Figuring out my first hybrid

[Eric.C.Boston]

Hello,

I bought my first Fusion, a 2006 Tan 2.3L SE, back in November of 2005. I was going to get a Focus, but it was too small. I liked the comfortable driver's seat on the Fusion and it turned out great for long car trips. I bought the service cd from Helm, but did not really use it the first six years. I only had minor problems the last couple of years, but they are coming more frequently with the 135K miles. So I decided to get a Fusion Hybrid. I am passing my 2006 on to my niece this summer.

I had a chance to drive a friend's Prius. I found it responded differently than my 2006. I looked at the Fusion Energi. There seems to be a premium for the plug-in capability. I have a 18 mile (each way) commute, which is near the range limit. I did some calculations and I would not really save very much in fuel/electric costs. I did not like losing half the trunk space. I looked at Youtube video reviews for the Fusion Hybrid. I do like how the current generation Fusion Hybrid restored the rear seat pass-thru. I also downloaded the owner's manual and watched videos on how the different features work from the Ford website. There are very helpful threads on this forum.

I decided to go almost whole hog and buy a Fusion Hybrid Titanium as the trim had features I wanted. The local dealer did not have any Hybrid Titaniums, but I test drove a 2014 Fusion Hybrid SE demo. It did have the moonroof, mytouch, and navigation, so I could try them out. I found the brakes a bit touchy compared to my 2006, but the accelerator response was similar. Mytouch was not too bad in spite of all the bad reviews I read. My driving style seems to fit well with the Hybrid.

I was planning a trip down to the Big Pencil in early March and wanted to get the new car by then. The snowstorms in February and other factors caused dealer deliveries to be delayed several weeks, so the car I wanted did not arrive until after my trip. My 2006 worked great during the trip.

I bought a 2015 Guard Hybrid Titanium and picked it up last Monday from work. I had to use public transportation the next day so I could drive my old car home after work. The car drives the same as the demo. I like being able to just open the door and the trunk, as well as locking the doors, without digging out the key. I did not think I would use or like the ambient lighting feature, but it is useful. The Oil Life feature will be useful for tracking when to have the oil changed. There are a number of interesting technology additions since 2006!

My commute is a mixture of city and highway driving. It seems to fit the hybrid well. I already have over 400 miles on the car and get around 42 MPG indicated. I like that the engine stops (after warmup) the several times I was stuck in stop and crawl traffic. I like being able to crawl along in EV mode, so it seems better than just having the engine stop/start feature. I usually got around 27 with the 2006. If I got stuck in traffic, I would see the display slowly go down to 24 MPG or lower! On trips involving mostly highway driving I would see around 32 MPG.

It is interesting to watch the gauges. I usually get around 9.5 EV miles on a 18 mile commute. I get better gas mileage going home then coming to work using the same route. It will be interesting to see if the mileage improves when the weather warms up and the engine is broken in. I noticed a hit on fuel economy when I did a short 3 mile trip, although it was still in the range of my old Fusion. So far I am happy with the fuel economy, but still plan on rereading a couple of forum threads now that I understand more about the car.

 

Regards, Eric

[TonyHzNV]

Hey, Eric, welcome! You've come to the right place as a new FFH owner. Lots of info and great people here and the answers to many of your questions, I'm sure. Enjoy your time here and don't hesitate to ask questions and participate in the many discussions you will find here. Again, welcome aboard!

Edited March 19, 2015 by TonyHzNV

[hybridbear]

Congrats & welcome! What have the temps been like in Mass for your first few days of ownership? Warmer weather brings increased MPGs. The MPG difference might be due to an elevation change. There are cell phone apps you can download to see what the elevation is at work and at home.

[lolder]

Welcome ! Read all the manuals cover to cover twice. While parked, push all the buttons. Then drive it. Don't get fixated on the video game on the instrument panel. There is a direct relationship between warmer weather and better mileage. Elevation differences have big effects on mileage. I believe there is very little "break in" effect from the car, it is mostly the driver. For now, drive the car as you would any other. For the time being, it will be smarter than you are in getting the best mileage. You can have more fun with this car than you could have in the old days in a car in a drive-in-movie ( "Passion Pits" they were called ).

[Griswald]

Set your left dashboard to EMPOWER. That seems to be the best way to judge your driving.

[TonyHzNV]

Set your left dashboard to EMPOWER. That seems to be the best way to judge your driving.

What he said!

[Eric.C.Boston]

Hello,

Temperatures could be a factor as it was 40 to 50 during the day for most days and the MPG was around 43.5 MPG during that time. It snowed one day and I had to use the defroster, otherwise I have been keeping the climate in Auto. Yesterday and today it was in the 20s to 30s and I noticed a decrease of a couple of MPG, although a short 3 mile trip might be responsible for some of it.

At the start of my trip to work there are two traffic lights with bad sequencing. Some days I have to wait for the first light to turn green, but I always have to wait for the second light to turn green as it turns red shortly after the first one turns green in my direction. The second light is at a complicated intersection, so it takes awhile to turn green again. Meanwhile the ICE is going at 1.5K RPMs to warm everything up and charge up the HV Battery. Shortly after I clear the lights the heater starts up. Fortunately the car will go into EV mode by the time I get to the area that typically has the traffic problems. The traffic light timing tends to be better at the work end of the commute.

I currently have the left display on EMPOWER and the right displaying a 10 minute fuel economy graph. I noticed EV+ mode kicking in now as I reach home or work. This increases the outline on the left KW dial when in the EV modes.

The outline is very helpful during stop and crawl to keep the vehicle in EV mode. I noticed that the outline decreases over time, likely based on the charge state of the HV battery. So at some point the ICE does have to come on again to charge the battery.

Now that I understand more about how the system works, I am going to try to drive normally and see how well the car does. I have been keeping notes of the various readings from the displays. There does not seem to be a way to download the information from the car. It would be great to download the daily trips at the end of the day.

Regards Eric

[Griswald]

I also suggest some type of mpg checking gauge, like an ultra gauge or the torque app. Knowing your exact mpg really helps me get the best I can. In the month since I installed m5 ultra gauge, I have increased my lifetime mileage by .2 (over 12500 miles).

[corncobs]

Hi Eric congrats and welcome.

 

Reading your posts you seem to be on a good way to make the most of the FFH.

 

Here is something I would do.

 

It might actually help when briefly disable the climate control while you are going thru the bad intersection sequence. That will allow the engine to shut off sooner so your aren't wasting gas idling while waiting for the lights.

 

As the weather gets warmer it will start doing that by itself.

[mwr]

I believe there is very little "break in" effect from the car,

I found the same. I got as good mpg the very first trip in the car, right after the dealer salesman delivered it, as I have since. I drove it "normally" but not abruptly and that's all it took.

[Cobra348]

Eric, I'll be in your shoes in 2-3 weeks if all goes well. I've been reading a lot here and learning more than I ever thought I would!

 

One of my plans is to get a true donut spare in the car to simply give a warm, fuzzy feeling I have **some** extra tread on a long trip and I get a blowout.

 

In the meantime, I read and wait.

[hybridbear]

At the start of my trip to work there are two traffic lights with bad sequencing. Some days I have to wait for the first light to turn green, but I always have to wait for the second light to turn green as it turns red shortly after the first one turns green in my direction. The second light is at a complicated intersection, so it takes awhile to turn green again. Meanwhile the ICE is going at 1.5K RPMs to warm everything up and charge up the HV Battery. Shortly after I clear the lights the heater starts up. Fortunately the car will go into EV mode by the time I get to the area that typically has the traffic problems. The traffic light timing tends to be better at the work end of the commute.

I currently have the left display on EMPOWER and the right displaying a 10 minute fuel economy graph. I noticed EV+ mode kicking in now as I reach home or work. This increases the outline on the left KW dial when in the EV modes.

The outline is very helpful during stop and crawl to keep the vehicle in EV mode. I noticed that the outline decreases over time, likely based on the charge state of the HV battery. So at some point the ICE does have to come on again to charge the battery.

I think your situation may be better with EV+ turned off. How close to the start of your commute are those lights? Would you be able to inch out and not have the ICE turn on before those lights? When we had our hybrid we would not use EV+ because we could get better MPG if we could inch along in EV mode until we got onto a busy road about 1-2 blocks away from home. Sometimes if the HVB charge was high enough we could wait until getting past the 2nd light about 4-5 blocks from home before turning on the ICE. This would help optimize our MPGs.

 

There does not seem to be a way to download the information from the car. It would be great to download the daily trips at the end of the day.

Regards Eric

Unfortunately not. I wish there was.

[Eric.C.Boston]

Hello,

 

I conducted some experiments and improved the fuel economy on the work commute. The car got into EV mode faster when I turned the heat off. It was slightly faster than on the home commute with heat on, so sitting out in the warmer sunshine had some effect. It was not the whole difference. I can easily avoid the two traffic lights on the home commute, so I took a slightly out-of-the-way route that avoided the lights on the work commute. This mostly made up the rest of the difference.

 

There is not much change in elevation on the route other than going through an underwater tunnel. I did notice some gradual uphill sections with traffic lights as I get close to work. I got the impression that it was harder to stay in EV mode on these sections depending on the traffic lights. Sometimes the ICE will run even with a light accelerator demand. I have to remember to back off the accelerator completely to get into EV mode, then I can press down the accelerator slightly to maintain speed in EV mode.

 

Regards, Eric

[hybridbear]

There is not much change in elevation on the route other than going through an underwater tunnel. I did notice some gradual uphill sections with traffic lights as I get close to work. I got the impression that it was harder to stay in EV mode on these sections depending on the traffic lights. Sometimes the ICE will run even with a light accelerator demand. I have to remember to back off the accelerator completely to get into EV mode, then I can press down the accelerator slightly to maintain speed in EV mode.

The elevation difference is starting and ending elevation. For example, our elevation at home is 770 feet and the elevation at work is 750 feet. This 20 foot difference is very noticeable in the MPGe in the Energi since when I drive it's only 1.3 miles.

[Eric.C.Boston]

Hello,

My route goes from about 29 feet at home to 39 feet at work with a dip below sea level about in the middle. This results in a 7 MPG difference, although it is really -3.5 for the 10 foot uphill and +3.5 for the 10 foot downhill, or about 8 percent difference.

Today was the second day with temperatures in the mid-40s with mid-30s overnight. I noticed a couple of MPG improvement for the trip into work. It will be interesting to see how this improves when temperatures get into the 70s. I want to at least get the EPA combined rating for lifetime.

I changed the fuel history to 10 minutes several weeks ago. The MPG seemed to vary alot during my commute. I realized that the bars were at 2 minute intervals and it is the whole graph that is 10 minutes. Then the variations made sense. I changed it back to 30 minutes and the bars smoothed out.

Regards Eric

[lolder]

The 10 ft difference would not be significant except for very short distances like a mile or less. The big change is temperature from a cold morning commute to a much warmer afternoon return. The ICE may even retain some residual temperature 8 or 9 hours after the morning trip. It's temperature.

 

If you drove at 30 mph and covered a mile in 2 minutes, a 4000 lb. car descending 10 ' would generate 40,000 ft. lbs. of potential energy. that's 333 ft. lbs/ sec or 0.6 hp. It takes about 10 hp. to go 30 mph so you would expect the mileage to be affected 6 % + and -. At 50 mpg that's 3 mpg. You would expect to get 53 going downhill and 47 going uphill on a 10 ' per mile slope.

Edited March 26, 2015 by lolder

[Eric.C.Boston]

Hello,

Thanks all for the interesting comments.

The traffic flow is usually heavier on my work commute compared to my home commute. Yesterday I had a similar heavy flow on the home commute and got 47.8 MPG compared to 47.1 MPG going to work. Yesterday was cloudy showery weather with similar temperatures in the morning and evening.

The trip MPG numbers are noisy, but I do see an upward trend with the warmer weather. The ten foot difference might account for a couple of MPGs. The rest could be due to traffic flow and where I have to stop for traffic lights. As pointed out in another thread, the regenerative braking does not recover all the energy, even with a 100% brake score. There are some lights that have an uphill section beyond the light. I can stay in EV if I go through these lights, but go to ICE when starting from a stop at these lights. There are some uphill sections where the car stays in EV, but others, that do not seem as steep, where the car goes to ICE. So my new car still has a MPG hit in stop and go traffic, but not as big as my old car.

 

During the rainy weather yesterday it was neat to call up Weather on the touchscreen and go to the map. I got a map of Southern New England with a weather radar overlay. This would have been useful during my recent trip from Philly to Boston. There was a line of snow showers coming into the area and the radar information could of helped me avoid some slippery roads.

Regards Eric

[lolder]

When the car needs significant power such as accelerating from a stop or going uphill, do not encourage EV. That is when the ICE is running most efficiently, only encourage EV when the HVB SOC is higher than average.

[Eric.C.Boston]

Hello,

At first I tried keeping it in EV, but quickly found MPGs were better when I accelerated with the ICE. I have improved my technique and the MPGs have gotten better.

I use EV for Stop and Crawl situations where I know the vehicle ahead will likely go 5 to 10 MPH and stop a short distance down the road. The Empower gauge is up to 1 Bar during acceleration in this case, usually around 1/2 bar or less. The car will tend to stay in EV when I am at 1 Bar acceleration because the outline tends to be from 1-1/2 to 2 bars. I noticed the outline tends to decrease over time so sometimes the car will go into ICE at 1 bar, I assume due to the SOC of the HVB.

A lot of the uphills require 2 Bars on the empower gauge to maintain speed and sometimes I push it slightly beyond at first to get the ICE to kick in. If I can get away with accelerating from a stop using EV at 1 Bar then I go for it. If not, then I use the ICE usually at 2 Bars.

I read the Fuel Economy Tip List thread and I feel better about doing some things correctly. One problem is I find very little pedal pressure difference between 1 Bar and 2 Bars. I tend to go right to 2 Bars if I need some acceleration and do not seem to have the right touch to get 1-1/2 or 1-3/4 bars. Maybe I can improve if I practice some more and get the feel of the car at those levels.

Regards Eric

[corncobs]

Sounds like you are doing really well and fine tuning your operation of your FFH.

 

One thing you also keep an eye on is the arrow on the HVB. Every time you are accelerating and you can also keep the arrow pointing up you are working the engine very efficiently. It just takes a wiggle with the big toe to change the direction of the arrow.

 

Most importantly keep having fun and drive save.

[Eric.C.Boston]

Hello,

I noticed the blue arrow shows charging when the car is coasting. The car feels like my gas-only Fusion when coasting, so it must not really pull much energy to run the generator.

I paid more attention to the Empower gauge and it was very simplistic to say I only accelerated at two bars. I did not take a defensive driving course, but I tend to modulate the accelerator pedal with traffic flow. I will back off the accelerator pedal and coast if I see traffic slowing down or stopped ahead.

The steep uphills did take 2 bars, but there were plenty of 1-1/2 or 1-3/4 bar periods as I crested the uphill or when the incline was not very steep. If it drops to 1 bar, I back off to get into EV mode and go back to 1 bar. This seems to be working well.

Even though I realize cold weather affects fuel economy, I am glad that I got the car in the colder weather. It will be interesting to see how much fuel economy improves with warmer temperatures.

I read about Hill Assist last night and noticed I had the button on the shifter this morning. I want to try it with Eco Cruise on the next hilly highway trip.

Regards Eric

[lolder]

The charging while coasting is a built in function to mimic automatic transmissions and not indicative of how much energy can be pulled from the main traction motor. The maximum energy is drawn from it while braking. The other motor/generator is over 60 HP and usually takes at least the same amount of power from the ICE when it is running to charge the HVB as is required to move the car ,

The most efficient use of the throttle is to keep steady pressure and NOT modulate it with the traffic. I know that is hard sometimes but the computer is always trying to find the most efficient operating point for the ICE and when you keep changing the demand it's more difficult. Some people find it very hard to change that habit and Type A traffic doesn't help. My wife has not been able to break her habit in almost six years.

The HVB in the 2013+ models can accept 66 hp of electricity for 10 seconds while charging and produce 88 hp while discharging for 10 seconds. That's three times the power figures of the 2010-12 models like mine. The ENERGY capacity of them is about the same at 1.4 kw-hrs. Power is Kws and energy is Kw-hrs.

 

The power and energy capacity of a HEV ( not a PHEV ) HVB is not very important. It is important that it never fail and that's how it's managed. Early Prii in government life tests lost 70% of their HVB capabilities but their mileage was unaffected. Only one minute full throttle acceleration tests which weren't done would have shown deterioration. Subsequent HVBs have been much better, the 2010 FFH only lost 8%.

 

The latest generation FFH gets 4 mpg more than mine because it's lighter, less powerful and has a lower drag co-efficient, not because it's HVB is more powerful.

Edited March 30, 2015 by lolder

[Easy Rider]

I read about Hill Assist last night and noticed I had the button on the shifter this morning. I want to try it with Eco Cruise on the next hilly highway trip.

 

 

In my experience, the "hill assist" does pretty much nothing until you are going down what would be classed as a MOUNTAIN.

 

Then it works really good with Cruise IF you turn it on before starting down the steep grade.

 

If you wait until you think the cruise is losing control because you are speeding up, it still works but the engagement is kind of a shock.

[hybridbear]

The HVB in the 2013+ models can accept 66 hp of electricity for 10 seconds while charging and produce 88 hp while discharging for 10 seconds. That's three times the power figures of the 2010-12 models like mine. The ENERGY capacity of them is about the same at 1.4 kw-hrs. Power is Kws and energy is Kw-hrs.

I'm not sure these hp numbers are right. The max charge limit is 35 kW and the max discharge limit is 65 kW. These limits can go lower when conditions are less than ideal (hot/cold HVB, high/low SOC, etc). Also, 1.4 kWh might be the pack capacity but this is not the useable capacity. The portion used by the car is much smaller. Only about 40-45% IIRC

[Eric.C.Boston]

Hello,

I do not expect the charging current during coasting is that big, but it is still a benefit as the HVB is not discharging.

Modulating the accelerator may not be the right term. I think the accelerator has more that two positions and will coast, then slowly brake, if there is a stop ahead. I tend to leave a gap with the vehicle ahead and will try to smoothly adjust to stay with the traffic flow. The adjustments are usually tens of seconds apart or longer. The only thing that is not smooth is my foot will immediately come off the accelerator to coast. I could likely do better, but the MPG is improving. So far I am pleased with the results.

There might be something to the sitting 12+ hours overnight negatively affecting gas mileage compared to 9 hours at work. I noticed when starting the car at home the ICE immediately starts. When starting from work the car goes into EV mode, then starts the ICE about 15 seconds after I start moving. This results in about a 10 MPG reading over the first 6 minutes in the Morning and about a 18 MPG reading over the first 6 minutes in the evening. I am not running the heater in either case.

I turned off EV+ mode and the brake coach this morning. I did not find EV+ mode that useful as I tend to drive at 1 Bar EV on the Empower gauge near home and near work.

I bought the service information as I did for my last car. I got an OBDLink MX Blutooth scan tool, but have only used it on my old Fusion with the Forscan software. The Forscan software is neat as it shows many of the Ford PIDs on my old Fusion. I hope it will show some of the interesting Ford PIDs listed in the service information for the new car. The new Fusion has a lot of modules!

Thanks all for your comments so far.

Regards, Eric