'10 Hybrid--odd EV mode behavior

[ethereal]

Hello everyone,

 

2010 Fusion Hybrid owner here (with the NAV system, leather, moonroof), 2000 miles and thus far I'm reasonably happy with the vehicle. I've observed something very odd with the EV mode switch "algorithm", and would appreciate an explanation if anyone is familiar with the issue.

 

Under the "empower mode" display, per the manual, the thermometer icon on the the temperature gauge to the left changes from white to green when the engine is "warm enough" to allow driving in pure electric mode. I think the idea is to let drivers turn on the heater etc. without a delay. Now, I have a lot of short commutes, and what I see is:

Start the vehicle, internal combustion engine comes on, thermometer is white.

Drive for a while, thermometer turns green, and I can use EV mode.

A short while later, thermometer goes back to white (i.e. "engine not hot enough"), and EV mode is once again disabled.

I have to then drive for quite a while before the thermometer turns green again. It seems to me that once it's warm enough, it should stay warm for a while at least. And it would be cool if it had an override or sensor for the times when the driver is never going to turn on the heater due to ambient temperature.

 

Is this really because the engine has cooled down once more once EV mode is deployed? I'm not 100% positive, but I think I've seen the switch back to white even when I don't accelerate slowly enough to drive in pure EV mode once the thermometer turns green the first time.

 

I think this is one of the reasons I'm not seeing good mileage on city commutes (23-32 at best, and the engine should be "broken in"), despite driving reasonably carefully. Depending on the driving patterns, I get good mileage on the highway.

 

Any information, corroboration and advice would be appreciated! I think this is a well designed vehicle, I just need to understand it better!

Thanks,

Derek

[rfruth]

Mine does the same, white then green than back to white (wind chill) but even in winter I get closer to 40 MPG (its flat here and the term winter is relative) ((if less than a few miles I walk or bike))

[ethereal]

Mine does the same, white then green than back to white (wind chill) but even in winter I get closer to 40 MPG (its flat here and the term winter is relative) ((if less than a few miles I walk or bike))

Thanks for the confirmation! Guess there's not much I can do about this then. What sort of distance and driving conditions (stop and go? much regenerative braking + EV mode?) do you see your 40 mpg on? I can get close to 40 on the highway, but unless I've built up a reserve in the battery and am very careful with EV mode over a longer distance city commute, I don't see close to that in the city.

[jay2000]

Hi,

 

On my car, it starts out white, then turns green ( very soon, like within 1/4 of a mile.) then it goes back to white (at about half a mile into the trip) and then it goes green again and it STAYS GREEN the rest of the trip. I will try to watch this for a few days and see if this pattern is true all the time.

 

I don't know it this is important, but in the manual it seems to be talking about the "hybrid system" being warm enough, not the engine (page 28). I am not sure what the "hybrid system" is, I am embarrassed to admit. Maybe someone can explain that part of it. Or better yet, is there a good web site that explains the FFH process?

 

Jerry

 

 

 

 

quote name='ethereal' date='30 May 2010 - 01:12 AM' timestamp='1275199920' post='27205']

Thanks for the confirmation! Guess there's not much I can do about this then. What sort of distance and driving conditions (stop and go? much regenerative braking + EV mode?) do you see your 40 mpg on? I can get close to 40 on the highway, but unless I've built up a reserve in the battery and am very careful with EV mode over a longer distance city commute, I don't see close to that in the city.

[funny]

Thanks for the confirmation! Guess there's not much I can do about this then. What sort of distance and driving conditions (stop and go? much regenerative braking + EV mode?) do you see your 40 mpg on? I can get close to 40 on the highway, but unless I've built up a reserve in the battery and am very careful with EV mode over a longer distance city commute, I don't see close to that in the city.

 

ethereal,

Can you give us a general idea of the distance of your individual trips throughout the day and how long the car is off between trips?

 

I also have multiple commutes ... Every day I travel to anywhere from 2 to 6 workplaces and each trip can be all city, all hwy or mixed. The majority of my trips yield low 30s to low 40s mpg, with the very worst ~ 20 mpg and my best over 49 mpg. My combined long-term average is around 36 mpg @ 2700 miles. The worst numbers I get are with rush hour stop-and-go driving and short distances of only a few miles.

 

Btw I recently dropped the leaves display in favor of the 60 min histogram which I find to be much more informative albeit much less pretty. In the pic I have attached as one example (cold start, 12 mile trip over 30-35 minutes, city->highway->suburb), you can see I am getting relatively poor mileage for the first 10 minutes or so, then it gets much better.

[Zacher]

Just to add, it's not necessarily the Internal Combustion Engine or the Hybrid System, but all the Environmental pieces that have to be warmed up ,mostly focusing on the Catalytic Convertor. This might explain why it turns white even if temp guage is low. Being in Canada, Winter driving is equivalent to 4cylinder gas engine, very little EV only mode. Long story short sounds like your car is running fine :D

 

Good Luck

[ethereal]

Thanks for chiming in, everyone. Funny, thanks for the informative breakdown. My average across some 1500 miles (I reset the long term average after 500 miles) is ~34.6 mpg. Most of the mileage, if not necessarily the time, is on highways, where I can get 36-40. In the city, my experience matches yours, re: "The worst numbers I get are with rush hour stop-and-go driving and short distances of only a few miles.", I often see sub 25mpg, unless I really hypermile it after having built up a charge in the battery (which I believe only lasts a mile in full EV mode, probably less in practice as pure EV mode becomes nearly impossible once the charge is below the halfway mark). I think this weird issue with EV mode warmup is part of the reason, as I generally have several hour periods between trips, enough for the engine (and catalytic convertor etc., per Zacher) to have cooled down. This is all rather puzzling to me given that the mileage is supposed to be higher in city driving compared to highways, but perhaps the EPA tests were conducted in somewhat contrived circumstances where the battery can charge up fully and the driver is extremely skilled at hypermiling. Oh well.

[black70bird]

ethereal,

Can you give us a general idea of the distance of your individual trips throughout the day and how long the car is off between trips?

 

I also have multiple commutes ... Every day I travel to anywhere from 2 to 6 workplaces and each trip can be all city, all hwy or mixed. The majority of my trips yield low 30s to low 40s mpg, with the very worst ~ 20 mpg and my best over 49 mpg. My combined long-term average is around 36 mpg @ 2700 miles. The worst numbers I get are with rush hour stop-and-go driving and short distances of only a few miles.

 

Btw I recently dropped the leaves display in favor of the 60 min histogram which I find to be much more informative albeit much less pretty. In the pic I have attached as one example (cold start, 12 mile trip over 30-35 minutes, city->highway->suburb), you can see I am getting relatively poor mileage for the first 10 minutes or so, then it gets much better.

 

I will have to switch to that, I always thought the leaves were hokey. I drive ~27 miles one way to work and have been getting 39.5 (winter) to 42 (summer). I have not paid much attention to the thermometer on the display, I will have to check it. I switched to a pure snow tire for the winter also. I also have a Prius, which the wife started taking as she drives on narrow streets, and prefer the histogram. If I had to give up one of the cars, it would be the Prius.

[FFHdriver]

I will have to switch to that, I always thought the leaves were hokey. I drive ~27 miles one way to work and have been getting 39.5 (winter) to 42 (summer). I have not paid much attention to the thermometer on the display, I will have to check it. I switched to a pure snow tire for the winter also. I also have a Prius, which the wife started taking as she drives on narrow streets, and prefer the histogram. If I had to give up one of the cars, it would be the Prius.

After reading the comments on leaves vs histogram, I made the switch to the latter and my wife, who is the driver, loves it.

Edited June 7, 2010 by FFHdriver