Fusion charging when it's not supposed to

[decker12]

Since buying my 2015 Fusion Energi in August, I've had this happen at least four times. After not charging my car for a few days, when I go to charge it, it ignores my schedule and starts charging immediately. This most recently happened over the long holiday weekend. I drove my car and expended the battery on the 23rd and then didn't plug in my car all weekend until Sunday. My 110v charger will blow a fuse in my house if I'm running the clothes dryer while it's charging, so I have a schedule to start charging my car at midnight.

 

I plugged the car in on Sunday at about 5PM and about an hour later while doing laundry, the fuse blew, which tells me that the car was ignoring it's schedule and charging anyway. When I went into my car it told me that I indeed had 2 miles of charge in the battery, so that verifies that it was ignoring the schedule. When I look at my MFord App in the Charging log it indeed tells me that it started charging at 4:42PM and did it for 51 minutes (which is when the fuse blew).

 

When I look at MFT, it properly tells me that it's on the schedule and the next charging time is at midnight.

 

My usual routine is get home from work, put my car on the charger, and it remembers to do it at midnight like it should... unless I put a few days in between charges for some reason. Why does this keep happening?

[Hybridbear]

Since buying my 2015 Fusion Energi in August, I've had this happen at least four times. After not charging my car for a few days, when I go to charge it, it ignores my schedule and starts charging immediately. This most recently happened over the long holiday weekend. I drove my car and expended the battery on the 23rd and then didn't plug in my car all weekend until Sunday. My 110v charger will blow a fuse in my house if I'm running the clothes dryer while it's charging, so I have a schedule to start charging my car at midnight.

 

I plugged the car in on Sunday at about 5PM and about an hour later while doing laundry, the fuse blew, which tells me that the car was ignoring it's schedule and charging anyway. When I went into my car it told me that I indeed had 2 miles of charge in the battery, so that verifies that it was ignoring the schedule. When I look at my MFord App in the Charging log it indeed tells me that it started charging at 4:42PM and did it for 51 minutes (which is when the fuse blew).

 

When I look at MFT, it properly tells me that it's on the schedule and the next charging time is at midnight.

 

My usual routine is get home from work, put my car on the charger, and it remembers to do it at midnight like it should... unless I put a few days in between charges for some reason. Why does this keep happening?

You're not the first. Check out this thread: http://www.fordfusionenergiforum.com/topic/2759-value-charge-oddities/

[decker12]

After reading that thread it sounds like a really crappy design. If I miss a few charging windows, the car thinks it's missed several scheduled charges, so it stupidly charges itself immediately when I plug it in.

 

I think the solution is from another linked thread in that thread and it's just to use a $10 all weather timer and tell it to only provide power to the 110v charger from midnight to 6AM, which is how long it takes my car to charge. That way I don't have to ever worry about MFT bugging out with the Value Charge and Go Time, and I don't have to draw the ire of my family when the fuse blows in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

 

I am a bit concerned about the amount of power flowing through a timer though, but if it dies then I'm only out the $10.

[FordIVTteam]

Hi guys, 

It sounds like missing a few days is putting the battery at 10% or less. If you keep it above 10%, Value Charge will work as intended. Here's a snip-it from the FAQs on MyFordMobile.com: 

 

Q: Why does my vehicle start charging immediately when I have a Value Charge Profile created for this location?

A: The vehicle overrides the Value Charge Profile if the State of Charge of the traction battery is less than 10%. After the vehicle charges up to 10%, it will delay the remainder of the charge until the lower-cost times selected in the Value Charge Profile.

 

To see more, please log into your account and click on HELP in the top, right corned. I hope that helps! 

Rebecca

Edited December 29, 2015 at 07:05 PM by FordIVTteam

[decker12]

Any way to disable that? To tell it to never, ever charge my car unless it's the exact time that I set it to? As I said, I'll blow a fuse if my car charges when it isn't supposed to. I can't be getting up at 12:01 AM to plug in the car every time I don't charge my car for a few days in a row.

 

If not it sounds like the $10 Christmas Light timer is the way to go to just prevent current from reaching the car unless I tell it to. Disappointing.

[Hybridbear]

Any way to disable that? To tell it to never, ever charge my car unless it's the exact time that I set it to? As I said, I'll blow a fuse if my car charges when it isn't supposed to. I can't be getting up at 12:01 AM to plug in the car every time I don't charge my car for a few days in a row.

Why not just charge the car every day then? That sounds like a much easier solution than buying & installing a timer.

[decker12]

Why not just charge the car every day then? That sounds like a much easier solution than buying & installing a timer.

 

I do charge it every day. However over this past weekend, I drove it to a friend's house, drained the battery during the 45 mile drive, stayed for 3 days with it sitting in their driveway not being charged, then drove home on the hybrid engine, and plugged the car in when I got home, thinking it'll charge itself at midnight and be ready for my Monday morning commute. Instead, I plugged the car in on Sunday at 5PM and within an hour the fuse blew because the car decided to charge itself right then and there instead of waiting until midnight like it was "supposed" to do.

 

If I go stay somewhere over the weekend and then I need the car ready for my commute and I don't want to wait until late at night to plug it in, my only option for when my traction battery gets below 10% is to put it on a physical timer, which is pretty crappy in my opinion.

[Energized]

As the owner's manual states, if the SOC is below 10%, the vehicle will override Value Charge Profile until it reaches 10% when it will then re-engage the Value Charge Profile.

 

Q: Why does my vehicle start charging immediately when I have a Value Charge Profile created for this location?

A: The vehicle overrides the Value Charge Profile if the State of Charge of the traction battery is less than 10%. After the vehicle charges up to 10%, it will delay the remainder of the charge until the lower-cost times selected in the Value Charge Profile.

 

The only problem I see here is not using a dedicated circuit, as spelled out in owner's manual.

 

You must use a dedicated line, which means you cannot have other appliances connected to the same circuit. Note: If you do not have a dedicated circuit,
contact a licensed professional.

 

[decker12]

As the owner's manual states, if the SOC is below 10%, the vehicle will override Value Charge Profile until it reaches 10% when it will then re-engage the Value Charge Profile.

 

Q: Why does my vehicle start charging immediately when I have a Value Charge Profile created for this location?

A: The vehicle overrides the Value Charge Profile if the State of Charge of the traction battery is less than 10%. After the vehicle charges up to 10%, it will delay the remainder of the charge until the lower-cost times selected in the Value Charge Profile.

 

The only problem I see here is not using a dedicated circuit, as spelled out in owner's manual.

 

You must use a dedicated line, which means you cannot have other appliances connected to the same circuit. Note: If you do not have a dedicated circuit,

contact a licensed professional.

 

Well, then there it is. I am to blame after all for not knowing this before purchasing the vehicle. I guess I should be disappointed instead that neither my dealer nor salesperson warned me about this before purchase. I'm not quite sure how to handle a situation where I take the 110V charger with me on vacation (wherever I plug in, I'm not going to trace fuses around the property to make sure I have a "dedicated line" as per the manual).

 

I guess my $10 Christmas Light timer is the best work around after all. That way I won't ever have to worry about my car charging itself when I don't want it to.

[JATR4]

Well, then there it is. I am to blame after all for not knowing this before purchasing the vehicle. I guess I should be disappointed instead that neither my dealer nor salesperson warned me about this before purchase. I'm not quite sure how to handle a situation where I take the 110V charger with me on vacation (wherever I plug in, I'm not going to trace fuses around the property to make sure I have a "dedicated line" as per the manual).

 

I guess my $10 Christmas Light timer is the best work around after all. That way I won't ever have to worry about my car charging itself when I don't want it to.

Or you could figure out a way to not run the clothes dryer when you are charging your car. 

[decker12]

Or you could figure out a way to not run the clothes dryer when you are charging your car. 

 

Shouldn't have to do this because the car shouldn't charge unless I tell it to. I should be able to run my clothes dryer at 5PM if I tell the car to only charge itself at 12AM. I should be able to drive the car to my aunt's condo (or some other place where I don't know every detail of their electrical system), tell it to charge at 2AM when nobody is awake, without running the risk of it blowing a fuse the moment I plug it in. Arguably even if I didn't have a fuse concern, it's costing me more money to charge my car because it's deciding to do it with prime-time rates at 5PM even though I told it not to do it until 12AM. If the car charges whenever it feels like, that kind of negates the whole concept of a Value Charge Profile, doesn't it?

 

Owner's manual tells me it charges anyway when it doesn't have a 10% friction charge (for some reason I can't figure out). Now that I know that fact, I was hoping there was a way to tell the computer "Don't charge even if it needs that 10%", but apparently not. That's my bad for not getting that piece of information before buying the car.

 

Since for various reasons, I require complete control over when my car engages my home's electrical system, and since the car itself can't do that, my options are to go outside to plug my car in at 12:01 AM, or get an external timer to just shut off the electrical power to the charger. The user in the linked thread above has a similar problem and his solution involved an external timer so I'm going to try that.

Edited December 30, 2015 at 03:16 AM by decker12

[JATR4]

 

 

...The user in the linked thread above has a similar problem and his solution involved an external timer so I'm going to try that...

And if that doesn't work you can always sell the car. 

 

The car is working exactly as designed but you can't seem to accept that.

 

Of course, you could dry your clothes and then plug the car in.  Doesn't appear to be a real problem to me.

There are many members on this forum who have real problems.  You are not one of them.

Edited December 30, 2015 at 04:06 AM by JATR4

[Russael]

There are a few people here on the forum who have installed timers to override that exact concern, except theirs is more cost driven.  Larryh's peak rates is something nuts like 37 cents per kwh (or higher), so he has his 240v charging station set up on a timer so he can jack his car in whenever he wants, but it will not charge at all until the timer reaches off peak rates.

 

The whole reason for the override of the value charge profile is in the name of battery protection.  While in hybrid mode, the pack is operating at a low state of charge, so the car wants to bring it up to something not as harmful to the pack as soon as it can, and will then wait to finish off charging the pack.

 

I totally understand the frustration of having 2 big items on the same circuit, but a little communication would prevent the fuse blowing.  "Honey, the car is charging for a bit, don't run the dryer for a couple hours."  No more blown breakers.  Or, as you mentioned, a timer will help.  However, I'd go with a heavy duty grounded timer... a cheap timer is a fire risk, especially since the car draws an enormous amount of energy for prolonged periods of time.  It may cost twice as much, but it'll be much better in the long run.

[storksb]

A couple of  things to add on this topic.

 

1. Is a cheap timer going to be able to support the long term current / load? If going with a timer make sure to get one that is suitable.

 

2. Better than a timer how about a dedicated circuit?

 

3. My understanding of value charge is that it starts charging immediately if the charge window is not long enough to get a full charge in. Try making the charge window longer.

[Hybridbear]

Shouldn't have to do this because the car shouldn't charge unless I tell it to. I should be able to run my clothes dryer at 5PM if I tell the car to only charge itself at 12AM. I should be able to drive the car to my aunt's condo (or some other place where I don't know every detail of their electrical system), tell it to charge at 2AM when nobody is awake, without running the risk of it blowing a fuse the moment I plug it in. Arguably even if I didn't have a fuse concern, it's costing me more money to charge my car because it's deciding to do it with prime-time rates at 5PM even though I told it not to do it until 12AM. If the car charges whenever it feels like, that kind of negates the whole concept of a Value Charge Profile, doesn't it?

1. When does your $ window end for Value Charging? The car only takes about 6 hrs on 120V, but it usually predicts it will take something like 7+ when you first plug in. On our 208V circuit at home the car charges from empty to full in 2 hrs exactly, but it predicts it will take almost 3 hrs when it is "plugged in, waiting to charge". If your Value Charge window is too short it will start charging immediately, as storksb just wrote a few minutes ago.
2. When you charge for the first time at a new location the car will always default to "charge now". If you want to stop this you can log in to MFM via web browser once the car is plugged in & create a Value Charge profile for that location. Go to the section that lists "my charging locations" and create a Value Charge profile for the newest location. Once you sync the profiles to the car it should stop charging.
3. The car doesn't charge "whenever it feels like", there's a specific algorithm that determines when it charges. When the car acts in an undesirable way (such as what you're experiencing) it is generally best to assess the situation & determine why the car is not behaving the way you expect. Getting angry & upset does nothing to help, and only drives away people who might otherwise help solve the puzzle. We have some extremely intelligent members here who have put a lot of effort into understanding why the car behaves the way it does. Providing more details about how you've programmed your Value Charge profiles may help.
4. Some owners have experienced issues with telling the car to start charging at 12:00 am. What is your TOU schedule? Could you delay the start until 1:00 am in your Value Charge profile? Or have consecutive $ periods from something like 11:00 pm - midnight & then from midnight to 7:00 am?

[decker12]

Thanks for your help guys - I now have some pretty solid ideas now on how to work with this problem.

 

It's not about running or not running the dryer or turning off the TV to avoid a fuse being blown, it's about the mystery of why the car was engaging the electrical power when I haven't told it to. Now that I've been educated on why it's doing this, I have some ideas to help me move forward. Unfortunately, I rent and in the Bay Area the rental market is so tight that I've had no luck convincing my landlord to do the electric work to install a dedicated circuit or a 220v charger, so I 'm stuck with my 110v charger and the outlet that's closest to the driveway (and on the same circuit as the dryer and Christmas lights).

 

I will probably shop around for a heavy duty timer because my situation seems to happen at least once every 2 weeks, usually after I take a trip and my car remains unused for a few days (like when I drain the battery and leave my car at the airport - when I come back home a couple days later and plug it in at 5PM for my next day's commute, bam the fuse will blow if anything is running on that circuit). I'll check my schedule but I'm pretty sure it's already starting at 12:30 instead of 12:00 on the dot.

Edited December 30, 2015 at 05:31 PM by decker12

[Hybridbear]

usually after I take a trip and my car remains unused for a few days (like when I drain the battery and leave my car at the airport - when I come back home a couple days later and plug it in at 5PM for my next day's commute, bam the fuse will blow if anything is running on that circuit). I'll check my schedule but I'm pretty sure it's already starting at 12:30 instead of 12:00 on the dot.

I'm not aware of the option to do half hour increments with Value Charge, so I'd be very interested to see if it's actually starting at 12:30 am. Have you been using EV Later on those trips, so that you save some battery power for later in the trip instead of using it all up at the beginning?

[decker12]

I'm not aware of the option to do half hour increments with Value Charge, so I'd be very interested to see if it's actually starting at 12:30 am. Have you been using EV Later on those trips, so that you save some battery power for later in the trip instead of using it all up at the beginning?

You could be right, I was going from memory - I'll take a picture of my settings when I get back in the car later and verify. It takes about 6 hours to charge the car and my commute doesn't start until 8PM so I do have some leeway in setting up the Start time to after 12AM.

 

I do use EV Later mostly for the mornings when I'm running the heater, but that's another good idea for when I leave my car at the airport. Only tricky part with that is remembering to turn it off mid-drive so I can ideally roll into my driveway with 1 mile left on a charge, otherwise not getting that fuel efficiency I crave :)

 

Edit: checked my Charge Log on the phone and it does say it started at 12:01 and stopped at 4:59 AM, so that confirms that it's set to 12AM not 12:30 as I thought.

Edited December 30, 2015 at 06:05 PM by decker12

[Hybridbear]

You could be right, I was going from memory - I'll take a picture of my settings when I get back in the car later and verify. It takes about 6 hours to charge the car and my commute doesn't start until 8PM so I do have some leeway in setting up the Start time to after 12AM.

You mentioned that you have TOU rates, what is the time schedule for that? You could look at pushing the start back to 1:00 am, but you'd need to make sure your $ window is big enough. Even though the car only takes 6 hours, it thinks it will take longer & this can cause issues. Here is how we have our Value Charge settings configured:

[stevedebi]

Shouldn't have to do this because the car shouldn't charge unless I tell it to. I should be able to run my clothes dryer at 5PM if I tell the car to only charge itself at 12AM. I should be able to drive the car to my aunt's condo (or some other place where I don't know every detail of their electrical system), tell it to charge at 2AM when nobody is awake, without running the risk of it blowing a fuse the moment I plug it in. Arguably even if I didn't have a fuse concern, it's costing me more money to charge my car because it's deciding to do it with prime-time rates at 5PM even though I told it not to do it until 12AM. If the car charges whenever it feels like, that kind of negates the whole concept of a Value Charge Profile, doesn't it?

 

Owner's manual tells me it charges anyway when it doesn't have a 10% friction charge (for some reason I can't figure out). Now that I know that fact, I was hoping there was a way to tell the computer "Don't charge even if it needs that 10%", but apparently not. That's my bad for not getting that piece of information before buying the car.

 

Since for various reasons, I require complete control over when my car engages my home's electrical system, and since the car itself can't do that, my options are to go outside to plug my car in at 12:01 AM, or get an external timer to just shut off the electrical power to the charger. The user in the linked thread above has a similar problem and his solution involved an external timer so I'm going to try that.

I realize you are frustrated, but I suspect getting the battery back above 10% is done to protect the long term life of the HVB. That would be a big concern for Ford. I also suspect that their EV+ is to blame for it getting that low.

[JATR4]

I realize you are frustrated, but I suspect getting the battery back above 10% is done to protect the long term life of the HVB. That would be a big concern for Ford. I also suspect that their EV+ is to blame for it getting that low.

It might make sense to not use EV+ if you aren't going to charge after getting to the EV+ destination.

[decker12]

I realize you are frustrated, but I suspect getting the battery back above 10% is done to protect the long term life of the HVB. That would be a big concern for Ford. I also suspect that their EV+ is to blame for it getting that low.

That makes sense. While it was a frustrating thing to experience without knowing why, now that I know why it happens I can come up with a plan to work around it. I was under the impression that when you set it on a charge schedule it was only going to charge during that schedule, but now I know that's not entirely the case and depends on other factors. One of my other threads in this forum has to do with an issue where selecting the AV Inputs on MFT effectively locks out the entire MFT, and I was also concerned that since I had that mystery problem plus this charging "problem", then there's something wrong with the car's whole computer system.

 

Lots of great advice on this thread.

[stevedebi]

That makes sense. While it was a frustrating thing to experience without knowing why, now that I know why it happens I can come up with a plan to work around it. I was under the impression that when you set it on a charge schedule it was only going to charge during that schedule, but now I know that's not entirely the case and depends on other factors. One of my other threads in this forum has to do with an issue where selecting the AV Inputs on MFT effectively locks out the entire MFT, and I was also concerned that since I had that mystery problem plus this charging "problem", then there's something wrong with the car's whole computer system.

 

Lots of great advice on this thread.

I agree with JATR4, try turning off the EV+ and see if that helps.