Why gas range decreases without using gas?

[Ffe]

This post might be in the wrong section because it's more about the mileage DISPLAY than actual mileage.

 

I've been driving basically entirely electric for weeks and I love it!

 

One thing I have noticed though, if I am "running on fumes" (EV fumes) and my Energi kicks over from EV mode to hybrid mode, the gas range remaining counter starts to decrease.

 

That sounds expected, but hear me out.  I watch on the Power Flow app when this happens, and AT NO POINT does the ICE start.

 

So what gives?  How could my gas range be decreasing if I'm not using gas?

 

Is this just a software bug?  It must be right?

 

If anyone knows of a gas pump liter counter "odometer" number I could look at to verify I'm not using gas, I'd be happy to check next time this happens, to rule out the 'Power Flow' app simply giving me false data.  But I am pretty sure I can feel when the ICE is on too.  For a while I had some socket wrenches in one of the door pockets, and they'd rattle when ICE kicked in, so I got to know the feel/sound of it.

 

 

[jsamp]

Interesting observation.  I'm going to guess that in hybrid mode, it assumes that every electron used will eventually be replaced by gasoline burned, so it starts counting from when it enters hybrid mode.  Of course, if you make it to your destination before the ICE kicks on, that is not exactly true because you can charge your way out of hybrid mode.  So it is probably an anomaly of how it was programmed to calculate gas usage.  It's a rock vs a hard place in programming.  Neither is 100% accurate, so choose the lesser of the evils.  That's my guess anyway.

[Ffe]

Maybe hybrid-only, non-plug-in cars are required by regulation to report mileage on the window sticker as the total mileage whether or not ICE is running.  And maybe the software that runs hybrid mode in the Energi was copy pasted from the Hybrid edition.

 

The assumption you posit is of course true for a non-Energi fusion, so it might carry over if they reused code like that.

 

I lean towards it's a bug, and that the gas mileage ticker should simply pause when the ICE is not running, wether it's because you're in EV mode or hybrid not using ICE.  This might feel weird in hybrid mode since your range isn't moving at all even though the car is moving.  Resulting in a "windows file-copy-progress-bar syndrome".  (Jerky motion of an indicator that people expect to be smooth) 

 

As it is now, if I milk hybrid mode for an extra mile 200 more times it's going to tell me I have a mile of range left on my half tank of gas.

It doesn't slowly evaporate and leave the tank does it?

 

As long as gas and electric range are shown to the user independently (and I think that's worth doing), only one should be decrementing at a time, I guess, unless you had full blast heat cranked up or were driving so fast it needed both.

 

OR (a solution I would like less, though shouldn't be materially worse) what about Hybrid mode does not begin until the battery is so low that the ICE must come on.  The Batt percent would jump from 0% EV mode to like 15% hybrid mode.  And then you could switch back to EV if you were in hybrid mode and went down hill long enough ti raise you above 15.

 

(I'm baselessly assuming 15 is when ICE comes on in hybrid)

 

Maybe the two modes should overlap a little instead of being discrete from one another.  Or maybe the idea of modes itself was a bad idea

Edited May 8, 2021 at 05:40 AM by Ffe

[murphy]

Which mode are you driving in?

Auto

EV Now

EV Later

 

Auto is not hybrid mode.  It uses the battery until the battery is empty and then switches to hybrid mode.

Full throttle acceleration usually starts the engine in this mode.

I have a 2013 and never use this mode on purpose.

 

EV Now is the mode I use for around town.  The engine never starts because the battery is never empty.

 

EV Later is the mode I use for a trip.  This is a hybrid mode that locks in the the battery level and does not vary it more than about 5%.

When the engine is off the display is blue.  When the engine is on the display is white.  This mode must be selected every time the car is turned on.

 

The 2013 has the ability to display MPGe or MPG.  I always use MPGe.  Driving in all electric mode all of the time very quickly puts MPG at 999 which is the car's version of infinity.

[theterminator93]

I've observed this as well. If you're light on the throttle there's a mile or two of extra electric range in hybrid mode with a "full" battery, after EV mode is fully depleted. The total range does go down but if the ICE never starts I've observed that it will go back to where it was originally if you shut down and charge the battery sufficiently to run in EV mode before turning the car on again.

 

I wish the '17 had MPGe display. I'm stuck calculating it manually using the kWh consumed on the trip odometer between fill-ups.

[Ffe]

Interesting....  I'll try this out.  Typically when I coast into the charger on e-fumes like this, I'm in the car, working for the next couple hours while it charges back up to full.  Are these the steps I should try?:

 

1) park and shut off car

2) plug in charger

3) let it charge long enough to get out of hybrid range and into ev range.  (Can't be more than what, 15 minutes on a  level2 right?)

4) power on, gas range should be back to where it was before it kicked over from EV to hybrid mode

 

Does that sound right?

 

When I first got my Fusion I would have tried to charge with everything 'off' to charge faster.  But now I have an obd2 adapter that shows me the ammount of current going into the HVB and it's about 4.3 amps going in wether the car is in accy or on mode.  Even with AC on (at the lowest speed) its still 4.3.  So it seems to me that the AC-to-DC converter, as limiting as it is, has extra capacity beyond what the batteries allow themselves to be charged at.  Maybe there's a way to tell the battery controller it can charge faster?  I know it charges at over 60 AMPS when I'm getting off the highway, so it doesn't seem like that big of an ask

[theterminator93]

Yeah, that sounds right.

 

Is the PID you're monitoring the charge rate coming off the AC-DC converter, or the rate of change in battery SOC? What does the current of your wall outlet do while you are monitoring this PID and turn accessory power on? If the wall draw does not increase and the charge current PID does not either, that just means the charger is providing (what may be its limit of) 4.3 amps from AC conversion, some of which would be immediately used for accessory power. Is you have no way to measure wall current draw, it might be easier to see using the PID only using the 120V convenience charger. There is a much lower limit of power available to both charge and power accessories simultaneously so if the PID doesn't change, it'd be a dead giveaway to me that it's only showing AC-DC conversion output.

 

As far as high rates of charge and discharge while driving, it's one thing to have the battery discharge or charge at a high rate for a portion of the total charge/discharge cycle - but it's another completely to always charge it at such a high rate every day. The tale of a member fully charging their battery using regenerative braking coming down from Pike's Peak certainly did that battery no long-term favors, and I wonder what temperature it reached at the end of that charge cycle (we are "lucky" enough to have what's considered a relatively poorly designed air cooled HVB). These are PHEVs, not BEVs, after all. ?

[Ffe]

The PID I'm watching is called 'Hybrid Battery Current'  It goes negative to around -4.2 ish amps when charging.  Unless I crank up the heat/ac.  Then it increases towards 0, and eventually (in the case of heat much more easily) it goes positive even when connected to EVSE and the SOC starts decreasing.

 

The same PID is visible when driving, and when the car is decelerating it goes negative, and accelerating it goes positive.  So I'm pretty confident it's measuring amps at the battery pack, not at the EVSE outlet or rectifier pack. 

 

I normally drive in EV Now mode, to answer Murphy's question from earlier.  I kinda wonder what the difference is between EV Now and Auto modes if Auto uses battery preferentially.

[jsamp]

EV now will not use the ICE at all unless you give it the 'ok' to do so.  Auto will prioritize electric use if the HVB is charged enough, and only use ICE as supplemental if the load requires.  EV Later will prioritize gas use and only use electric as supplemental.  Then it will replace that electricity used by siphoning off the ICE.

[Ffe]

Well, I'm baaa-aaak, And I have news to report.  I've coasted in on e-fumes as I'm calling it now a good handfull of times. (and not made it without using gas a few times too. doh!)

 

And at least 6 or so times I've paid special attention to the odometer when failing from EV mode to hybrid, and I've seen it tick down a mile in hybrid mode, withOUT the power flow app showing the ICE was used.

 

Then I parked and shut off the car, and got put and plugged in.  Then I waited at least 20 minutes and turned it back on.

 

And the remain in miles indicator did NOT go back up.  So I'm confirming the bug:  The gas miles 'distance-to-empty' indicator decreases without using any gas. and is thus erroneous.  If I did this a few hundred times I'd see it reading zero, but have a full tank!

 

Specific observations from most recent occurrence:

• Gas DTE went from 268 to 267 on hybrid road without using gas engine and then i parked at 8:52, and plugged in EVSE.
• Waited until 9:15 before turning on to check.
• At 9:15, started car and had 267 gas miles and 4 electric.  So, it did not reset, and the HVB received enough charge while off to go from hybrid to EV mode again.

 

This is on a 2018 Fusion Energi Platinum

[theterminator93]

Yeah, I've paid closer attention to this too. Mine does, in fact, drop the range in hybrid mode even if the ICE never turns on.

 

Another bug is that it also doesn't lower hybrid range if the engine turns on for any reason (usually in very cold weather) when the mode selector is EV auto or EV now.

[jsamp]

My take on this is that it knows that 1 mile you drove, even though it was driven on electric, was energy that was eventually going to be replaced by the gas engine charging the battery back up.  So it counts it as a lost "gas mile".  If you weren't going to plug in, the mile would be used in the MPG calculation for gas use rather than electricity use.  Otherwise the gas mileage calculation would artificially read higher when switching between modes.  They both have their drawbacks, but to me the way Ford programmed it makes sense. 

[samueljalarcon]

You can be right but we'll never really know the real answer unless you ask a ford dealer who sells the hybrid.

[jsamp]

Pretty much across the board the members on this forum know more about the Energi than any Ford dealer does.  When it comes to the Energi, Ford really dropped the ball on educating their dealerships (and service personnel).  It's rather disappointing.