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I own a 2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid and recently went out of town for Christmas. I parked my car in long-term parking. I came back tonight, walked to my car, and noticed that the windows were completely down on all four doors and the sun roof was rolled open as well. None of my belongings (just some papers and a bag) look like they have been disturbed and I don't think there is anything missing. I don't know whether it was locked or not, because I started the car remotely and pressed the lock button as I walked to the car. It's rainy and freezing cold here and there is no way that I left them open before I left. The police were not impressed and stated that they thought that a low flying jet rattled the electronics. Has anybody had similar happen? Should I be worrying about an electronic theft? I am planning to go to the dealership tomorrow and have them evaluation the computer but should there be something that I have them evaluate specifically?

I wish to bring to the attention of the FFH drivers here, Hybrid Assistant, a free Android app which allows one to get much more information on the screen of a well positioned smartphone. I use it all the time and it helps me a lot understanding what happens under the hood and improving my driving style and hence, mileage. The app needs a fast BT OBDII emitter like the OBDLink LX (about 50 $), recommended by their site after extensive testing. In addition to providing real-time information, Hybrid Reporter, another app available on their site, allows for creating detailed reports with tables and graphs, much like the ones produced by LarryH. It were his graphs which convinced me the FFH is a very economic hybrid. Driving in Germany, everything is in metrics, but HA and HR also work with miles and gallons. If you're interested, please visit my message showing some video examples of my use, and have a look at the attached pictures. Jan Report_2017-03-26_11-38-39 Kempten Stuttgart.html

We financed our 2014 Fusion Hybrid used from a Suburu dealership in Aug 2017, and it was in great shape with only 20k miles. We had no issues with it until March of this year. We thought we had an oil pan leak and had a family friend replace it. However, we continued having issues. We replaced many things this gentleman said needed repair, until he got to the engine. Our piston and another part had completely melted/disintegrated into the engine. We hadn't driven the car in 2-3 months at this point. We recently had to get it towed to our new residence and part of the engine fell out. The hybrid battery is also completely dead. We don't know what to do. We still owe like 15k on the car. Has anyone ever heard of problems like these? Or anyone who is more well-versed on this topic have helpful suggestions on what on earth we could do with this car? Thank you so much. We are really at a loss here.

I have been doing a lot of general research to prepare for this winter with a comprehensive winter weather strategy to see the least decrease in fuel economy. Part 1: Grille blocking Last year acdii made a grille cover, see this thread, which he then kindly sent me as a gift after he got rid of his first FFH, the Blue Devil. I ran out of zip ties so I bought more on Amazon planning to put this cover on soon as temps are now consistently below 50oF. Since the temps dropped last week I've seen a marked drop in fuel efficiency. Trips that used to consistently get 60-65 MPG now are only seeing 50-55. My current tank average has dropped from about 57.5 MPG over the first 200 miles to now 56 MPG over 275 miles. These last 75 miles have taken a big toll on my fuel economy averaging only around 52 MPG. Unfortunately, the zip ties I bought are being shipped from China. I'm am quite annoyed at Amazon that nothing prior to purchase indicated that they would be shipped from China and that they would take 3 weeks to arrive. I expected them to come like most Amazon items in about 1 week or less. So while I'm stuck waiting I decided to do more research. Grille blocking is useful to help the ICE warm up faster and to insulate it to keep it warm longer. The cold winter air flowing over the radiator and engine compartment while you drive quickly sucks the thermal energy out of the components that you want to stay warm for maximum efficiency. Since the FFH is designed to spend a large percentage of its miles with the ICE off this is a problem in winter. However, you do not want to block the flow of cold air to the electric components. While the ICE is less efficient in the cold, the hybrid computer and electric components are not adversely affected by the cold. In fact, you want to keep those components as cool as possible to keep them from wearing out. Thus it is important to understand where the radiator is for the hybrid system and not block its airflow. In the FFH you'll see that there are two radiators. A large one with a fan, for the ICE, and a small one that is in front (closer to the grille) than the large one. The small one is for the hybrid components. In the FFH it is located down low and receives its airflow from the lower grille opening. The ICE radiator spans the entire height and gets airflow from both the large upper grille and the lower grille. In my past experiences with using acdii's grille cover on the upper grille (see this thread) I found that even in the summer the ICE didn't get too hot with the upper grille blocked. However, I didn't leave it on because I was concerned that the electronics would get too hot from the limited airflow through the engine compartment even though the inverter radiator being still exposed to air. Sadly, there is no way currently to monitor the temp of the inverter coolant. Hopefully someone brilliant will figure out the XGauge coding for that soon. Thus, my plan for this winter is to use acdii's grille cover on the top grille while temperatures are consistently below 50oF. Once the temperatures drop down below freezing I may block one row of the lower grille. I do not want to block any more of that lower grille to keep the electric components as cool as possible. I discovered that as soon as the car is turned on the coolant is flowing through the inverter radiator. Even though the ICE was not very warm and the inverter coolant was barely warmer than room temperature the coolant was constantly flowing while the car was in park sitting in the garage in my tests this evening. I want to further test this when the car has been sitting for hours and the ICE/inverter components are completely cold but it seems likely that this coolant will circulate non-stop when the car is on regardless of temperature. For this reason I don't want to interfere with that by blocking the lower grille except partially in extreme cold. The reason to consider partially blocking the lower grille in extreme cold is because the ICE is still cooled by that grille and in extreme cold blocking the upper grille only might not be enough to keep the ICE warm. The common Prius grille blocking links talk about only blocking the lower grille on the current gen Prius since its inverter radiator is located up high. The Prius also appears to constantly circulate the inverter coolant anytime the car is turned on regardless of temperature. Part 2: Use the heated seats Instead of turning on the HVAC right away when the ICE is cold I plan to use the heated seats for initial warmth. Turning on the heated seats will not make the ICE come on like turning on the HVAC will. On low each heated seat draws about .13 amps from the HVB or 0.0364 kW. This is a minimal power draw, less than the headlamps. Part 3: Intelligent HVAC use I use "intelligent" here to mean that I'm applying my knowledge of the FFH's inner workings to how I control the HVAC settings. Since below a certain coolant temp threshold the ICE will run constantly to make heat I don't want to turn the HVAC on until the coolant temp is warm enough not to interfere with normal operation. Since the PCM update modified these settings I don't know yet what that temperature is. I also plan to not set the HVAC temp any higher than absolutely necessary. Parts 2 & 3 will improve efficiency by not causing the ICE to run only to make heat which is not efficient. Part 1 improves efficiency by getting the ICE warm faster and keeping it warm longer. I don't sacrifice much personal comfort to do this since in the winter I'm already dressed for being outside and don't need much heat anyway. When leaving from home our car is also parked in a heated garage so we always get into a warm car at the start. In any car you wouldn't have heat immediately so turning on the HVAC on from the start does no good. With the grille blocking strategy I hope to dramatically lessen the ICE warm up time so that the delay compared to a gas only car is minimal. I wanted to share this strategy so that others can consider implementing any of the above steps or adding their own suggestions. Once I know the minimum coolant temp to turn the ICE off and still have heat I will add it.

I'm curious how other owners are scheduling their oil changes. Are you going by a set number of miles? By a set time period? By the oil life monitor? For those using the oil life monitor, at what % are you changing the oil? How many miles has it taken to reach that % level? Since I have 3 years of free oil changes at a local dealer I have been getting my oil changed more often than I will later on. The coupons are based on 15,000 miles a year and 3 free oil changes a year. So I've been basically getting my oil changed every 5000-6000 miles. Most of the time the oil life monitor has shown around 50% oil life remaining at that point. However, my last oil change was closer to 6000 miles and included our road trip with 4000+ miles of ICE run-time. Typical past oil changes were around 2500-3000 miles of ICE run-time. In this case the oil life monitor showed only about 30% remaining life after 6000 miles. Even once I'm beyond the first 9 free oil changes I'm not inclined to go a full 10,000 miles between oil changes. I might stretch it out to 8000-9000 miles at that point though and just combine oil change and tire rotation then each time. Let's not start discussing here about how many miles you should go between oil changes, I'm just curious how you determine when to change oil and what the oil life monitor shows over longer intervals and what happens if you let it get down to a low % oil life remaining.

This information is adapted from information published on the Prius Warm Up Stages. Our cars operate much the same. This information should help us all understand the cars better and get better gas mileage. Over time I will edit this post as I learn more about how the FFH works. Stage 0 (S0): Car begins in EV mode. Certain HVAC settings may cause the ICE to immediately start instead of allowing EV operation. The FFH will stay in S0 until the power demand from your acceleration exceeds the power that can be provided by the HVB and the electric motor. Stage 1a (S1a): Initial warm-up with late ignition timing and diminished engine power. Engine-off at stops: No. Engine-off gliding: No. EV Mode: No. Unless the ICE is already quite warm (above 60 or 65 C it appears), S1a begins at the conclusion of S0. S1a terminates at about 40C coolant temp. You can tell when S1a ends because the ICE begins providing the power needed to propel the car and charge the battery. S1a is the worst stage because the ICE is on, burning lots of fuel to warm itself up, and the electric motor is powering the car and depleting the battery. One should drive slowly or sit and charge the battery during S1a for optimal fuel economy. This is why some users (rjent & others) reported better fuel economy on short trips using remote start to idle the FFH until S1a finished. During S1a, the ignition timing is retarded & the ICE is producing almost no power. The focus is on heating up the catalytic converter as quickly as possible. After my driving last night it appears that the car will go into S1a after S0 even when the coolant temp is above 40 C. Last night I got in the car after an errand and the coolant temp according to ET Mode was 57 C when I started the car. The car went into S1a after S0 and stayed in S1a until the coolant temp reached 65 C. Once the coolant temp reached 65 C it went right into S2. Tip: You can skip S1a and go right to S1b by briefly shifting the car from D into L and then shifting back to D. You must wait until S1a starts to do this and you must keep the shifter in L until you hear the engine sound change indicating that the car has gone into Stage 1b. It is unknown what impact this might have on the life of the ICE or wear and tear on it. Ford has informed us that we will not cause permanent damage by doing this. You can tell if the car is in S1a or S1b by the sound of the ICE when accelerating. In S1a the ICE will continue at idle and not rev while accelerating. However, it is a little harder to tell when stopped idling if you're in S1a or S1b just by the sound. The way to tell is to look at the Engage screen. The Engage screen shows total power demand placed on the ICE for both driving the car and power to recharge the HVB. When in S1a the power demand on the ICE at idle is less than .5 bars. When the car transitions to S1b the power demand will jump to typically about 1 bar while at idle. Since S0 & S1a typically deplete the battery, the ICE begins rapidly charging the battery once entering S1b. Stage 1b (S1b): Continued warm-up with normal ignition timing and power. Engine-off at stops: No. Engine-off gliding: No. EV Mode: No. S1b is much better than S1a because the engine will power the car and the generator normally, but it still cannot engine-off glide. This stage immediately follows S0 if the coolant temperature is high enough.. Otherwise, S1b begins when S1a ends and lasts until the following points depending on engine coolant temperature at the start of S1b: below 40C/104F: until 40C/104F.between 40C/104F and 50C/122F: until 50C/122F. (I verified this last night)between 50C/122F and 60C/140F: until 65C/149F. (I verified this last night)I need to verify the numbers above in ET Mode but this appears to be what I have approximately experienced.Post PCM update (13B07) it appears that S1b ends following the table below below 40C/104F: until 40C/104F.between 40C/104F and 45C/113F: until 45C/113F.between 45C/122F and 55C/140F: until 55C/131F. The coolant temp can also now drop as low as 51C/124F before making the ICE run for heatStage 2 (S2): Full Operation Engine-off at stops: Yes. Engine-off gliding: Yes. EV Mode: Yes. This stage starts when S1b ends. If the ICE temp falls below 50C you will go back into S1b. In the winter, the car spends a lot of time going back and forth between S2 and S1b in city driving. Notes on HVAC usage If you have the heat turned on, then the car will not move from S1b into S2 until the coolant temp reaches 60C. Heat use also makes the car much more likely to switch back into S1b after having been in S2. Note: Engine-off at stops and Engine-off gliding will not work while the window defogger is on, even if in a stage where they otherwise would work. Read about the Prius Warm Up Stages at: http://priuschat.com/threads/gen3-warming-up-stages.76501/#post-1068435

I got following lease deal for 2016 Ford Fusion SE Hybrid w/ 502A (leather + front heated seats) + Moon Roof + Intelligent access with push button start + inflating rear seat belts State: California (Bay Area) Miles: 10500 per year Lease period: 36 month lease MSRP: $31,515/- (Window sticker says - Total Before Discounts as $33,400/-) Down payment: $1720/- (due at lease signing, which includes 1st month's payment) Monthly payment: $220/- (for 35 months) (above lease prices includes everything i.e. tax, registration, fees etc.) Is this a good deal? Please do comment and share your lease prices.

During our road trip I've been able to gather and analyze a lot of data about how the car works. I'll try to break it down in parts.

If Ford did in fact infringe on these patents, then I hope that they do the right thing and pay the patent holder a fair royalty. http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140220/AUTO0102/302200079/Ford-sued-over-use-company-s-hybrid-vehicle-inventions Ford sued over use of company's hybrid vehicle inventionsSusan DeckerBloomberg NewsFord Motor Co., the second-biggest U.S. automaker, is accused of developing its hybrid vehicles using technology from a Baltimore company that won a patent-infringement case against Toyota Motor Corp., maker of the Prius. Paice LLC, in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, says hybrid and plug-in versions of Ford’s C-Max, Fusion and Lincoln MKZ all infringe its patents covering ways to control electric motors and internal combustion engines so they have increased fuel efficiency and reduced emissions without any loss of performance. Ford had licensed one of Paice’s patents under a deal struck in 2010. The two companies agreed not to litigate over other patents until Jan. 1, 2014, to give them time to reach a broader settlement. The negotiations, according to Paice’s complaint, were “short and one-sided.” “The truth is that Ford built its new hybrid system by relying heavily on the hybrid vehicle inventions it learned from Paice,” the company said in the suit, filed in federal court in Baltimore. The Abell Foundation, a nonprofit group that invests in Baltimore-area companies including Paice, also joined the suit against Ford. Alex Severinsky, a Soviet emigrant and engineer, created Paice to commercialize his work on a high-voltage method to power gas-electric hybrid motors. From 1999 to 2004, Severinsky and other Paice officials held more than 100 meetings and interactions with Ford to help the automaker develop a hybrid engine that would increase gasoline mileage without losing performance, according to the 50-page complaint. At the same time, Dearborn-based Ford was working with Toyota to develop a hybrid vehicle using Toyota’s Prius as a template. Paice says that Ford was sharing its technology with the Japanese automaker. Paice won a patent-infringement trial against Toyota in 2005 and the two companies reached a global settlement in 2010 on the eve of another trial that might have resulted in an import ban on Toyota vehicles had Paice won. Ford sought to pre-empt the latest lawsuit. It filed a complaint in December in Delaware Chancery Court seeking a court ruling that Paice couldn’t file a complaint under the terms of their 2010 agreement. The Paice lawsuit doesn’t seek a specific dollar amount from Ford. According to the complaint, Paice offered to license the technology to Ford for $150 per vehicle in 1999. Ford’s U.S. hybrid and electrified vehicle sales in 2013 climbed to 85,919, more than double the 33,476 a year earlier. By May last year, the automaker had beaten its previous annual best for hybrid and electrified U.S. vehicle sales, achieved in 2010. Ford and Toyota last year ended their collaboration on gasoline-electric systems for pickups and sport-utility vehicles. Paice also has pending infringement complaints against Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp. over the same patents.

Here is an excellent explanation about how the powersplit device in a hybrid works. The difference between the FFH & Fusion Energi is that the MG1 is larger in the Energi which allows it to reach a higher speed in EV mode (85 MPH vs 62 MPH). This is exactly how our cars work, the difference being that the gear ratio is different because of different size MG1, MG2 and engine. Toyota and Ford both use this design for their hybrids and this technology is why the Ford & Toyota hybrids are superior to hybrids made by Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Volkswagen or GM. All the other manufacturers place an electric motor sandwiched between the engine and the automatic transmission. That is a less efficient design than what Ford & Toyota have done. The other hybrids are "one motor" hybrids, whereas the Ford & Toyota hybrids are "two motor" hybrids as they have 2 electric motor/generators as shown in the video. The next gen Honda Accord Hybrid and Plug-in Hybrid introduces a two motor hybrid system for Honda, their first. It will be interesting to see if it is engineered the same as I believe Toyota and Ford own the patents for this design.

Today in the mail I received a brochure for the 2014 Fusion Hybrid which included a $750 Private Cash offer. I guess Ford must think that we love our FFH so much that we're going to buy another one! Has anyone else received something similar without requesting information from Ford? I sure wish we had received one of those coupons last Fall when we ordered our car!! :banghead:

I'm curious a bit about the demographics of the Fusion owners on here. What did you own before? What other cars did you look at? For how many of you is the FFH your first hybrid? If you'd like please share your complete car history below. Thanks

I have been watching the tint topics and enjoying the pics of various tinted FFHs because it's something we've been talking about since before we bought our car. I wanted to create a general thread with all the resources in one place for other owners who are interested in tinting. Those of you with knowledge of this can hopefully help answer the following questions. If you think of any additional questions that many prospective tinters may have then please post them too. Thanks everyone! How can I find out the legal tint limits for my location? How do I pick a window tint? Does brand of tint matter? How much does tinting cost? How much of that cost is parts? How much is labor? How can I find a good installer? What are some warning signs of a poor quality installer?

I want to take issue with Ford's marketing of the Fusion and C-Max. Just like in Who Killed the Electric Car? it talks about how the automakers didn't really educate consumers or advertise the electric vehicles we see the same thing today with hybrids and PHEVs. If Ford really wanted to sell the Fusion Hybrid/Energi and C-Max Hybrid/Energi they would target their marketing at people who weren't previously considering hybrids/PHEVs and show them the advantages of these vehicles. But, they don't do this. Ford only advertises the C-Max as a Prius killer trying to convince people that it is better than the Prius. If you were not previously considering a Prius then this advertising is wasted on you. Also, many people have a negative image of the Prius in their mind, linking the C-Max with the Prius in advertising is not going to sell C-Maxes to those people. The Fusion Hybrid is advertised like a footnote at the end of the regular Fusion commercials and nothing is done to tout the benefits of the Fusion Hybrid in comparison with the gas Fusion. Also, where is the advertising for the Energi models??!? I have seen nothing other than the banner on Ford's website that occasionally displays the C-Max Energi and Fusion Hybrid when going to Ford.com. There is a scene in Who Killed the Electric Car? that mentions how GM went about contacting people who were interested in buying the EV1 and telling them all the limitations of the vehicle and then proceeding to claim that no one wanted it. Nowadays there is not enough done to advertise the benefits of buying a Fusion Hybrid over buying a Fusion EB. There appears to be ZERO advertising about the benefits of buying an Energi model over buying a gas only vehicle. This is very disappointing. A few months ago I made a comment about how I'm not convinced that Ford really wants to sell these cars because of how they had to know that there would be an uproar about the real world fuel economy. I don't think that the engineers, marketing people and executives at Ford are so stupid that they didn't expect some backlash for building a car to ACE the EPA tests that would thus perform worse for many people in real life. When regular cars that are not built to ace the EPA tests often perform worse in real life for some drivers and better for others there is no way that Ford could have thought that what they did wouldn't cause an outrage from disappointed consumers. It seems that just about all consumers are disappointed. Experienced hypermilers are unable to exceed the EPA ratings in the Ford hybrids like they can in other hybrids. Regular consumers are getting much worse than they expected. And even I am a bit disappointed. I tried to not expect better than 47 MPG overall, but when our past cars have all done better than EPA estimates consistently it is hard to not expect that this car will also exceed those numbers. Sadly we're at 42.1 Lifetime on the dash and have found the city mileage to be more than 47 MPG but the highway mileage to be worse. And I am a bit disappointed. Cognizant of how consumers would react, I question how much they actually wanted to sell the cars...looking at the advertising I also question how much they want to sell the PHEVs. If we think about it, the hybrids and PHEVs and BEVs hurt the Ford dealers. Since we need to change oil less often in our hybrids than a gas car, that costs the dealerships money and costs Ford income from selling parts. Since we need brakes less often we also bring in less long-term revenue. A PHEV is even more extreme with the lack of oil changes and a BEV has no oil changes period, and no other routine maintenance associated with an ICE. This makes me worry that maybe the automakers have engineered the batteries to fail at a certain point, say 100,000 miles since that is beyond warranty outside of California, and then they're hoping to make up this lost revenue replacing battery packs. Since we're driving the first year of cars with a NEW battery pack design who knows what changes have been made. The old NiMH packs were proven to last a long time, but we don't know that about the Li-Ion packs yet. This makes me nervous. I'm not a conspiracy nut, but I try to be realistic. This whole world is corrupt. The system is broken. And who's to say that this isn't going on... Your thoughts?

From the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/07/16/us/16reuters-autos-ford-hybrids.html?hp I imagine this will be discussed more in the days to come.

As many of you know, I am very interested in understanding how the car works. For that purpose I bought a ScanGauge last summer and recently purchased a cheap Android tablet from Amazon and a Wi-Fi ELM 327 scanner to communicate with the tablet and Torque Pro app. The tablet setup is not very useful to look at data while moving to adjust my driving style, but it is very useful to log data to analyze offline. The ScanGauge does not log data to be able to analyze after the fact. I also bought a splitter cable so that I could use both the ScanGauge and the tablet at once, but they don't work together in the Fusion. In the Prius I can use both devices at the same time. Special thanks to larryh for explaining many things to me and getting me setup! I am going to use this thread as my overall summary of everything that I have learned about the FFH powertrain operation to date. I will also continue to post future knowledge gained in this thread. ICE Operation Observations Horsepower - the generator often places about a 15 horsepower load on the ICE when the battery is low and the ICE is doing maximum recharging. This is good for about 35 amps of current flowing into the HVB. In other situations it seems that each hp of ICE output to spin the generator is good for slightly less than 2 amps of current flowing into the HVB. In these situations the Generator Torque is consistently about 30 newton-meters. Torque shows this torque as a negative number. I think that's the unit of my data at least. Unfortunately, I don't have a way to track HP with Torque (just LOD) so I cannot calculate how much of each HP of engine output becomes 1 kW of electricity generated unless someone else can see something that I'm missing that would allow me to do so.With the ScanGauge II two of the most useful gauges I've found are the Horsepower and LOD (Load) gauges. Below is a BSFC chart for the 2nd Gen Prius (1.5L engine) and 3rd (current) Gen Prius (1.8L engine). BSFC = Brake Specific Fuel Consumption. If you aren't familiar with what that means you can read more here. Do take the time to read the explanation. Understanding this concept is crucial to maximizing your fuel economy. Notice how the Prius is most efficient, a low g/kWh, at a fairly high power (kW) output but a low engine speed (less than 3650 RPM). To get such a high power output a such a low speed the computer must be placing a high load on the engine. As described in the link above, in a normal gas car you're often operating at only about 25% throttle which is a light load on the engine. In the hybrid, the generator places a load on the ICE to increase the load and get the car to run in a more efficient BSFC region. For the Prius, which has a smaller engine, the kW output is a maximum of about 30 kW in the peak BSFC region. 30 kW = 22.37 hp. That isn't a lot of power demand. Unfortunately I don't have a BSFC graph for the FFH 2.0L engine. However, based on my observations of hp and LOD readings on my ScanGauge I have a pretty good idea where it is...When the FFH SGII output shows 33-42 HP (24.6-31.3) I have observed a LOD of 95+. This is typically a 2 bar acceleration on the Empower screen. The FFH acceleration coach considers this to be efficient and returns the maximum score on the acceleration coach bar. If I accelerate more slowly, I only see LOD numbers in the low seventies to low eighties. When accelerating harder than this I still see a high nineties LOD but the ICE is too far off to the right on the graph and is out of the most efficient range. This leads me to believe that the peak BSFC region for the Ford 2.0L Atkinson-cycle engine is somewhere around 20-35 kW of power. I have asked Ashley a few BSFC related questions and have been told that this info is proprietary and that Ford will not share that info with me.Warm up stages - when the ICE is in S1a the power demand on the ICE is very low, less than 10 hp and a LOD less than 60, this is quite inefficient and shows why skipping stage S1a improves fuel economy so much as discussed here.Transmission/battery storage efficiency appears to be about 95% when the ICE is generating electricity. I will continue to calculate more data for this as I have time to confirm the 95% efficiency and to check if other factors affect that efficiency. For example, Torque allows me to log the amps and volts at 1 second intervals. During a prolonged stretch of ICE on HVB charging I used the amps and volts from Torque to calculate the kW generated each second. I then converted this to kWh. Then I summed the kWh from my second-by-second calculations of kWh - ((amps x volts)/1000)/3600. I then looked at the percent change in absolute SOC according to Torque/ScanGauge. The car displays this data to 8 decimal places on the Torque app, this is very precise data. I took that delta in SOC and multiplied it times 1.4 since that's the kWh capacity of the pack. Then I could compare the data. Here is a set of sample calculations: kWh used SOC change SOC calc kWh Efficiency 0.10368587 7.78199768 0.108947968 95.170% EV Operation Observations Amps - the maximum regen braking charge seems to be about 65-70 amps. I've never seen the regen braking charge go above 75 amps while still getting 100% brake score. That seems to be the limit for using the traction motor as a generator (when braking the traction motor recharges the battery, when the ICE is charging the battery the electricity is generated by the generator motor). When driving in EV 1 bar on the Empower screen is about 40 amps of current flowing out of the battery. The max current I have seen flowing out of the battery has been about 110 amps. This happened when I was accelerating in EV at 1.5 or 1.75 bars and then it kicked over to the ICE. Since one motor/generator must spin the ICE up to speed (like a starter motor in a conventional car) there is a momentary spike in amps flowing out of the battery to start the ICE. There is also a momentary positive value of Generator Torque of about 18-21 newton-meters right when spinning the ICE up to speed.Recharging - The computer likes to charge the battery with a ~30 amp current flow when the battery SOC is low to maybe about 75% of the display. This seems to be in the most efficient range of the ICE as well as the LOD will often be 85+ when this load is placed on the ICE by the generator while accelerating. When the battery SOC is higher than 75% of the battery icon the amps from the ICE generator drops to 10-20 amps. If the battery is almost full the current flow drops to about 5 amps. Note: the car will aggressively charge the HVB if the useable SOC is less than 40%. From 40-50% useable SOC it will slowly charge the HVB as mentioned above.Coasting - when coasting with your foot off the gas pedal the generator places about a 5-10 amp load to gradually slow the car down.Idling - when idling the current draw to run the computers and charge the 12V battery is about 1.1-1.2 amps. This amount of current is drawn whether the car is in Park, Reverse, Neutral or Drive as long as you are not moving. The brake lights pull a minimal amount of current, but enough to make this range 1.2-1.3 amps when you are stepping on the brake.Lights - the headlights/taillights draw about 0.5 amps (140 watts). The park lights and fog lights draw the same amperage as the headlights. If you combine headlights and fog lights the current draw is about 0.9 amps (260 watts). This means that the headlights and fog lights each draw about 0.4 amps (110 watts) and the park lights draw about 0.1 amps (28 watts)Current draw when off - after turning off the car in the few seconds before the SGII turns off the power draw shows 0.08 amps. This is likely to run whatever computers are still active to display the Trip Summary and Lifetime Summary screens.Battery display on dash without charge/discharge arrows - It is very hard to get the battery display to show no arrows for charging or discharging. It appears that while moving the car displays no arrows when the current flow is less than 2 amps in or out of the HVB. However, sometimes the current flow will be less than 2 amps and the dash will still display arrows for charging or discharging. Also, when stopped a current flow of less than 2 amps displays as the HVB is discharging. No matter how hard I've tried I have never been able to get the display to show 0.00 amps as the current flow. With steady pedal pressure it is possible to keep the amp flow steady for many seconds though while driving as long as the slope of the road doesn't change.High Voltage Battery Pack Observations HVB temps - the HVB temp quickly increases when driving from the current flow in and out of the battery. In the winter, the HVB fans kick on when the HVB exceeds 70oF. The fans will stay on even when the HVB temp drops as low as 68oF. I haven't had any trips where the HVB temp has gone above 70 to trigger the fans and has then dropped lower than 68 with the fans operational to see if the fans will shut back off. It seems that the useable SOC will jump around when the HVB temp changes while the car is off. If the HVB cools then the useable SOC jumps. If the HVB temp rises from having been cold, the SOC seems to fall.The max power limit for the HVB is normally 35 kW. When the battery is very cold this drops. This also appears to drop when the HVB is very warm, but I don't have hard data to support this. This post shows data that an Energi owner gathered. The FFH should roughly compare.AC amp draw - the AC will draw 30-40 amps from the HVB when first turned on with a hot car. Once the car has cooled down the AC continues to draw an extra 4-7 amps minimum that we observed. This puts some numbers to the effect of AC on gas mileage. That is a lot of current that must be replaced by burning gasoline. 30-40 amps is roughly 8.4-11.2 kW of power draw to run the AC at first. This is a huge power draw.HVB Volts vary from 255-305 in my observations. Low voltages happen when the HVB is discharging and at a lower SOC. Higher voltages happen when the HVB is being charged and the SOC is higher. Volts are most commonly 280-290 and I typically use these numbers in my calculations.The battery icon on the dash is not linear. A 75% useable SOC equates to a battery icon that is ~8/10-9/10 full. A 60% useable SOC equates to a battery icon that is roughly 2/3 full. A 40% useable SOC equates to a 1/2 full battery icon. And a 20% useable SOC equates to a battery icon that is roughly 1/4 full. The 5% useable SOC that triggers the ICE to run and charge the battery while idling appears as roughly 1/8 full on the dash icon.The battery icon displays a rough estimate of the useable SOC of the battery. You can convert the useable SOC to the absolute SOC since the ScanGauge/Torque apps will allow you to access both data points. The linear equation is: y = 0.3837x + 0.312. y is the overall SOC and x is the useable SOC. This provides us some interesting data:The intercept is 31.2%, this means that if the useable SOC showed 0% the actual battery SOC would be 31.2%If we plug in 100% for x we get a result of 69.57% (0.3837 x 1 + 0.312)When idling the car will not let the useable SOC drop below 5% (33.12% absolute SOC) before turning on the ICE to charge the HVB. The ICE will run until the useable SOC reaches 30% before turning off againThis means the limits for HVB charge are 33.12% and 69.57%Since the car doesn't really allow the useable SOC to go much below 15% and doesn't often let it go much above 60% we can see that in normal driving the range is 36.96%-54.22%However, most trips don't see the useable SOC get as low as 15%, it's very hard to keep the car in EV mode once the useable SOC gets below 20% unless you're cruising on flat ground at low speeds with a minimal power demand. A typical useable SOC range while driving is 20-60%, this equates to 38.87%-54.22%The r2 is 0.998 indicating that the linear trend line is very accurate. Power Flow Screen Observations Charging HV Battery Here you have blue flow from the electric motor to the battery. There is also blue flow from the electric motor to drive. There is white flow from fuel to engine to drive and from engine to electric motor. This seems to be one of the most common powertrain options chosen by the FFH computers. This screen often shows when traveling at highway speeds. In this mode both the Generator & the Traction Motor are consuming mechanical energy from the ICE and are sending electrical energy to the HVB. In this mode the wheels are only receiving power from the ICE.Hybrid Drive In this case the HVB is also often being charged. When the HVB is being charged in Hybrid Drive the Generator is consuming mechanical energy and is converting it to electrical energy. Some of that electric energy is then consumed by the Traction Motor and converted back into Mechanical Energy to propel the car. The remaining electrical energy is sent to the HVB Sometimes the HVB is not being charged when in Hybrid Drive. Most often this occurs on the freeway when the HVB reaches a high level of charge. Sometimes the Traction Motor consumes mechanical energy and converts it to electric energy, then the Generator consumes electrical energy and converts it to mechanical energy to assist the ICE is propelling the car. Grille Cover Observations With 100% grille blocking and ambient temps below 20 degrees F I see that the coolant temp peaks at 185 F, Motor Inverter Coolant temp peaks at 120 F and Generator Inverter Coolant temp peaks at 140 F. These peak temps have been very consistent. I have never seen temps exceed the aforementioned values with 100% grille blocking. Highway driving generally keeps the Inverter temp between 100 F and 130 F (it cools to 100 F when driving short stretches of EV mode and then spikes quickly when the ICE is on and charging the battery). The Motor temp seems to usually hover between 100 F and 110 F when driving long freeway stretches. In city driving the Inverter temp quickly falls to the 60s or 70s since the ICE runs less and thus the generator does less work. In the city the Motor temp tends to be higher than the Inverter temp since the Motor is doing more work. Long stretches of city driving seem to keep the Motor temp between 65 F and 80 F. Regen braking causes the biggest spike in Motor temp, much more than accelerating in EV causes the temp to spike.As the weather warms I will slowly increase the air flow into the engine compartment to monitor these temps. These temps were a concern about grille covers prior. Now I am not concerned because I expect that temps will be much hotter in the summer with 0% grille blocking than they are now.As the weather has warmed the grille blocking has led to coolant temps exceeding 200 F. The peak I have observed has been about 230 F. This is still right at the midpoint of the temp gauge on MyView. The temp gauge is no higher with a coolant temp of 230 F compared to 180 F. This tells me that 230 F is a good operating temp. I will slowly begin removing foam now with increasing ambient temps and will report back.

Our new Fusion Hybrid and we're loving it! I've used the excuse of driving 15 miles to the store to get, you know, a pack of gum etc. etc. -- just because this is SO COOL to drive. I guess this sort of defeats the purpose of a gas saving vehicle. Hahaha. But it's been great. 580 miles. about 44.7 avg mpg.

So, every day I drive our FFH I wish we had bought one with a few more features. Every time I look at the front end and see the stone chips I regret the decision to pass that plow in New Mexico during our California road trip. I happened to find online today a local dealer with a 2013 FFH SE left that they're trying to clear out. Click here for the window sticker. Here is a link to the car on their website. Based on my calculations, if we got KBB trade-in value for our current 2013 FFH SE we would only be taking a loss of $3000 for depreciation when I offset the depreciation with the additional features the FFH linked above has. If I only count the features that I in hindsight wish we had bought on our car then the loss is closer to $6000 since the new FFH linked above includes features we don't really desire such as: premium paint, 18-inch wheels, Navigation and premium floor mats. When we drove our car off the lot the difference between the sale price of the vehicle and the amount we owed on our loan was $12,000. Since we've paid down our loan quickly the current KBB value minus our loan balance remaining is $17,000. The only thing that would be missing on this white FFH SE is the push-button start. I searched and searched for a leftover 2013 HyTi or a 2014 SE with PBS and not a lot of other features and I can't find anything. I wouldn't really want a 2014 anyway because of the loss of the Lifetime Summary. So, basically, I don't know what to do. I e-mailed the dealer this morning to ask them for more information and I haven't heard back yet. I think the only way I would make this deal is if they would give us $22,500 on the trade in and sell the new car for no more than $32,500 before Ford incentives. What do you think? Am I just being discontent & greedy? :spend: :drool: :play:

Has anyone used the Torque Pro app with the FFH to track data like you can with a ScanGauge? Larryh has done a lot of interesting analysis using Torque Pro in his FFE. I'm thinking about getting setup with Torque Pro for the FFH so that I can use the ScanGauge for instant feedback while driving and Torque Pro to analyze data on the computer after the fact. Check out this thread for Larry's observations.

I'm hoping to better understand how the FFH powertrain works with the power flow screens. Below is a pic with the different powertrain options of how the Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive operates Engine & Motor drive for HSD appears to be Hybrid Drive on the Ford Power Flow screen as shown below This doesn't seem to be very common in the FFH. Here the FFH has blue flow from the battery to other, but aside from that the HVB is isolated. There is white flow from fuel to engine to drive and from engine to electric motor. There is blue flow from electric motor to drive. HSD's Engine Drive + Charge should be shown on the Power Flow screen as white flow from fuel to engine to drive. There should also be white flow from engine to electric motor. And then there should be blue flow going from electric motor to battery. In this scenario there would be no blue line connecting electric motor to drive. Has anyone seen this? I haven't yet. Granted, I've only driven a few hundred miles in the new FFH which has these screens and I do have to look at the road at least occasionally while driving, but I haven't seen this yet. Here's another set of Toyota powertrain options for HSD Engine & Motor drive + Charge should correspond to Charging HV Battery on the FFH Power Flow screen. Here you have blue flow from the electric motor to the battery. There is also blue flow from the electric motor to drive. There is white flow from fuel to engine to drive and from engine to electric motor. This seems to be one of the most common powertrain options chosen by the FFH computers. Another HSD option from the pic above is Full Power. This should correspond to Hybrid Drive on the FFH screen as shown below. In this scenario you have blue flow from battery to electric motor to drive, white flow from fuel to engine to drive and white flow from engine to electric motor. This is also known as assist because in this scenario the electric motor assists the ICE in accelerating or propelling the vehicle. In this scenario the ICE is on but is discharging. While the Toyota display doesn't differentiate MG1 & MG2 as in the graphics above, it does show enough arrows that you can discern what is happening with MG1 & MG2. Below is a pic of the different displays on the Toyota screen with the names of the powertrain modes that correspond to some of the aforementioned options. The FFH display also shows enough to infer their operation. One solid conclusion is that while the FFH powertrain doesn't have MG1, MG2 and the ICE on the same line like in the Toyota HSD system (click here for more info about how HSD is designed and operates), it works roughly the same. It seems that the FFH often runs the ICE both to power the wheels and to send electricity from MG1 to MG2 to power the wheels. I didn't know this before because our old FFH didn't have MFT and thus didn't have the Power Flow screen. Four questions arise from this. Does the FFH do an equivalent of HSD's Engine Drive + Charge? Why does the FFH not show Engine & Motor Drive (with the HVB isolated) as often as the Prius does? Will this have a negative impact on the FFH battery pack life? The Prius seems to very frequently show this mode. The FFH very rarely shows it. How will the HAH compare? Honda says that their ICE runs as a generator and isn't connected to the wheels. This would mean that its Power Flow screen would show white flow from fuel to engine and from engine to electric motor. There would also be blue flow from electric motor to drive. According to what Honda has published, the majority of the time in the HAH you wouldn't see white flow from engine to drive like we see in our cars. Has anyone seen their FFH display what is described in question 3 like Honda has said the HAH works? It doesn't appear that the Toyota system can operate this way because MG1, MG2 and the ICE are on the same line.

I recently bought and installed a ScanGauge II in our FFH. After driving a 100+ miles with in installed over the past few days I have a number of observations and a number of questions... Observations Horsepower - the generator can place about a 15 horsepower load on the ICE when the battery is low and the ICE is doing maximum recharging. This is good for about 18 amps of current flowing into the HVB. In other situations it seems that each hp of ICE output to spin the generator is good for slightly more than 1 amp of current flowing into the HVB.Amps - the maximum regen braking charge seems to be about 30-35 amps. I've never seen the regen braking charge go above 35 amps while still getting 100% brake score. That seems to be the limit for the generator. When driving in EV 1 bar on the Empower screen is about 20 amps of current flowing out of the battery. The max current I have seen flowing out of the battery has been about 50 amps. This happened when I was accelerating in EV at 1.5 or 1.75 bars and then it kicked over to the ICE. Since one motor/generator must spin the ICE up to speed (like a starter motor in a conventional car) there is a momentary spike in amps flowing out of the battery to start the ICE.Recharging - The computer likes to charge the battery with a 15 amp current flow when the battery SOC is low to maybe about 75% of the display. This seems to be in the most efficient range of the ICE as well as the LOD will often be 85+ when this load is placed on the ICE by the generator while accelerating. When the battery SOC is higher than 75% of the battery icon the amps from the ICE generator drops to 5-8 amps. If the battery is almost full the current flow drops to about 3 amps.Coasting - when coasting with your foot off the gas pedal the generator places about a 3-5 amp load to gradually slow the car down.Idling - when idling the current draw to run the computers and charge the 12V battery is about 0.55-0.60 amps. This amount of current is drawn whether the car is in Park, Reverse, Neutral or Drive as long as you are not moving. The brake lights pull a minimal amount of current, but enough to make this range 0.59-0.64 amps when you are stepping on the brake.Lights - the headlights/taillights draw about 0.25 amps. The park lights and fog lights draw the same amperage as the headlights. If you combine headlights and fog lights the current draw is about 0.40 amps.HVB temps - the HVB temp quickly increases when driving from the current flow in and out of the battery. The past few days each morning the HVB temp showed the same as the exterior temp when first starting off (between 75 & 80 F) but quickly warmed up about 10 degrees within the first few miles of driving. Only on Friday where we did a lot of driving in the city in 95 F outside temps did the HVB temp go above 100 F. The HVB fans ran non-stop on Friday. Other days I noticed that at about 85 F HVB temp the fans would kick on at a low RPM (about 750-1000 showing on the display). On Friday I saw the HVB Fan RPMs as high as 2000. Even when running at that speed I still couldn't hear the fan when I got out of the car to listen with it "running" and with the SGII indicating a fan speed of 2000. I imagine that when we hear the fan running from outside the car after the car is off it must be running much faster than 2000 RPM.Current draw when off - after turning off the car in the few seconds before the SGII turns off the power draw shows 0.04 amps. This is likely to run whatever computers are still active to display the Trip Summary and Lifetime Summary screens.AC amp draw - the AC will draw 15-20 amps from the HVB when first turned on with a hot car. Once the car has cooled down the AC continues to draw an extra 2-3 amps minimum that we observed. This puts some numbers to the effect of AC on gas mileage. That is a lot of current that must be replaced by burning gasoline.Battery display on dash without charge/discharge arrows - It is very hard to get the battery display to show no arrows for charging or discharging. It appears that while moving the car displays no arrows when the current flow is less than 1 amp in or out of the HVB. However, sometimes the current flow will be less than 1 amp and the dash will still display arrows for charging or discharging. Also, when stopped a current flow of less than 1 amp displays as the HVB is discharging. No matter how hard I've tried I have never been able to get the display to show 0.00 amps as the current flow. With steady pedal pressure it is possible to keep the amp flow steady for many seconds though while driving as long as the slope of the road doesn't change.Warm up stages - when the ICE is in S1a the power demand on the ICE is very low, less than 10 hp and a LOD less than 60, this is quite inefficient and shows why skipping stage S1a improves fuel economy so much as discussed hereQuestions :headscratch: What exactly is LOD (Load)? The car often shows 95-99 when accelerating slightly more aggressively such as accelerating onto the freeway, when accelerating in the city it often shows only 80-85. When the ICE is idling in warm up the LOD is as low as 50. Is this the % of maximum power output of the ICE at the current RPM?How do I understand the ignition timing screen (IGN)? When the ICE is off it shows -10. When the ICE is on I've seen values anywhere from 5-8 (when ICE is under load accelerating) to 30+ (mostly when the ICE is under a light load but still on such as freeway driving where the Empower screen shows the power demand being just above the EV threshold.Why does the car show 1.2 horsepower when the ICE is off? I tried using the adjustment in the setup but even decreasing the reading by 10% only lowered the display when the ICE is off to say 1.0 horsepower. What does the default value of 1.2 hp when the ICE is off mean for the numbers that the SGII displays for hp while I'm driving?As I think of more items I'll continue to add to this thread. As it stands now I hope that my observations will be of benefit to others and that those with more experience and knowledge than I will be able to shed some light on my questions. Thanks in advance for that help! :worship:

The manual and the left control screen seem to suggest that I can have the remote start also heat the seats, but I can't find how to make that happen. The screen does not appear to allow it. Suggestions?

Fuelly has now broken out the FFH as a separate model per requests from members of this Forum. To update your vehicle click on the vehicle in your garage. Then click the "EDIT CAR" option. Then click on "change type". Then in the drop down box where it says "Fusion" you can now select "Fusion Energi" or "Fusion Hybrid". Once you select "Fusion Hybrid" you an click the button "Update Car" and your FFH will now show up correctly on Fuelly.

I am going in this afternoon for the PCM update. I will use this thread to post my observations after the update.

As we near the release of the updates I was thinking it would be good to know who exactly on the forum is willing to get the update first and share their results. If you're willing to get the update first and report back on your results please say so below. My idea is to then create a topic for each user who gets the update early on so that each person can individually report on their results, independent of what other users might say. Also, while we all love sharing our personal experiences and reading those of others they don't always add a lot of value. So also please comment below any ideas you have of more scientific tests that we can do to see the effects of the update. Ideally the guinea pig volunteers would run the tests before the update and then again after the update. Please don't use this topic to discuss the update or say things like "I'm not going first!" as that can be done here. Thank you.