I would sometimes charge during the day on weekends, but no more. If I have to kick into the ICE, so be it.

 

I have also decided that any time it is hot in the car (basically all the time during the day here in LA, except winter), I'm going to run the A/C. I think that Ford designed the battery without supplemental cooling specifically because they expected the cabin occupants to turn on the A/C when it got hot. So for maximum longevity I'm going to cool that battery.

 

It is interesting that the 2005-2008 Escape Hybrids had A/C ducted to the rear battery, but Ford did away with that during the 2009 model year. So they have some experience with non-cooled batteries.

[larryh]

Interesting Larry… So charging does warm up the battery...I wonder if you can do the same test and charge with the 120 V trying to see if it warms up any less to verify my predictions. You'll have to try to match the same situation to make the test as similar as possible--charge level, temperature, Hours cooling, etc.

 

Bear has a good idea to let the fans cool as soon as possible, I like it :-). I used to manually put some charge it right away if the battery was low because I don't like leaving it low with this the system does it automatically.

 

-=>Raja.

There generally is very little difference between how much the 240 V and 120 V charger warm up the HVB.  They both warm it up by about 4 F during a full charge.  

 

The biggest factor in how much the HVB warms up during charging is how much the car decides to run the fan.  Last night, when the battery was 95, the fan ran continuously at 1000 rpm.  This morning, when the HVB was 79 F, the car did not run the fan very much and allowed the HVB to warm up.   Otherwise, the car could have cooled the HVB down if it had wanted to during charging. 

Edited June 1, 2015 at 10:18 PM by larryh

[larryh]

Does the Trip & Charge Log then show the few minutes of charging that it did immediately? I have never seen this in the Fusion. The Focus Electric will charge immediately when the HVB is below 50 F in the winter to warm it up since charging is the most efficient way to heat the HVB. The Focus Electric stops charging once the HVB reaches 50 F and then waits to finish charging until the Value Charge time.

 

Yes the trip and charge log show 22 minutes of charging last night to 15%.  Of course, value charging is shown as 0%.  It also shows 5 minutes of charging while I turned the car on for five minutes while it was plugged in.  Finally, it shows value charging started at 3:00 am and completed at 4:40 am this morning. 

Edited June 1, 2015 at 10:18 PM by larryh

[Hybridbear]

Yes the trip and charge log show 22 minutes of charging last night to 15%.  Of course, value charging is shown as 0%.  It also shows 5 minutes of charging while I turned the car on for five minutes while it was plugged in.  Finally, it shows value charging started at 3:00 am and completed at 4:40 am this morning. 

Interesting. We have never seen this even when arriving home with the HVB fully depleted...

[Hybridbear]

There generally is very little difference between how much the 240 V and 120 V charger warm up the HVB.  They both warm it up by about 4 F during a full charge.  

 

The biggest factor in how much the HVB warms up during charging is how much the car decides to run the fan.  Last night, when the battery was 95, the fan ran continuously at 1000 rpm.  This morning, when the HVB was 79 F, the car did not run the fan very much and allowed the HVB to warm up.   Otherwise, the car could have cooled the HVB down if it had wanted to during charging. 

This isn't a surprise to me. A Focus Electric owner with a JuiceBox tried charging his Focus Electric at different rates and found that slowing down the charge rate to be less than the 6.6 kW maximum rate of the Focus did not result in a cooler HVB.

[stevedebi]

This isn't a surprise to me. A Focus Electric owner with a JuiceBox tried charging his Focus Electric at different rates and found that slowing down the charge rate to be less than the 6.6 kW maximum rate of the Focus did not result in a cooler HVB.

The Focus Electric has active cooling for the battery. Is that used during charging?

[Hybridbear]

The Focus Electric has active cooling for the battery. Is that used during charging?

It definitely kicks in if the HVB temp exceeds 98 F. I have not done enough monitoring of what it does while charging when the HVB is cooler (usually in the 70s for us now). The HVB temp rises around 5-8 degrees while charging so I'm not sure if the TMS is kicking in or not.

[stevedebi]

It definitely kicks in if the HVB temp exceeds 98 F. I have not done enough monitoring of what it does while charging when the HVB is cooler (usually in the 70s for us now). The HVB temp rises around 5-8 degrees while charging so I'm not sure if the TMS is kicking in or not.

Might be interesting to know, since it would make the car more expensive to run, and the extra electricity would probably not show up in the car displays. You'd have to use a kill-a-what meter or something like that.

[Hybridbear]

Might be interesting to know, since it would make the car more expensive to run, and the extra electricity would probably not show up in the car displays. You'd have to use a kill-a-what meter or something like that.

I think the car will record the electricity used for TMS. It appears to show up under "other".

[Hybridbear]

Yes the trip and charge log show 22 minutes of charging last night to 15%.  Of course, value charging is shown as 0%.  It also shows 5 minutes of charging while I turned the car on for five minutes while it was plugged in.  Finally, it shows value charging started at 3:00 am and completed at 4:40 am this morning. 

I saw this happen for the first time today. The ETE showed around 1.3 kWh when we arrived back at the hotel and plugged in. I set up a Value Charge Profile so that the car will wait until the middle of the night to charge. Below is what happened when I plugged in.

[expresspotato]

Well I think Ford is definetly doing the right thing with value charge. The car ABSOLUTELY should return the battery to a more favorable SOC immediately upon being plugged in to preserve its lifespan and do the bulk of the charging during the value charge profile times.

Edited June 5, 2015 at 06:47 PM by expresspotato

[rbort]

^^^ That's a 120v charger he's using at the hotel and if the window given is 6 hours then the car thinks it needs more time than 6 hours to recharge so it will charge up right away until its got enough charge level to finish the rest in the 6 hour value charge window.

 

-=>Raja.

[Hybridbear]

^^^ That's a 120v charger he's using at the hotel and if the window given is 6 hours then the car thinks it needs more time than 6 hours to recharge so it will charge up right away until its got enough charge level to finish the rest in the 6 hour value charge window.

 

-=>Raja.

The window was about 9 hrs at $.

[Hybridbear]

I drove 29 miles today on battery today without going into hybrid mode. I got home with 1 mile of predicted range remaining. The driving was mostly city driving, but about 10 miles of the 29 were on the freeway. The city trips were mostly around 200 MPGe.

[howardbc]

Good for you! Yes, this wonderful car will go much, much farther than the stated window-sticker range of 19 miles. My personal record so far is 35 miles but it was all city streets and heading away from my home. Most of my trips are closer to home. Lately the range has been as low as 16-17 miles with our brutal heat, but the batteries charge up just fine every night. During the day, I have to have the a/c turned up full blast when the outside temp is 100-110. 

 

When I get home, I have started to leave the trunk open and I pull down one of the back seats. I open all the car's windows too. Not sure if this really helps but I thought I'd try it. It can get up to 100 degrees inside my garage at night. 

 

My Lifetime average is still 101-102MPG. My Lifetime brake score is 92. 

[jetjam]

Are the fans running all night or did they stop running after the car stopped charging at 32.5% SOC?  And isn't that supposed to be 22.5%?  I thought the car only charged the hybrid portion right away and waited on the rest of the battery until value charge hours.

 

Also, what if you didn't charge it right away and let it sit, would the temp still be at 95 now or would it have dropped to 94 or 93 anyways?

 

-=>Raja.

Just wonding, how can you see the battery temperature while charging?   I can't find any temp readout on any of the screens.   I'm sure it's there because everyone talks about it, but I can't find it.  Help me please!

[murphy]

Just wonding, how can you see the battery temperature while charging?   I can't find any temp readout on any of the screens.   I'm sure it's there because everyone talks about it, but I can't find it.  Help me please!

You need an OBD II port scanner to get that kind of data.

[jetjam]

You need an OBD II port scanner to get that kind of data.

Ok good, now I don't feel so dumb. 

[mrbigh]

You need an OBD II port scanner to get that kind of data.

Is it there any ford dedicated app available for IOs or Android with an OBDII scanner to help monitor stats of the vehicle?

I use some for my Prius ....

[murphy]

Forscan is available for Windows and Android.  I don't know about iOS.

[Blastphemy]

Yes, this wonderful car will go much, much farther than the stated window-sticker range of 19 miles. My personal record so far is 35 miles but it was all city streets and heading away from my home.

 

Just in case anyone reading this is considering the 2016 Ford Fusion Energi with the expectation that it'll go more than 19 miles per charge, just know that only hypermilers and people driving mostly side streets will ever see a better number.

 

In most real-world situations, 18-21 miles is exactly what you'll get.

 

In the poll above, you can see that a quarter of owners responding to the survey report 19 or fewer miles per charge, while nearly half report 22 or fewer miles, and 75% report 25 or fewer miles. Of those reporting 22-25 miles, it's very likely most or all of their driving is done on side streets instead of highways.

[howardbc]

Yes, I neglected to say that the time I got 35 miles was driving on flat or slightly downhill streets. On the other hand, it is a slight incline or a downright hill when I'm heading home. 

 

One day last Summer when it was 115 degrees here, I barely got 16 miles out of the initial battery charge. But it's been 22-25 miles when it's nice weather. But I always look at the EV miles I receive after the initial battery is done. With my driving habits, I still get around 85% of my miles via electric mode. 

 

On a slightly different subject, I was reading the latest Consumer Reports magazine about cars and they didn't even mention the Ford Fusion Energi! They gave high marks to the C-Max Energi and the Fusion Hybrid. But didn't mention the plugin hybrid.   :(

[flyingcheesehead]

Just in case anyone reading this is considering the 2016 Ford Fusion Energi with the expectation that it'll go more than 19 miles per charge, just know that only hypermilers and people driving mostly side streets will ever see a better number.

 

In most real-world situations, 18-21 miles is exactly what you'll get.

 

In the poll above, you can see that a quarter of owners responding to the survey report 19 or fewer miles per charge, while nearly half report 22 or fewer miles, and 75% report 25 or fewer miles. Of those reporting 22-25 miles, it's very likely most or all of their driving is done on side streets instead of highways.

 

 

Range is only quoted in miles because it gives a frame of reference for recovering ICEers. :D

 

Really, what we have is energy - It's just that it's much more limited than what's in the gas tank. If your car only had a one-quart gas tank, you'd probably choose to not waste it too! Many of the same sorts of things that impact range - Acceleration, speed, A/C, etc - Also impact gas mileage on ICE cars.

 

The big differences:

1) Heat. It takes a lot of energy to heat the cabin using electricity, whereas the ICE inherently generates a ton of waste heat whether you're using it or not. In fact, the heat is one of the most energy-efficient parts of an ICE vehicle because you're finally not wasting all the heat it generates!

2) Outside temperature. This affects ICE vehicles as well in terms of increased rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag, but EVs also have to deal with subpar battery performance in the cold.

 

 

FWIW, I think your last paragraph overstates things a bit. With HVAC off, I get 18 miles in the winter and 25 in the summer. Most of my miles are my commute to work, which is less than a mile on "side streets" exiting my neighborhood, and 12 miles on a highway with speed limits of 45-55 and 7 total stop lights, 3 of which are rarely not green. (I normally expect to hit 1 or 2 red lights on my commute.) I drive reasonably efficiently - I try to regen as much as I can when stopping and I avoid going above the 2nd tick mark on the Empower screen when accelerating most of the time - But I'm far from a hypermiler.

 

As with all things in life, if you understand the system, you can use it in a way that maximizes performance. That said, the average driver who doesn't learn anything about it, stomps on the pedal, and runs the heat/AC all the time will get lower range from an EV, regardless of who makes it.