OBD II Data for HVB

[larryh]

I recorded some OBD II sensor data from the HVB for my 67 mile commute home today.   The interval between each data point is five seconds.  The commute took about 70 minutes.  The positive values represent current flow out of the HVB.  Negative values are current flow into the battery, e.g. regenerative braking.  You can see the current ranged from -112 to 139 amps. 

 

[larryh]

The following chart is for the HVB Voltage for the same commute.  You can see that it decreases with time as the battery is discharged.

 

Edited January 20, 2014 at 02:35 AM by larryh

[larryh]

The following chart is for the HVB Temperature in degrees Fahrenheit for the same commute.  The outside temperature was 36 F.   The first 12 minutes were in EV Now mode.  The last several minutes were also primarily EV mode.  The temperature changed more slowly when the ICE was on.  Most of the temperature change occurred in EV mode.   The SOC of the HVB was 97.7% at the beginning of the trip and 17.7% at the end of the trip. 

 

Edited January 20, 2014 at 02:35 AM by larryh

[larryh]

The following chart shows the ICE RPM for the commute that can be used with the previous charts to determine when the ICE was on  You can see when the car was in EV mode, i.e. RPM was 0.  

 

Edited January 20, 2014 at 01:27 AM by larryh

[larryh]

This chart shows the car's speed for the 60 mile commute to give an indication of the power demands on the HVB. 

 

Edited January 20, 2014 at 01:35 AM by larryh

[larryh]

This plot shows Engine Coolant Temperature for the 60 mile commute.  You can see the temperature falling when the ICE is off.  It falls off much faster when temps are colder than today's 36 F temperature.  You can't leave the car in EV mode for too long before the heating element for climate controls turns on.  Optimizing EV use in cold weather requires a different strategy than in the summer. 

 

Edited January 20, 2014 at 01:45 AM by larryh

[larryh]

I combined the previous charts into one to make it easier to correlate events.  The units (kW) along the vertical axis are only applicable to HVB Power, i.e. the red spherical markers.  I didn’t put the units for the other sensor data on the chart.  See the original plots above for their units.  The HVB Power is positive if power is being extracted from the battery, e.g. to power the wheels, and negative if it is being added to the battery, e.g. regenerative braking.  All data was taken at 5 second intervals, so there is a red spherical marker every 5 seconds indicating the HVB power at that time.

 

Trip segments:

 

0 – 12 minutes:   EV Now mode.  This segment of the trip was at lower speeds through local towns.  You can see the ICE coolant temperature slowly falling with the ICE off indicated by ICE RPMs equal to 0.  When speed decreases, you can see significant negative HVB power from regen—almost 30 kW when braking.  You can also see the HVB temperature gradually increasing.

 

12 – 45 minutes:  Switching between EV Auto and EV Later modes.  This segment is highway and then freeway (you can see speed increasing on the freeway).  With the ICE running, the ICE coolant temperature quickly rises.  You can also see that the ICE generates about 0 to 5 kW of power to charge the HVB.  When the ICE turns off, the electric motor drains 10 – 20 kW of power from the battery.  Also, coolant temperature drops rapidly, i.e. from 22 – 24 minutes.  The HVB temperature rises more slowly, most of it occurs when in EV mode (when there are a bunch of red spheres above zero). 

 

45 – 50 minutes:  EV Auto mode.  Long gradual descent to the Mississippi river.  With the ICE off for 5 minutes, the ICE coolant temperature falls significantly.  The electric heater for climate comes on.  The HVB temperature rises a little faster in EV mode, but not as fast as the initial segment.  Going downhill doesn’t require as much power. 

 

50 – 58 minutes.  Switching between EV Auto and EV Later modes.  Now I am on the other side of the river going uphill.  The ICE comes back on and warms up the coolant.   Again, HVB temperature rises only when in EV mode. 

 

58 – 70 minutes.  EV Auto mode.  I have now exited the freeway and driving in the city.  The ICE is off for the most part.  The ICE coolant temperature really drops.  You can see a bunch of red spheres above 30 kW at about 66 minutes.  I am accelerating up a hill trying to use up the remaining charge in the HVB.  The HVB battery temperature rises at the fastest rate so far during the trip.  I use a little too much power from the HVB and the ICE comes on briefly.

 

 

 

[Hybridbear]

Great data!!! Have you blocked your grille at all?

[larryh]

I have not done anything with blocking the grille.

[mmmhmmmm]

Awesome data larryh!!

 

Speaking of grill blocking. Energis have active grill shutters. I've had the nose off several times messing with the lights and have seen the actuators and mechanism.

 

It's my impression from what I've read that the current active shuttering algorithm only takes into account vehicle speed and ICE state. Kind of a bummer that Ford ignored external temperature in the active shuttering. I did read somewhere of a rumor that Ford would be releasing an update to the controller so that the active shutters take external temperature into account and close more in cold weather.

Edited January 22, 2014 at 03:15 AM by mmmhmmmm

[larryh]

They modified the software for the Fusion Hybrid recently to change the algorithm for the active grille shutters along with several other software updates for improved gas mileage.  However, I am not aware of any updates for the Energi. 

 

http://www.fordfusionenergiforum.com/topic/1143-ford-hybrid-software-update-will-improve-gas-mileage-arrives-in-august/?p=5862

Edited January 22, 2014 at 09:33 AM by larryh

[larryh]

The following is data from the OBD II sensors for my 8 mile commute to work when the outside temperature was -12 F. 

 

The units for HVB power are kW.  The maximum speed was about 50 mph.  When the ICE was on, the rpm was about 1500 rpm.  The engine load is percentage.  HVB temperature is degrees Fahrenheit. 

 

The HVB warmed up from 32 F to 46.4 F during the trip.  You can see regenerative braking taking place when I slow down--the HVB power is negative indicating power is being applied to the HVB to charge it up.  The ICE came on at about 5:58 am indicated by the green curve.  Rpms were 0 until that time.  While the ICE was on, you can see the power supplied by the HVB was reduced.  It looks like the HVB and ICE shared the load equally.  You can observe that on the Engage display showing the power supplied by the ICE and by the electric motor being about equal. The ICE could be applying power directly to the wheels, or it could be running the generator to supply more electricity for the electric motor.  Most likely, it is a combination of both.  It is unclear exactly how they are sharing the load--I'm not sure how to determine that.  You can see the load on the ICE fluctuate with speed.  During regenerative braking, the load is about 30%.  At idle, it is about 40%.  And a 50 mph, it is about 60%.  While the ICE was on, I kept slowing down to see if I could get it turn off.  That is why the HVB power fluctuates from 6:01 to 6:02. 

 

Note that when I am stopped at a stop light at around 5:59 am, the HVB power is 0.  That implies the ICE is powering the generator to exactly match the power requirements for the car. 

 

 

Edited January 22, 2014 at 10:42 AM by larryh

[larryh]

An interesting calculation based on the plot above is to determine the efficiency of regenerative braking.   At about 5:24:23 until 5:54:33 am, I applied the brakes for a stoplight.  The initial speed was 44.1 mph and the minimum speed was about 16.2 mph.  Assuming a curb weight of 3900 lbs plus another 200 lbs for the vehicle contents and the ice and snow covering the car, this represents a change in kinetic energy of about 0.087 kWh.  The area above the negative part of the curve for HVB power during regenerative braking is approximately 0.081 kWh.  This very rough calculation gives the generator an efficiency of approximately 0.081/.087 = 93%.  Of course not all of this energy is stored in the HVB and you can’t get it all back.  The SOC of the HVB went up 0.86% during this interval.  So if 7.6 kWh is 100%, then it went up by about 0.065 kWh.   That means about 80% of the energy was captured by the battery.  Note that the battery was still cold at this point 37.4 F, so it probably won’t charge very efficiently.

Edited January 22, 2014 at 11:39 PM by larryh

[Hybridbear]

I have not done anything with blocking the grille.

Grille blocking would really help!! I'm sure you know that though from reading some of the hybrid forum threads about that.

[larryh]

This is the same 8 mile commute at -12 F posted above.  This time, I added engine coolant temperature, generator inverter temperature, and motor inverter temperature, all in degrees F.  The things to note are that the ICE turned on as soon as the engine coolant temperature fell to 10 F.  It then turned off after the engine coolant temperature reached 100 F.  The generator inverter temperature rises significantly during acceleration.  Is it assisting the electric motor?  The ICE is not on so why else would the generator be running?  Or is heat from the motor inverter radiating to the generator inverter?  The generator inverter temperature also rises significantly when the ICE is on and the car is moving, but is steady while the ICE is on and the car is not moving.  That strongly suggests the ICE is driving the generator to generate electric power for the electric motor to propel the vehicle.  You will also notice that the power drawn from the HVB is less than half what is was before the ICE turned on when the vehicle is moving.  I wonder what the split is between the ICE running the generator to power the electric motor to drive the wheels indirectly vs. providing power directly to the wheels.   The motor inverter temperature rises significantly during regenerative braking and acceleration, as would be expected, when the most power is flowing through the motor.  I believe the motor operates in reverse as a generator for regenerative braking. 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2014 at 10:05 AM by larryh

[larryh]

Grille blocking would really help!! I'm sure you know that though from reading some of the hybrid forum threads about that.

 

First I need to establish a baseline for the car to understand how effective grille block is and any impacts on the car. 

Edited January 23, 2014 at 11:35 AM by larryh

[larryh]

The following chart shows the HVB temperature, cabin temperature, HVB SOC, and power into the HVB while preconditioning the car using a 240 V charger.  The temperature in the garage was 3 F.  Outside it was -15 F.  Preconditioning started at about 4:50 am.  The GO time was at 5:45 am.  The HVB temperature was 19.4 F when preconditioning started and 23 F at the GO time.  The cabin temperature rose from 8.6 F to 48.2 F.  The HVB SOC went from 98.4% to 96.9%, a small decrease of 1.5%.  The units for power into the HVB is 100 watts.  So the tall spike of 90 at 5:12 am corresponds to 9.0 kW.  Negative values are power into the HVB.  Positive values are flows out of the HVB.  It looks like the car likes to send bursts of energy to the heating element and then rest for a while to recharge.  I wonder if that is the intended design.  Most of the interior temperature rise occurs at the beginning with a longer initial burst of energy to the heating element.  Note that this chart shows the net flow of power out of the HVB.  All the time the 240 V charger is supplying about 3.3 kW of power to the HVB.  So there is an additional 3.3 kW of power being supplied to the heating element from the charger.  A total of 2.8 kWh of electricity was consumed for preconditioning.

 

Edited January 24, 2014 at 12:30 AM by larryh

[Hybridbear]

Larry - are you gathering all this data with the Torque app on an Android? Is there another way to do it if you don't have an Android?

[larryh]

The following chart shows the HVB SOC, HVB temperature, and power supplied to the HVB while charging the car using a 240 V charger.  Also shown is the 12 V battery voltage (Control Module Voltage).   The temperature in the garage was 12 F.  The HVB battery temperature at the start of charging was 12.2 F.  The temperature rose to 23 F by charge completion.  The HVB SOC at the beginning was 17.354% and at completion, it was 91.58%.  Right after charging completed, the SOC jumped to 97.18%.  It decided it miscalculated the SOC?

 

Charging began at 3:17 AM and finished at 5:23 AM.  It took 2 hours and 6 minutes.  During the entire period, the 12 V battery voltage was 14.8 V.  It then dropped to 12.6 shortly after completion.  So the 12 V battery was apparently being charged the entire time. 

 

The power applied to the HVB during charging was 3.00 kW.  The charger was consuming 3.4 kW.  So 400 watts was being used for something other than charging?  A total of 5.62 kWh of electricity was supplied to the HVB.  Something doesn't add up.  The SOC increased by 97.18% - 17.354 = 79.826%.  If the capacity of the HVB is 7.6 kWh, then the added energy was 7.6 * 79.826% = 6.066 kWh.  It was only supplied 5.62 kWh.  I will have to investigate further. 

 

Edited January 24, 2014 at 02:44 PM by larryh

[larryh]

Larry - are you gathering all this data with the Torque app on an Android? Is there another way to do it if you don't have an Android?

Yes, Torque Pro app allows you to record any data being read by an OBD II scanner.  It saves the data in a CSV file which I then email to myself and read into Microsoft Excel.  Torque Pro works with several USB, WiFi, or BlueTooth scanners and costs $4.95.  My ELM327 scanner (which I bought 3 months ago and never used until now) connects to my Android device using WiFi.  To do the charging and preconditioning plots, I simply connected the Android device in my house to the scanner in the car via WiFi, ran Torque Pro, and recorded the data.  There is no user manual for Torque Pro, so it requires a great deal of effort to figure it out.  Torque Pro is the only application that I know of that records the data. 

 

If you have a notebook computer, you can use BlueStacks, which emulates the Android operating system, to run Torque Pro.  That's what I have been doing.  You can buy a $60 Android tablet PC from Amazon.

Edited January 24, 2014 at 02:41 PM by larryh

[larryh]

The power applied to the HVB during charging was 3.00 kW.  The charger was consuming 3.4 kW.  So 400 watts was being used for something other than charging?  A total of 5.62 kWh of electricity was supplied to the HVB.  Something doesn't add up.  The SOC increased by 97.18% - 17.354 = 79.826%.  If the capacity of the HVB is 7.6 kWh, then the added energy was 7.6 * 79.826% = 6.066 kWh.  It was only supplied 5.62 kWh.  I will have to investigate further. 

 

 

 

I'm going to guess that because the HVB temperature is only 23 F, it can no longer provide 7.6 kWh of energy.  That might explain the discrepancy.  The EV range is currently 16 miles, far less than the normal 25 miles in summer. 

Edited January 24, 2014 at 01:55 PM by larryh

[larryh]

The car consumes about 3.425 kW of electricity when charging.  The fans and electronics in the car typically use about 70 watts of power.  So that means 355 watts are lost by another process.  I would assume that the charger uses a rectifier to convert AC to DC.  Is 3000/3355 = 89.5% a typical efficiency for a rectifier?

 

I also assume that there is a loss of power for the reverse process using an inverter to convert DC to AC.  When computing the 82% efficiency ratio, where 82% of the power that comes from the wall outlet using a 240 V charger is actually used to propel the vehicle, that ratio must take into account not only the charging/discharging efficiency of the battery, but the rectifier and inverter efficiencies as well.  So if the overall efficiency is 82%, and 89.5% efficiency for the rectifier alone is correct, then the rectifier would be one of the biggest sources of losses.  Or is the plug-in energy reported by the car measured before the inverter, so the 82% ratio does not include the inverter efficiency?  In that case, 82% of the electricity from the wall outlet does not actually make it to the wheels and the true efficiency is lower than 82%.

Edited January 25, 2014 at 01:01 AM by larryh

[larryh]

This diagram shows the performance of the Electric Heater when the ambient temperature is 3 F.  The car is plugged into the 120 V charger and turned on in EV Now mode for 13 minutes.  Climate control is on.  So basically, only the electric heater for climate control is consuming power.  The HVB temperature rises from 12.2 F to 15.8 F.  The HVB SOC falls from 97.7% to 83.9%.  The interior temperature rises from 6.8 F to 42.8 F.  I think the electric heater needs help from the ICE to warm up the car.  The heating element consumes 4.8 kW of power from the HVB as reported by the OBD II scanner.  However, the left display says the heater is consuming 5+ kW of power.   The remaining power must be supplied by the 120 V charger plugged into the car. 

 

Edited January 26, 2014 at 09:33 AM by larryh

[larryh]

The following graph is for an 8 mile trip I made this afternoon which involves a couple of relatively steep 15% grades.  The outside temperature was 3 F.   You can see regenerative braking occurring at about 1:37, 1:44, and 1:48 for stop lights (the purple line shows negative power, i.e. power being applied to the HVB).  The electric heater was on most of the time consuming about 5 kW of power.  You can see that when the speed is 0, i.e. at time 1:44.  I used hill assist from about 1:42 to 1:44 going down a steep hill.  You can see the temperature for both the motor and generator inverters rising.  Hill assist must be using both the generator and the motor for regen.  When I applied the brakes at the bottom of the hill, the motor inverter temperature spikes.  The motor is doing the regenerative braking.

 

At about 1:45, I began accelerating up a steep hill.  You can see the HVB temperature rising relatively quickly while the HVB provides up to 45 kW of power.  The generator inverter temperature also rises rapidly while going up the hill.  This suggests the ICE is running the generator to power the motor.  Finally, as expected, the motor inverter temperature rises rapidly as the electric motor is doing most of the work to get up the hill.  The ICE was doing about 1/4 the work of the electric motor on the Engage display. 

 

The ICE came on four times.  All the time it was on, it ran at a steady 1500 rpm.  In addition, the load on the engine was generally around 65%.  This must be its favored operating point.  Even when accelerating up the hill, the ICE still ran at 1500 rpm and 65% load.  The HVB provided the power to the electric motor to make up the difference.  Only on the return trip, after the HVB was depleted, I see the rpms and load on the ICE vary. 

 

I general, the generator inverter temperature rises when the ICE is running.  This implies the ICE is running the generator.  It also rises during Hill Assist, so the generator is used for regen in Hill Assist also. The motor inverter temperature rises during acceleration, braking and Hill Assist.  The motor is used to propel the vehicle and to provide regenerative braking and regen in Hill Assist. 
 

Edited January 26, 2014 at 11:05 AM by larryh

[larryh]

I wonder how the car maintains constant load and rpms on the ICE regardless of the speed and power demands that I place on the car.  Can it adjust the transmission almost instantaneously to changes in power and speed to maintain a constant ICE operating point of 1500 rpm and 65% load?  Or rather than directly providing torque to the wheels, is it simply running the generator at that constant speed and load to provide a fixed amount of power for the electric motor to propel the vehicle.  The remaining power required comes from the HVB. 

Edited January 26, 2014 at 12:40 AM by larryh