2015 Energi degradation, only getting 10-13 miles now, Ford denied warranty

[jasper7821]

Just curious if there's others like me out there with the same degradation.

I bought a new 2015 Fusion Energi 4yrs ago and it used to get pretty decent electric mileage. Now I have 95k miles and I only get 10-13 AC/Heat on, and 12-14 AC/Heat off miles until the motor kicks on. If I totally milk the gauge keeping the power under the blue line I can squeeze a few more miles.

After fully charged it'll say 12-14 miles depending on the temperature in my garage I think.

I took it to Ford and they denied the warranty. The battery Cell team concluded after reading the PID info it's characteristic to the car for the age and mileage. To get almost 1/2 of what I used to get doesn't seem characteristic to me.

Here's the data, just curious if this is normal.

They gave me the Ford Customer Service number, called them and they said there's nothing they can do.

 

[murphy]

Where are you located?  I'm in PA and my range drops to 10 miles when it is below freezing.  The heater is a 5 kilowatt resistance heater.  Running it full blast for an hour would drain the battery without the car moving at all. 

 

[jasper7821]

I'm in Arizona and it's been in the 40's on my way to work. I pre-heat the car so when I leave I still have 100% battery and the Climate bar is only at about 2kw.

When I have it off and turn it on when the battery is depleted, I only get about 2-3 more miles on electric.

And good to know the heater is 5kw.

I really with the battery was fluid cooled instead, cause in the summer it's 110-120 degrees in the desert when I get off work and the car will not even run on 100% battery at all. I love the quietness when in full battery mode.

Oh Well, my car will have to do until the Cybertruck arrives :0

Also have a reservation for the Mach E, so we'll see what happens.

[jj2me]

My 2017's PID BAT_TO_EMPTY_ESTIM had a value of 7.1 kWh when I got it used with 10K miles.  7.1 minus 1.5 hybrid reserve = 5.6 kWh, which is the consensus here for a new vehicle's plug-in capacity.

 

Using that same calculation for your current results, 4.84 - 1.5 = 3.34 kWh of plug-in capacity, which is 60% of new.  That jibes with your observation that you "get almost 1/2 of what I used to get."

 

Mine still shows 7.1 kWh at 100% charged, but it's only got 25K miles on it, mostly ICE, and I live in colder New Jersey, charge using L1, and don't charge to 100% very often.

 

[murphy]

The battery breakdown is as follows:

Battery protection 0.5 kWh

Hybrid mode 1.5 kWh

Electric only mode 5.6 kWh

 

Total 7.6 kWh

 

The battery protection part is never available for use.

 

Also it is believed that when charged to an indicated 100% the actual battery charge is around 95%.

 

[jasper7821]

21 hours ago, murphy said:

The battery breakdown is as follows:

Battery protection 0.5 kWh

Hybrid mode 1.5 kWh

Electric only mode 5.6 kWh

 

Total 7.6 kWh

 

The battery protection part is never available for use.

 

Also it is believed that when charged to an indicated 100% the actual battery charge is around 95%.

 

Thank you for the info

[muzicman61]

On 12/18/2019 at 9:52 AM, jasper7821 said:

I'm in Arizona and it's been in the 40's on my way to work. I pre-heat the car so when I leave I still have 100% battery and the Climate bar is only at about 2kw.

When I have it off and turn it on when the battery is depleted, I only get about 2-3 more miles on electric.

And good to know the heater is 5kw.

I really with the battery was fluid cooled instead, cause in the summer it's 110-120 degrees in the desert when I get off work and the car will not even run on 100% battery at all. I love the quietness when in full battery mode.

Oh Well, my car will have to do until the Cybertruck arrives :0

Also have a reservation for the Mach E, so we'll see what happens.

 

I'm in Phoenix but I never use my heat driving to work, even when it's 40ish.  I've been here a year now and have seen a bit of degradation from my battery but still get about 25 EV miles a charge.

[rowekmr]

Interesting steep degradation curve the OP experiencing. I just sold a 2014 FFE with 149K that got about 11 miles a charge during late fall weather  (prolly better in summer). I also had a C-Max with 130k that was still getting up to 19 a few weeks before that when the weather was milder.

[jasper7821]

The PID test on mine says 4.84kw and Ford says that's normal for a car of my age and mileage.

BUT, I deplete full electric at 3.4kw and deplete hybrid mode at 3.8kw, then it's 100% gas.

When I do a full charge from empty on 110v, my meter says 4.81kw was used. Is that what the PID test also states cause the numbers are similar?

I was assuming that if my car switches to full gas at 3.8kw and it takes 4.81kw to charge, then the extra kw is due to inefficiency of the charging.

So if my battery only uses 3.8kw plus the .5kw non-usable, that means my battery's total capacity is only 4.3kw. And when new it was 7.6kw, so I've lost 43% of the full capacity ?

It doesn't sound like normal degradation to me, just seeing if I have a valid case to try and dispute Ford's claim that it's normal.

 

[jsamp]

Yes, 4.81-3.8 is the efficiency loss.  That is about right for 120V chargng.

 

  As murphy stated above,  the .5kWh  is non usable, but you have to also account for the 1.5kWh Hybrid portion, which you can't use all of either.  Typically you only get  to use ~50% of that.  So of the 5.6 charging portion (7.6-.5-1.5) when new, you have 3.4 left.  While that calculates to 39% loss by your math, that is not how Ford sees it.  They see you had 7.6 originally, and now 5.4 (3.4+.5+1.5) which is "only" 26% loss from full battery capacity.  I know that doesn't help you any, but that is what you get.

 

[jasper7821]

On 12/27/2019 at 11:52 PM, jsamp said:

Yes, 4.81-3.8 is the efficiency loss.  That is about right for 120V chargng.

 

  As murphy stated above,  the .5kWh  is non usable, but you have to also account for the 1.5kWh Hybrid portion, which you can't use all of either.  Typically you only get  to use ~50% of that.  So of the 5.6 charging portion (7.6-.5-1.5) when new, you have 3.4 left.  While that calculates to 39% loss by your math, that is not how Ford sees it.  They see you had 7.6 originally, and now 5.4 (3.4+.5+1.5) which is "only" 26% loss from full battery capacity.  I know that doesn't help you any, but that is what you get.

 

Ok, there’s about 1kw efficiency loss on a charge on 110 which makes sense since my home meter says 4.8kw used and the car when empty says 3.8. 
But I don’t fully understand the rest of the statement, I know .5 is unusable but I thought the 1.5 hybrid capacity was. But it does kinda make sense since I lose full battery at 3.3kw or so and lose hybrid at 3.8kw..

My simple math has me thinking I’ve lost 48%. I used 7.6 minus .5 to equal 7.1, then divided my 3.8 that I get by 7.1 to equal 48%.

 

[murphy]

The 1.5 kW hybrid portion is only in use when the car is in hybrid mode.  It's designed to be at the 50% point so there is someplace to store energy recovered by regenerative braking.

 

[boostedone]

On 12/18/2019 at 4:41 PM, murphy said:

The battery breakdown is as follows:

Battery protection 0.5 kWh

Hybrid mode 1.5 kWh

Electric only mode 5.6 kWh

 

Total 7.6 kWh

 

The battery protection part is never available for use.

 

Also it is believed that when charged to an indicated 100% the actual battery charge is around 95%.

 

 

Hi,

Where do you find this information?  I have seen it posted a few times for the 7.6kWh pack.  Do you have or can point me to where to locate this for the 9.0kWh battery?

I have a 2019 with 8k miles.  I have only owned the car for a week, but the trip results that resulted in full battery discharge show 5.8-6.5kWh.   

I was wondering if theres degredation, or is the additional capacity in the hybrid portion of the battery?  

Since my car is a somewhat early 2019, built in fall of 2018, I was wondering if it didn't even have the 9 kWh battery, since its not unheard of for certain year changes to to not get incorporated on early builds.    But i just unplugged it from a charge point charger and it said 8.XkWh was used to charge so guessing that means its the larger battery(unless theres some efficiency losses between the charge point display and my battery, which points me back to wondering if its really a 7.6 kWh battery.

I bought the car pre-owned about a week ago so I do not have a bunch of history on it.

[murphy]

I do not remember where I got the information, it's burned into my brain.

Go to your MyFordMobile account and see how much was added to the battery.

Assuming the Chargepoint charger is at 240 volts AC, only about 80% of what you paid for got to the battery because of AC to DC conversion losses.

 

The most I have ever measured, at the wall, going into my 7.6 kWh battery is 6.5 kWh. 80% of that is 5.2 kWh.

 

What is the ambient temperature?  A cold soaked battery is less efficient.  Cold is not what you think it is.  The efficiency starts dropping when it gets below 70° F.

 

[jsamp]

On 1/3/2020 at 7:10 AM, boostedone said:

 

Hi,

Where do you find this information?  I have seen it posted a few times for the 7.6kWh pack.  Do you have or can point me to where to locate this for the 9.0kWh battery?

I have a 2019 with 8k miles.  I have only owned the car for a week, but the trip results that resulted in full battery discharge show 5.8-6.5kWh.   

I was wondering if theres degredation, or is the additional capacity in the hybrid portion of the battery?  

Since my car is a somewhat early 2019, built in fall of 2018, I was wondering if it didn't even have the 9 kWh battery, since its not unheard of for certain year changes to to not get incorporated on early builds.    But i just unplugged it from a charge point charger and it said 8.XkWh was used to charge so guessing that means its the larger battery(unless theres some efficiency losses between the charge point display and my battery, which points me back to wondering if its really a 7.6 kWh battery.

I bought the car pre-owned about a week ago so I do not have a bunch of history on it.

 

The breakdown of the 7.6 has been gleaned from some PID codes from the car and some basic assumptions.  The Fusion Hybrid has a 1.4kWh battery, and the Energi operates the same in hybrid mode, so it is assumed the 1.5 is for hybrid mode.  Someone reported that when full, the car reads a batt_to_empty code of 7.1 for full, so the assumption is that .5kWh is the buffer at the top to prevent overcharging.  Since you cannot use all of the hybrid range, the bottom of that portion becomes the buffer for the lower end.

 

Doing a little math, and stretching those assumptions to the 9.0kWh battery, since Ford upped the EV range by 5 miles, that indicates that the entire 1.4kWh addition is used for EV mode.  They have not increased the buffer on either end.  So the 9.0 has 7.0 useable for EV mode (plus hybrid mode).  So depending on how depleted your battery is when you charge, you could put up to ~7.8kWh into the battery, plus charging losses.  So a L2 charger would put ~ 9+ kWh including losses.

 

If you have a code reader, you can confirm some of these assumptions.

[rowekmr]

What are some examples of battery failures that they have replaced HV batteries for? 

Is any of them something we can replicate at home?

[jsamp]

There is only one battery replacement that we've heard of, and that was on a C-Max Energi.  All others have been rejected as far as I have heard.  You can search these forums for degradation topics and possibly find the person who had it replaced.  I don't recall who that was.  Once word got out that one was replaced, Ford tightened their criteria to make sure they weren't going to lose their shirts on warranty battery replacements.

 

[Tanbam]

On 1/3/2020 at 9:10 AM, boostedone said:

 

Hi,

Where do you find this information?  I have seen it posted a few times for the 7.6kWh pack.  Do you have or can point me to where to locate this for the 9.0kWh battery?

I have a 2019 with 8k miles.  I have only owned the car for a week, but the trip results that resulted in full battery discharge show 5.8-6.5kWh.   

I was wondering if theres degredation, or is the additional capacity in the hybrid portion of the battery?  

Since my car is a somewhat early 2019, built in fall of 2018, I was wondering if it didn't even have the 9 kWh battery, since its not unheard of for certain year changes to to not get incorporated on early builds.    But i just unplugged it from a charge point charger and it said 8.XkWh was used to charge so guessing that means its the larger battery(unless theres some efficiency losses between the charge point display and my battery, which points me back to wondering if its really a 7.6 kWh battery.

I bought the car pre-owned about a week ago so I do not have a bunch of history on it.

The 2019 has 8.5kWH available when fully charged, and switches over to hybrid mode when there is 1.7kWH left, so there are 6.8kWH available for EV operation. 
 

I pull about 8kWH from a ChargePoint 220V charger, and around 9kWH from my 110 at home to charge an empty battery, more or less. 

 

You can’t really rely on the trip meter’s KW usage numbers, because the KW used value decreases when you regenerate. I’ve had plenty of trips where it reads as low as 4kW used and 40 EV miles. It would only be fairly accurate if you empty the battery on a level road with no braking. I don’t value that reading at all, and just go by EV miles.

 

The best way to check your battery, in my opinion, is to get an OBDII reader and get the values from the car.

 

 

[Fgolman]

That's a sweet OBD display. What's the app you're using? 

 

Thank you! 

 

[jsamp]

On 3/4/2020 at 11:25 AM, Tanbam said:

The 2019 has 8.5kWH available when fully charged, and switches over to hybrid mode when there is 1.7kWH left, so there are 6.8kWH available for EV operation. 
 

I pull about 8kWH from a ChargePoint 220V charger, and around 9kWH from my 110 at home to charge an empty battery, more or less. 

 

You can’t really rely on the trip meter’s KW usage numbers, because the KW used value decreases when you regenerate. I’ve had plenty of trips where it reads as low as 4kW used and 40 EV miles. It would only be fairly accurate if you empty the battery on a level road with no braking. I don’t value that reading at all, and just go by EV miles.

 

The best way to check your battery, in my opinion, is to get an OBDII reader and get the values from the car.

 

 

Thanks for the stats.  That confirms what we had assumed that there was .5kWh buffer at the top, and the lower end of the hybrid portion is the buffer at the bottom.

 

I do have to disagree with the comment about not relying on the trip meter's kW usage.  The whole point is to see how much energy you get out of a charge.  Yes it adds back in when you brake, but that energy came from the battery when you were accelerating.  It tracks the regen and reports the net out.  The only way it would be inaccurate would be if you did a trip that only had downhill and flat; then the regen would come from gravity, not the power of the battery.  Maybe this is a bad comparison, but not counting the regen would be like riding your bicycle uphill and then walking it back down because you don't deserve the effortless coast down.  You paid the price, you get the benefit.

 

Looking at only the mileage is way too dependent upon the individual driver's habits.  I can get (with my 2015, 7.6 kWh battery) 15 miles from a charge if I drive aggressively at 75MPH on the freeway, or I can get 30 miles driving carefully around town.  Those don't tell me the health of the battery.

 

Agreed the OBD reader is a good way to track info, but it is just reporting the same numbers that the trip meter is using.  They get their info from the same source.

 

[Tanbam]

9 hours ago, Fgolman said:

That's a sweet OBD display. What's the app you're using? 

 

Thank you! 

 

OBDLink

It’s a more expensive solution, around $80 for the reader, but the app is really nice. It has the extended PIDs for many cars that you can download and install, so you can get a lot more information much more quickly than other apps. The reader also automatically connects to the other CAN bus on the OBD port which lets you communicate with the whole network.

 

I paid the extra money because I have gone through around 5 other cheap readers, and this one is the only one that is consistently reliable. When I’m making changes inside the modules with ForSCAN, I want to be assured that I won’t drop the connection midway through.

 

[rowekmr]

I am thinking of buying a newer battery for my 2013 Fusion Energi that gets 12-14 max with no heater (but cold temps). I obviously don't want another 2013 battery so could a low mile 2016 or 2017 battery work? Is it true they made changes to the battery in 2019 for more capacity?

[ptjones]

I think it was 2018 gained 3-4 miles range. Maybe the dealer can find out, I just think it's just better batteries.

 

Paul

[Tanbam]

I think the 2017’s got more mileage due to more efficient motors and such, but I’m going on memory.

 

2019 introduced batteries with more energy capacity.

 

I’ve seen rebuilt batteries somewhere that have better cells, but you’ve got to compare the cost of replacing it vs living with lower range until the battery is completely toast. Even a battery that has lost 50% of its capacity is still going to give you pretty good mileage overall.

 

Personally, I’ll run my battery into the ground, assuming that I have my car that long. I’m less concerned with being carbon free than I am with saving money.