Batteries, car function and reliability/ usability

[kacalapy]

I am considering being a first time EV car owner and looking at the Energi and hybrid titanium models.  I have read a lot of things that have confused me about batteries and over all user experience of the Fusion in general.

 

Can someone outline some of the basics and intricacies I should know prior to taking the plunge?

In particular the 2 batteries, there seems to be one 12V battery that dies and disables the entire car. This worries me.

Can it be in the Energi that I get stuck and cannot use the car for any reason?

 

I want the car to be 100% reliable so my thinking is since the Energi and Hybrid take gas they should always start and operate fully (AC,radio, navigation, windows, heated seats…) no matter what.

 

Can anyone help me wrap my head around how these models function in real life and address the items mentioned at the lease. (the more info the better ;-)

[jeff_h]

The basic explanation is that the 12v battery is needed to turn on the overall system and let the High Voltage Battery (HVB) then power the car.

 

There are a few instances of those who had their 12V battery die, one of which is Mark's thread below, which eventually turned out to be a crimped/shorted wire in the trunk or something like that. 

 

http://www.fordfusionenergiforum.com/topic/1105-12-volt-battery-died/

 

So yeah there have been a few owners who had issues with this, but I take this group to be very over-represented since when someone encounters an issue these days, what do they do?  They google it, and it brings them here and they read and post about their issue, etc.  Of the approximately 6,000 Fusion Energis that were sold last year, seems to me that not many of that population have come here with issues like that, as if they did then they would most likely end up here trying to gather info, etc.

 

But of course no car is 100% - however among the various hybrid (and now Energi) cars that my wife and I have owned since 2005, when added up we are getting close to hitting the 400k mile mark and have had zero issues with a dead battery with a hybrid or PHEV.  In fact the only dead battery I recall was in 2012 on the Ford Edge she had between the Escape Hybrid and the Fusion Energi - the Edge had 20k miles on it and she went out to the garage 20 minutes after getting home to make another trip and 'click' and nothing more, as the 12V battery was dead with zero notice and had to be replaced.