Oman

Hmmm, marketspeak. LiPo has better power to weight ratios than the others. The statement that they can better handle physical damage is complete bunk though... the reason Hyundai had to work so hard with them is to try to design a casing that reduced the chances of physical damage and an interconnect system with multiple break points to try to prevent catastrophic runaway. The risk (outside of the chemistry itself) is directly related to its energy density and rapid discharge ability. I've been working with LiPo packs for several years now and they can be extremely violent when mishandled. The thing you can say about the Ford NiCD system is that it is reliable, well understood, and safe. I think everyone will be moving to LiPo systems in the future. Someone has to be first... just not me. I want a few years more improvement on the tech first in an automobile environment. The article also mentions laptops but forgets that iPods and such use tiny little LiPo packs. When a LiPo pack is pierced the reaction is instant and violent. I don't have a GOOD link handy but I do have a link to a couple of, well, not too bright, folks who shot a small LiPo pack with a 357. The pack is INSIDE a metal tool box. Now imagine 200x this much material behind your back seat in an accident. (ate my link - try again - http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eqbTLwVynE - had to add a space after the HTTP) Jon

All of the high voltage cables are covered with blaze orange insulators. If you disconnect the 12v battery you are essentially disconnecting the HVB. The interconnect relay on the HVB pack will only close when 12v is present. The way to be super-sure is to remove the HVB manual internconnect. The instructions are in the owners manual. The 12v system in the FFH is pretty much the same as any other car. The only difference is that instead of an alternator there is a voltage converter that generates 12v from the high voltage system. There are a boatload of computers on the FFH (as in most modern cars). They communicate on two different busses running around the car. The real risk is that you modify the 12v wiring and cause glitches. Jon

I was waiting for this comment... An eCVT and a CVT are not at all the same thing. Every non-hybrid car that has a CVT uses a completely different system. There have been reliability problems with standard CVT transmissions. eCVTs are far more reliable and flexible than CVTs. A standard CVT works just like the belt based speed control on a riding lawn mower. In fact many use high-strength belts. You just adjust where the belt sits within a large pulley and that changes the ratio between the two pulleys. There are wear and strength problems with this system as well as unwanted friction. An eCVT is a single planetary with the sun gear driven by an electric motor. This allows a very wide input to output ratio (because the sun can spin in either direction). The reason you can't easily put this into a standard car is because the motor needs to draw power at low ICE to wheel ratios and will generate power at high ICE to wheel ratios. There must be a source and sink for that power which in a hybrid is both the HVB and the traction motor. The eCVT is far lighter than a 6 speed transmission. It consists of about 40 parts with few significant wear items, where a 6 speed consists of over 500 parts including fluid pumps, valves, clutches, and bands. The Hyundai system is a 6-speed mated to an extra set of clutches with an electric motor bolted in. It is an improvement over the older partial hybrid design but doesn't quite get to the advantages of a full hybrid. It's all about the patents and cost to license (if that was even an option). BTW: The advantage of the CVT in general over a standard transmission is that the computer can choose any combination of ICE RPM / POWER and electric power based on a real-time calculation for best efficiency. When using a 6-speed the computer has six ratios to choose from and each has "slop" because of the torque converter. The "shift" feeling is something long enjoyed by car buffs. Stomping on the gas and getting whiplash when a shift occurs is/was a desired trait and showed how much power was under the hood. Getting the exact same acceleration without the shift is often described as "mushy" or slow. Even when the car is accelerating faster people often think that it isn't performing as well if they don't feel the bang of a quick shift. I should know - I restored a 1969 "R" code Mustang (that's a 428 Cobra Jet with shaker). It has a C6 three-speed. The seats don't have headrests and if I don't warn the passengers about the hard shifts, well, let's just say I always warn them.

When you open the door there are no lights and the dash is completely blank, right? When you say your battery has 3/4 power you mean the HVB display? That is a different battery. The 12v system must come on to power the computer in order to enable the high voltage system. Two things need to be done. First the 12v battery needs to be completely charged. It isn't like the 12v on a normal car as it is (or should be) a deep cycle battery and doesn't receive a heavy drain at start. It needs a long drive (several hours) or a charger put on it to charge it completely. Second the dealer needs to do a load test when the car is off. It is possible that there is a load draining the 12v. The most common is a phone charger. The 12v sockets stay live in the FFH (which I LOVE) but some chargers are crap and they have a pretty good draw even when nothing is connected to them. Jon

I can't speak to how Toyota does it but the FFH will refuse to drive in EV after the HVB drops to a certain level. Turn the car off and on and you can go again for just a little bit. Repeat a few times and the HVB will drop to a point where the car will not switch at all to EV mode. At this point there should still be enough to get the ICE running again but no one can guarantee that. The computer won't let the HVB drain to a point where the cells would be damaged (this can only really be done by storage loss or a malfunction). If there isn't enough juice to get the ICE running you have to have the car towed to the dealer where they can put a special charger on the HVB to bring it up to a point where the ICE can be started. No tow truck or the like can "jump" the HVB and that is the only thing that can start the ICE. There have been cases of the 12V battery going out and that can easily be jumped. The 12V system has to be "alive" to allow the high voltage system to work. Jon

I agree with your point about relying on the system. I always do a mirror and head turn check. I also use my turn signal (I think I might be the only one up here that does). There was one of those times though when somehow I completely missed the car... it must have moved over or in or something because I SWEAR IT WASN'T THERE!... but I saw the orange light on as I went to move over and thought "that darn thing is malfunctioning." Another shoulder check to see what could be bugging the sensor and it was a car. Ugh, I'm telling you is wasn't there before. So the technology is a nice back-up for the normal human condition of being imperfect. What I do find very valuable on a regular basis is the other feature of the system, backing out of a parking lot. Often I'm boxed in by larger cars and I just can't see much. The warning is a bit more sensitive than I would like but it is nice to know that it sees something. I it does and I don't have a bead yet on whatever it is yet I can be even more cautious. Jon .

I lose about 5MPG, but most of my trips are over 30 miles. It would be more if I were doing short trips. The car needs to warm up before it is efficient. If it doesn't get to warm up it will get crummy mileage. The cold weather is only part of the problem. In cold weather states the gas is reformulated in the Winter and contains less energy per gallon. Add up the denser air, less energy in the gas, having to roll over ice and snow, and cold engine and it hurts. Jon

I use this one quite often. Start car. Leave it in park. Depress accelerator 3/4 way. So long as you press, ICE runs. Perfect for what you need. Jon

According to the FOMOCO it is a deep cycle battery. Makes sense but it will test differently. Don't replace with a standard starting battery. Jon

Most people forget to add in the single biggest impact in cold weather states after cabin heat/emissions system heat - fuel blend. Winter blend in Minnesota has about 3% less energy then Summer. Comes right off the top. Jon

There is no way to know precisely when the car will run out of gas. The reason being that #1) the car is never perfectly level and 2) none of the systems used to measure the fuel level / consumption are completely accurate. There can be 2 or 3 usable gallons of gas in the tank when you start to venture down a hill. At that point the fuel sloshes to the font of the tank and the pick-up runs dry. Out of gas. If you had been on level ground you could have gone quite a ways more. Because it is a liquid in a tank and the car moves about it is very hard to determine the difference between 99% empty and 100% empty. The point is you shouldn't care about that difference. For several reasons you should fill back up before you get close to 100% empty. Is there any good reason to drive it down to nothing, other than playing silly games with pump prices or fooling yourself into feeling good because some stupid number on the dash says you went "real far" on your tank? (sorry for the harshness, I just can't quite understand the willingness to risk your safety (running out of gas on the road - bad for your health) and life of the car (run the fuel pump dry and Ford can refuse the warranty repair)) Jon

Holy cow! I'm glad I got the '10. I did some checking and it seems first the front headrest changes were mandated now they have to carry through to the rear. I'm sure the Gubment meant well. Seems you were supposed to put up the headrests on the '10 when people were back there. No one ever did so when there was a rear-ender any back seat passengers could suffer neck injuries. Now the lowest position meets the safety standard. I haven't had an accident in over a dozen years, but I still would not let a passenger in the back seat without a headrest. PS: Have you tried moving your mirror up? It is mounted on an arm with two ball joints. I actually keep my mirror up next to the roof of the car, then adjust the angle to see out the back properly. This makes the auto-dim work better and gives better visibility both out of the front window (no mirror in my front field of view) and back (the higher angle gives me a better angle to see what is behind with less obstruction) Jon

Yes, there is a Lloyd's rubbertite cargo liner cut specifically for the hybrid. You have to find a site that allows you to specify the Fusion in general and then when you select the product it will ask for the sub model. This is where you specify the hybrid. Not all sites are setup hybrid aware. Sometimes you have to call. I think I got mine at autoanything.com

Went from a 4WD/AWD Expedition to the FFH. I had heard that there were issues with the Prius and snow when it came to traction. Braking, T/C, and mode switch issues. I have not had a single problem here in MN. If I park the car wet the brakes can sometimes be a bit grabby the first time they are used when I leave at the end of the day but it will do that in the Summer too. Overall I am pretty pleased with the Winter performance. Jon

In my quote above MG2 is the traction motor. I'll rephrase to traction motor. The reply was actually about understanding how you can use a single planetary to accomplish a very efficient transmission. The traction motor is a huge part of a completed hybrid but it doesn't have anything to do with the planetary and reduction motor being an efficient transmission. As well MG2 doesn't alter the traction motor RPM. The traction motor is geared directly to the wheels. MG2 takes the narrow range of efficient ICE RPM and maps it to the larger wheel RPM. An electric motor already has a large RPM range. Jon

Weird. I wonder what condition would cause the computer to throw a "tighten bolt" code... Jon

Don't put the traction motor into the equation. Just look at the ICE, MG1, and then the output of the ring gear. MG2 is just adding (or stealing) power to the output. The thing that makes it work so well is that MG1 is capable of turning at up to 6400 RPM - In either direction. That means a total of 12,800 RPM range on the sun gear. That is one reason the "whrrr" or whistle that you sometimes hear on the FFH does not seem to match either the ICE RPM or the vehicle speed. Rather it is a function of the two. When you are accelerating the computer might actually start dropping the RPM of the ICE while the car is still increasing in speed. It can do this by decreasing the speed of MG1 thus changing the whirring sound you hear (seeming to move down in frequency). Neat stuff. Jon

There is a reason that it makes so much sense to me. A long time ago I was involved in a project to design a better constant velocity transmission. Essentially this device takes the unbelievably wide RPM ratio from a turbine engine and keeps the output shaft turning at a near constant RPM to drive a generator. It happens that the best design we tested (using simulation software then a real prototype) was a large planetary with an electrically driven sun. These are used to today on jet aircraft. And they also are 2/3 of the hybrid drive system we have in the FFH. I wasn't directly involved with the engineering of the device itself rather the hardware and software that drove the simulations. That however got me pretty darn familiar with the concepts. If I am trying to explain how this works to someone unfamiliar with them I actually start by explaining how the planetary gear works in an automatic transmission. By simply locking one part of the planetary you change the input and output ratios in the other parts compared to when it is free spinning. Once they get that you simply say instead of free or locked you spin it under power from a motor. The amount of spin changes the effective input and output ratios just as lock and free did but with an unlimited range in between. Jon

Stupid name but yes. A more accurate name would I think might be power shunt mode. The power used by the transmission motor is not lost, it still ends up back at the wheels. So in essence the ICE and the transmission motor are both providing power to the wheels but some of that is being taken by the traction motor to feed back in to the system. That is why the efficiency of the motors and power controller are more important than the efficiency of the HVB. Only a portion of the power that travels through the system ever makes it into the HVB for storage. Jon

I know. Many documents talking about the Ford system use MG1 as the traction motor... maybe a mistake taken to convention? Unfortunately traction and transmission have even the same 1st three letters! I did notice that the hybrid info display actually eludes to the operation I described above. If you look at it while driving at highway speed you will see a set of lines moving from the ICE to the traction motor. The width of the line varies a bit seemingly indicating the amount of current moving in that direction. The flow in that line will switch directions when you slow indicating that the planetary drive motor is now requiring power. It doesn't show the detail as to the source or sink because it only shows the HVB going to the traction motor. But it does show that electrical energy is being transferred between the traction and planetary drive motor one way or the other at just about all times. (note the change in convention used above :>) Jon

On most engines of the time you had no choice. Removing the filter would cause the oil to pour out the filter connection, often at a very high rate. The point that Mobil was making was that if the car was designed to keep the oil clean for 25,000 miles then the oil would last that long. Older natural oil blends could not do that, even if kept clean. Mobil was advertising the capabilities of the oil but there wasn't really a car made that could take advantage. That was where the lawsuits came in. The FFH engine design keeps the oil cleaner. Between no idling and better control of the RPMs the oil has less wear. That is why they say 10,000 between changes. I did one 5K then went to 10K. The oil is clean. You can actually send in a sample of your used oil and get a pretty good measurement of the oil and engine condition. I haven't done so but if Ford says 10K then you can bet they have tested it to at least 15K. Jon

It is far more complex than that. The gauges only tell you about what is going in and out of the HVB. They do not tell you what is going on between MG1 and MG2. MG2 is always either generating or consuming power. The computer decides if this power is going to go to/from the HVB or to/from MG1. MG1 is also always generating or consuming. When the ICE is idle MG2 can't contribute to wheel power. It consumes a small amount of power spinning at just the right RPM to make sure the ICE stays still. Only MG1 can contribute motive power. With the ICE idle the power that MG1 is allowed to consume is limited to the power stored in the HVB. The computer limits the draw to far below the maximum that the HVB could provide because drawing at maximum would greatly reduce the life of the HVB. MG1 is actually sized to be able to draw from both MG2 and the HVB at the same time since under heavy acceleration it will have both sources. The top speed of 47Mph EV is imposed because MG2 is essentially the transmission. It is only capable of spinning so fast before it risks damage. That spin speed is the difference between the ICE RPM and the final drive RPM. That is also the reason that MG2 is always either consuming or generating power. When the ICE RPM is higher than what is needed at the final drive (heavy acceleration) MG2 allows itself to spin therefore allowing a higher ICE RPM but with carefully controlled drag. This drag is created by generating electricity. This electricity plus what is stored in the HVB is used to augment what the ICE put putting out and sent to MG1. At highway speeds MG2 is actually consuming electric power in order to keep the ICE RPM low compared to the final drive RPM. If there is a lot of spare power in the HVB it will be used but that will quickly be depleted so in reality at highway speeds MG1 is actually dragging a bit to generate electricity to keep MG2 spinning under power. That is one of the reasons that the car is less efficient at highways speeds than one might expect. There is loss at each stage of this power round-trip. But doing this is more efficient than letting the ICE spin at a higher RPM than it needs to. With Atkinson cycle engines you always want to be at the lowest possible rpm. The software to keep track of all this and figure out microsecond by microsecond what combination of power routing and RPMs will be most efficient is pretty amazing. BTW: Classically the word "Engine" was used to describe something that used an external fuel source and "Motor" was used to describe something that uses an internal or electrical power source.

You can read up on the Mobil1 debacle online. The long and the short of it was the OIL could last that long and not lose viscosity so long as it was kept clean. No oil filter could do that. People wrecked their engines thinking that they could go that long without doing anything. In order to go 25K you had to drain the oil and replace the filter before the filter lost the ability to clean effectively then put the oil back in, all without exposing the oil to additional moisture and contaminants. Mobil wasn't lying about the oil but they were not giving out all the details either in their ads. If any oil sits too long after being run (say you store your car for 3 months) the oil will need to be replaced. Not for loss of viscosity but because the contaminants get a chance to separate and concentrate. No oil can prevent this. Jon

I do get tired of the "made in the USA" argument as it relates to cars. The argument is abused on both sides. Final assembly really has little to do with the big picture. There are thousands of people employed by car companies. Only a small percentage of those are involved in the final assembly of the car. For me the questions are : Where are most of the employees employed? Where are the high paying jobs located? What is country of origin mix for the parts of the car? Where do the company profits go? What country gets the corporate taxes? Who owns the company? I do wish that Ford assembled this car in the USA. I do understand why they don't. Toyota assembling a car in the USA doesn't make it an American car or company. I don't choose a car based solely on the where the company is located but if all things are equal I will lean towards supporting American companies. Now if we can just get Google, Microsoft, etc. to not shuffle all their income through Ireland to avoid paying their fair share US taxes... Jon

The other thing to remember here is that modern oil doesn't get old (at least not anywhere near 10,000 miles). The filter gets old and allows the oil to get dirty. Spend on the filter and just stay within the manufacturer specs on the oil. The tests to meet the specs are very stringent. If the oil meets the spec it won't be a problem. Who cares if the oil can meet 3x the spec, if you are going to change it well within the specifications test lifetime it doesn't matter that the oil recycler gets better oil. Jon