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Decreased EV Range


dnorris78
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I have a 2015 Fusion Energi Titanium with 32,000. Dittos that the original new-car full-charge indication was 21 to 22 miles. Since then, full-charges have declined to an indicated 13-14 miles. A Ford Service Manager says the "indicated full-charge" is based on "averaging" of driving habits, which in my case, is a combination of freeway and street. He stated that one or more batteries are not defective, and that the "averaging" is the result of a computer algorithm. Consequently, without resetting the computer, then I can assume that I could raise the "average" indicated charge of 13-14 to 21 miles if I drove on a flat road only 45 mph until battery exhaustion at approximately 21 miles?

 

Consequently, is my analysis correct to raise the the indicated mileage from 13-14 to closer to 21 subsequent to a full battery charge?

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I have a 2013 Energi with 36k miles.  I am sure there has been some degradation but nothing noticeable at this point.  I am getting around 20 miles per charge right now.  I am in the southeast so winters are mild.  

Highway driving will kill your mileage real quick so I never use battery on highway.  Its much better to save it for around town driving.  I always plug it in immediately when I get home if I have depleted the battery.  If its not depleted I delay the charging for middle of night to minimize time it sits with a full charge.  I leased a 2013 Nissan Leaf for 3 years and tried to keep charge between 20-80% as much as possible and had no noticeable degradation with that battery either.  (I know there had to be some but again not enough to see it without doing any testing)  I am sure certain habits of charging can positively or negatively effect how well your battery holds up (as well as climate you live in). For me, living in SE and charging like I stated above has been very good to this point for my batteries

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bdginmo. I see what you are saying although I can't help but wonder how accurate the car is at calculating it.  I did as you said yesterday and drove 21.2 miles using 4.3kwh, temp in upper 50s, no heat.  Today I drove 20.2 miles using 4.4kwh (although it was at4.5 driving down my street but dropped back to 4.4 by the time I parked) Car had not switched to engine yet but was very close.  Temp was mid 40s, no heat but did use seat heater some.  For this time of year this is pretty close to what I was getting when car was new.  I have never tracked kWh per charge so have no idea what the starting point was (at least according to the car).  I am not trying to defend this battery in any way just stating my experience.  This car has put me in a strange position.  I have absolutely loved it and has been very reliable other than a few hiccups early on but can't wait to sell it and never by a Ford again.  I will stick with the automakers who believe in electric vehicles i.e. Tesla.  Still waiting for other automakers to step up!

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If you're getting 4.4kwh until it is "very close" to switching to engine your battery has lost about 20% capacity.  When you bought the car 3 years ago you didn't know how to drive well and maybe got 20 miles out of a charge.  If you drive a new battery now in your car you should be able to get 30 miles not 20 ouf of a charge and spit out 5.5kwh out of the battery.  20 miles for 4.4 kwh is not bad as far as kwh per mile, that's about 4.5 miles per kwh.  You should be able to do 5.5 miles per kwh and maybe even 6 in the summer if you're really doing well.  That's about the peak.

 

-=>Raja.

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5.4 kwh to the switch to hybrid mode in 70-80F weather is what I was seeing for a like-new HVB. Typically you'd pull another 0.2 kwh or so on top of that before the ICE actually kicks on. You could probably deduct 0.2 kwh or so from the baseline because it was colder and the HVB is less efficient. So 4.4 / (5.4+0.2-0.2) is about 80% and agrees with rbort's estimate.

 

The interesting thing is that it seems most reports are clustering in the low 4's with a couple in the high 3's and high 4's. The bell curve, if we can even make one from the small sample size we have, seems to be centered on the low 4's. The last time I checked I was still close to 5.4 kwh, but I'm only 27000 miles and 18 months in. We're still not sure if the degradation has linear behavior. In other words, if you repeated the driving mile-for-mile and in the same conditions would you lose another 1.0 kwh (linear) or say 0.5 kwh (inverse square law). Few physical processes turn out to be truly linear so my hunch is that the degradation will slow down, but we just don't know for sure yet.

Edited by bdginmo
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I have a 2015 with 34,500 miles on it.  This winter I have been getting 4.2 to 4.4 kWh on most trips.  It will be interesting to see where it is at once it warms up.  I fully charge a minimum of twice a day and sometimes there is top off charges from running out in the middle of the day.

 

post-1445-0-72260400-1487272888_thumb.jpg

 

 

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I have a 2015 with 34,500 miles on it.  This winter I have been getting 4.2 to 4.4 kWh on most trips.  It will be interesting to see where it is at once it warms up.  I fully charge a minimum of twice a day and sometimes there is top off charges from running out in the middle of the day.

 

attachicon.gif4.4.jpg

 

Definitely report back when it warms up. I'll do the same.

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I have a question to those that say don't use EV mode om the expressway. I have a 2014 with 16,500 miles. My commute, if I take the expressway is 58 mile 1 way, with close to 50 of it being on the expressway. My question is being able to regenerate miles is much easier off the expressway than on it, so without data to back up my theory, doesn't it make more sense to regenerate all you can? I do realize that in case I have to use some battery on the expressway, as only 8-10 miles are non e - way use. I also have a commute option of 51 miles with no expressway, but it it about 15 minutes longer timewise. Overall mileage is much better with this option, though.

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Dont use EV mode on the expressway because its more stressful on the battery to drain it fast by drawing alot of current out of it.  If you have to drive on the expressway, keep your speed down, 55mph tops and even 48 to 50 if you can handle that.  You want to drain the HVB slowly, its better overall that way for the pack.

 

Once on the expressway going 65mph and you're running the ICE, keep it running all the time and don't let the system use the EV battery unless in downhill.

 

-=>Raja.

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It was nice day today in St. Louis. We had a record high of 79F. Anyway, I did pure EV errands today and pulled 5.4 kwh at the moment it switched to hybrid mode (got a few more tenths kwh until the ICE kicked on though). I have 27000 miles. So far there's little or non HVB degradation for me. 

Edited by bdginmo
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