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Ford Fusion Energi Forum

Leave it plugged in?


Rhyalus
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There is no reason to unplug your car after it is done charging.  The car determines if it needs energy or not.  Besides, once it's done charging, you need to have it plugged in for your 'go times' to work, or if you want to pre-condition your car before taking it off of grid power with the remote start.

 

Most battery operated appliances are smart enough nowadays to not overcharge batteries.  Even my cordless phones will stop charging once the batteries reach capacity.  Long gone are the days of overcharging a battery (unless you get a really cheap charger that's timer based and not capacity based)... and it's a huge problem if you overcharge a Lithium Ion battery since they tend to explode.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I just purchased a Kill A Watt electricity usage meter to measure the amount of energy consumed by the Energi.  I usually plug the car in when I get home from work.  I set the charging options to value charge so the battery does not begin charging until around 11:00 pm.  However, I notice that fans for the battery run continuously after I plug it in and the car seems to be consuming about 60 watts of power doing something.  The ring around the charge port remains illuminated showing the remaining charge in the battery. 

 

I wonder why it is using 60 watts of electricity running the fans for the battery and whatever else it is doing while it is waiting to charge.  Conditioning the battery for some reason?  Would it make any difference on the longevity of the battery whether I leave it plugged in or not while it is waiting to charge?  I will have to check tomorrow morning to see if it is still consuming electricity after it has finished charging. 

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I wonder why it is using 60 watts of electricity running the fans for the battery and whatever else it is doing while it is waiting to charge.  Conditioning the battery for some reason?  Would it make any difference on the longevity of the battery whether I leave it plugged in or not while it is waiting to charge?  I will have to check tomorrow morning to see if it is still consuming electricity after it has finished charging. 

 

The other day my wife got home and plugged in the car, I heard her open the garage door so I went onto the MyFordMobile site and logged in... the status said "Preparing to Charge"... not sure what that means, but it only lasted in that status for about 30-60 seconds, and then when I refreshed it said "Charging".... don't know if that is related to the 60-watt draw and the fan that you're hearing.

 

Once the L2 charger is done in the evening, I normally walk out and unplug it, but that's not from necessity but rather from planning ahead so I don't deal with it the following morning when I'm walking to my car with a coffee mug, cell phone, and whatever else in my hands.

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Once the L2 charger is done in the evening, I normally walk out and unplug it, but that's not from necessity but rather from planning ahead so I don't deal with it the following morning when I'm walking to my car with a coffee mug, cell phone, and whatever else in my hands.

 

*cough* I thought the Energi was your wife's car? *cough* :)

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If value charge is set and the battery has enough charge, it would be cheaper if it would use energy from the battery rather than from the outlet when electric rates are high.  Whenever possible, it should only consume power from the outlet when electric rates are the lowest.   The highest electric rates are from 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm, during the time when I come home and plug in the car.  It should use battery power, rather than from the outlet, during this time and then begin charging at 9:00 pm.

Edited by larryh
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I disagree about it being less expensive to use energy from the battery vs the grid.  Do you want to switch to gasoline mode that much sooner?  Running on gas is still more expensive than electricity is even at peak rates.  Besides, the car doesn't know what would be considered 'enough' charge.  Furthermore, the car shouldn't use any energy if you have a value charge set and you simply plug it in.  If you precondition the car before you leave and before the car does its charge, it's still wiser to pull that energy from the grid.  If you know you're going somewhere else later on before your value charge even starts, charge it on peak rates.

 

Cost per mile:

 

Gas:  3.55gal / 43mpg = $0.082/mile

Electricity (guessing peak rate is 18c/kwh):  7kwh * .18 = $1.26 / 21 miles = $0.06/mile

 

As far as hearing the fans going with a 60 watt draw, it may have been cooling the battery after your drive.  They should've automatically shut off after a few minutes.

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This morning, the charger is only drawing 2 watts after the battery completed charging.  While conditioning the car, the charger drew the maximum current of 12 amps or 1.3 kW.

 

The charger drew 60 watts from the time I plugged it in at 5:30 pm until the time it started charging at 9:00 pm. 

 

If you have the car plugged in and value charge set, most likely you are not planning on driving anywhere until the battery is charged.  So no gas will be consumed.  The priority should be to minimize electric cost.  The amount of charge remaining in the battery and the power it needs to consume to run the fans determines if the car has enough charge.

 

If you wanted to drive the car later, you would have it plugged in and the charging options set to charge now so the battery charges and you can minimize gas consumption.

 

Note during peak hours the rate is $0.3785/kWh.  Driving on gas is slightly cheaper.  During off peak, it is $0.0585.  Running the fans from 5 pm to 9 pm cost $0.11.  If instead, it used energy from the battery and recovered the electricity during off peak hours it would have cost $0.02.

Edited by larryh
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Your peak rate is THAT HIGH??!??  That's insane.  I've never seen anything that ridiculous before.  DTE's is 18 cents for peak/off peak.  I currently have a flat rate of 12 cents.  Sheesh... I'd flip my main breaker and go without power for 4 hours at that rate.  Bleah!!  That's over 12 cents a mile for electricity... and yes, in that case, gas IS less expensive.

 

Aside from that... very interesting that the battery fan stayed on from the time you plugged it in until the car completed its charge.  Sounds like a software bug to me.  That fan should only run while the battery is charging (or if it were already running when you returned home and needed to try to reduce battery temperature).  To have it run for no good reason from when you plugged it in until it started charging a few hours later is bupkis.

 

I suppose you could maybe get a good, high current electronic timer that can handle the continuous current of your car and plug your charger in to that, rather than relying on the charge profile in the car.  I assume you're using the 120V charger.  Some of them are quite nice and have digital readouts rather than being analog.  That's one way around it until they fix that other problem.

 

If anybody else uses value charging, I am interested to know if you guys are experiencing the same issue that Larryh is.

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No value charging for me. 

My power company has a one price fits all rate that is currently hovering around 16 cents per KWH. 

And that is with the power generation charge from a different company than the local electric utility or it would be even higher. 

The only exception is if the house is heated by electricity they have a residential heating rate that is lower. 

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No value charging for me.  My power company has a one price fits all rate that is currently hovering around 16 cents per KWH. 

 

I'm also keeping my straight-rate, which is about 11¢ per... I could switch to a timed variant and get 5¢ during 1am-5am, however that would also make for 16.5¢ during 5pm-9pm, and the 11¢ at other times.  I didn't feel like doing laundry at 1am so I'm just keeping the rate I have.

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I have the option of selecting the Charge Wise program from Dakota Electric Association, which has rates, of $0.0585 off peak, $0.10144 normal, and $0.3785 peak, that only apply to a sub-metered charging station.  The rest of my electricity would still be billed at flat rate of $0.10444 / kWh.   I'm trying to decide if that option would save me any money.  They claim that peak energy is very expensive to buy.  However, there is abundant wind-powered electricity during off peak times which allow much lower rates. 

 

This afternoon, when I plugged the car in, the charge port ring and battery fans did not turn on.  Yesterday, I had the charge settings set to Charge Now and switched them to Value Charge while the vehicle was plugged in.  This time, charge settings was already set to Value Charge when I plugged it in.  More software bugs--they forgot to program it to turn things off when you switch charge settings.  However, it is still drawing 60 watts, doing who knows what.

Edited by larryh
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If you are using the 120 volt charging station that came with the car, you can tell if the car is consuming power by a flashing green LED on the charger.  If it is behaving the way that mine is with the charging option set to Value Charge, the car charging port ring will not be illuminated, i.e. the car is not actually charging the battery, but it is still consuming some power (60 watts in my case).

 

I thought I could emphasize renewable energy sources by delaying charging until night.  But it appears that it might be more cost effective to charge the car immediately when I get home (during peak hours).  After it is fully charged, it will not consume any additional power.  Otherwise, if you delay charging, you will be consuming 60 watts of power until charging starts.

Edited by larryh
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Choosing the ChargeWise program from my electric company, Dakota Electric Association, is not going to save any money.  It might even cost more. 

 

This morning, I took a long drive to my other home which depleted the battery.  I plugged the car in with the charging option set to Value Charge.  It immediately charged the battery up to 5% capacity and is now waiting until 9:00 pm to continue charging the battery.  It consumed about 0.45 kWh of electricity charging the battery up to 5%.  It is currently consuming 60 watts of power waiting to charge at 9:00 pm. 

 

So if arrive home from work at 4:00 pm with a depleted battery, the charger would consume 0.45 + 60*5/1000 = 0.75 kWh of electricity from 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm, at which time it would begin charging.  I measured the energy consumption to completely charge the battery at 7.6 kWh.  So it would have to consume 7.6 - 0.45 = 7.15 kWh of electricity to complete the charge.

 

Using the ChargeWise programs rates, the cost would be:  0.75*0.3785 + 7.15*0.0585 = $0.70. 

 

If I simply retained my current rate plan, it would fully charge the battery using 7.6 kWh starting at 4:00 pm and then consume no more energy.  The cost would be 7.6 * 0.10144 = $0.77.

 

So the estimated savings from the ChargeWise program is $0.07 per day.  I would never recover the installation costs of a submeter.  Note that the MyFord Mobile web site says that it will immediately charge a depleted battery to 10% after plugging it in and then wait for the off peak rates to finish charging.  So, my "savings" (now negative) may even be worse.

 

Value Charge will not work with my Electric Company's ChargeWise program.  If I wanted to use the ChargeWise program, I would have to install a timer to turn the charger off at 4:00 pm and back on at 9:00 pm.

Edited by larryh
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I just checked the car two hours later, the battery charge is now 7%.  I suspect the 60 watts of electricity is being used to slowly charge the battery while waiting for the time to begin charging the battery specified by the Value Charge settings.  If I set it charge the battery at 9:00 pm, it should not be charging the battery at all until 9:00 pm.  It should not be consuming 60 watts of power to slowly charge the battery until then.

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Get yourself a 15 amp heavy duty grounded appliance timer from your local hardware store.  Amazon has them for 11 bucks (before shipping).  It would take you about 2 weeks to recoup the cost of the timer if you're saving 77 cents per day.  The only drawback to the basic ones is that you'll have to go reset it after a power outage (no different than a microwave or VCR clock).  You can set it to begin charging during off peak times, and with the basic ones, you can set 2 on/off cycles with it per day.  It's up to you mang. :)  77 cents per day adds up.  I'd do the timer thing myself.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I don't understand the NEED for that.  You can run this car in hybrid mode forever and NEVER charge it (even though that'd be wasteful).  There is no need to immediately charge anything when it's plugged in, as you have said.  The control module has plenty of leftover power in the system to keep that alive for days and days.

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Yes, 60 watts of power is a lot to be consuming for a "standby" mode waiting to charge the car.   If it waits from 5:00 pm to 12:00 am every night to charge, then it will consume 60*7*365 = 153 kWh of electricity per year.  So using a typical rate of 0.18 per kWh (it is consuming energy during peak rate hours), that amounts to about $30 per year (for my Electric Company it is closer to $60).  So you are already $30 behind trying to save money by waiting to charge at time when electric rates are lower.  That's certainly not going to earn any Energy Star ratings.  The main purpose of the car is to be efficient and conserve energy.  This seems like a glaring oversight on the part of the Ford Engineers.  I wonder how much other EVs consume waiting for the time to charge when electric rates are lowest.

Edited by larryh
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  I wonder how much other EVs consume waiting for the time to charge when electric rates are lowest.

 

 

The Tesla S has a parasitic loss of 4.5kWh in a 18  to 24 hour period.  This is nicknamed by Telsa owners as the Vampire loss.  It's the equivalent of 188 watts.  

 

This occurs on the Telsa whether its plugged in or not,  with or without go times.  A Tesla left sitting unplugged will drain the traction battery at  a fairly significant rate.

 

http://gas2.org/2013/03/21/tesla-model-s-sleep-mode-still-draining-batteries/

 

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1082949_life-with-2013-tesla-model-s-vampire-thirst-for-electricity-at-night

 

 

The Energi appears to be significantly more efficient with respect to this issue.

Edited by Energized
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