I read your 2 posts about the Energi...
About that guess-O-meter: On this car it is much more stable than it was on the FFE. Ford really should have whoever wrote the software for the C-Max’s GOM take a look at the FFE’s code. As an example: on the FFE if you drove the highway for a while and then took a leisurely drive down some residential streets the GOM value would increase pretty rapidly as you drove slow. On the C-Max I notice no such large swings..instead it creeps slowly by tenths of a mile.
Where are you seeing 1/10ths of miles on the GOM? Ford completely removed the GOM from the Energi models for 2015 cars, showing only the blue battery icon & no mileage range prediction.
Not sure if this is a bug or not: While waiting to value charge the car will leave the EVSE contactors engaged even though it isn’t drawing any current. The FFE would disengage the EVSE while it was waiting to value charge.
Our Fusion Energi does this too. It appears to draw a small amount of power to charge the 12V battery. It also runs the HVB cooling fans a lot. The Energi models seem to charge the 12V battery a lot more than the Focus Electric. My parents' C-Max Energi still reports 98-100% 12V battery SOC after almost 3 years of ownership.
I’ve remote started the car several times while it was plugged in. In all but 1 instance the car started on electricity and kicked on the HVAC as I had expected. In the 1 instance: after about 10 seconds it attempted to start the engine and then immediately shut down. I restarted it and it did the same thing. Like it was confused: part of the car knew it was plugged in and another part of the car didn’t (I’ve seen similar behavior in the FFE when one part of the car didn’t know about something another part of the car knew).
The Energi will turn on the ICE when remote started while plugged in, so be careful with this if you park inside an enclosed garage. You can minimize starting of the ICE by tweaking your remote start settings on the left dash menu. Make sure
front defrost is set to
off. You also want to make sure that you are in EV Now when you turn the car off. If you are in EV Auto or EV Later when you turn the car off, then remote start will turn on the ICE if the ICE coolant temp is below 60 F.
There are other things about the car that I’m still learning/getting used to: The Auto/EV Now/EV Later button’s state “sticks” until the car switches back to hybrid mode (e.g. the “EV battery” is discharged). I was kind of expecting that to reset back to Auto on a key cycle (although it makes sense that it would stick).
Only EV Now & EV Auto should stick. If you turn off the car in EV Later mode it should change to EV Auto when you start it again.
Auto/EV Now/EV Later: This is an intriguing function of the car. You can put it into one of the three modes. Auto is normal operation as a hybrid. EV Now will bias operation towards driving around as an EV more and EV Later biases operation towards using the ICE more to conserve battery power. From what I can tell the modes simply change the maintain point on the battery (e.g. in EV Later it attempts to keep the battery 92% charged, EV Now it moves that point further south, almost to 0%).
Ford uses different terms in the workshop manual for these modes, these terms may help you understand them better.
- EV Now = Locked Electric Mode
- EV Auto = Charge Depleting Mode
- EV Later = Charge Sustaining Mode
- 2D battery icon = Hybrid Mode
When in EV Now the ICE is kept off except in the following circumstances:
- You accelerate briskly & press OK when prompted on the dash with a question if you'd like to turn on the ICE
- You press the Max Defrost button
- You turn on Defrost only HVAC in winter
- The ambient air temp drops to -10 F or colder
EV Auto biases toward depleting the HVB completely before turning on the ICE, but it sets a fairly low acceleration threshold to turn on the ICE. It also will turn on the ICE when you request heat, rather that depleting the HVB via the electric heater. It will also turn on the ICE when the ICE coolant temp drops below 60 F under certain conditions.
EV Later stops the car from depleting the HVB any more. If your current charge level is higher than about 95% displayed SOC the car will continue to discharge the HVB until it reaches about 95% SOC. The car may turn on the ICE, but it won't actually use it to power the wheels, it will just waste gas & consume lots of HVB range to power the wheels. EV Later makes the car operate like a C-Max Hybrid. The ICE does not turn on immediately when you engage EV Later, it waits until your power demand is sufficiently high. When you first engage the ICE in EV Later at an SOC below 95% the ICE will initially work to propel the car & charge the HVB. As it increases the HVB SOC it will reduce the energy spent on charging & decrease its output. The C-Max Hybrid Forum has lots of great resources to help with learning how to maximize ICE performance. The Fusion Energi Forum has great resources posted by larryh with BSFC calculations for the ICE, efficiency maps for the traction motor during acceleration & regen, charts of how cold temperatures impact the HVB and charts of how colder temperatures decrease MPG due to an increase internal friction from thicker eCVT fluid.
You can tell when your car has entered Hybrid Mode because the dash HVB icon switches from being a 3D icon to a 2D battery icon. Once you are in Hybrid Mode you cannot select EV Auto, EV Later or EV Now. Hybrid Mode should be avoided except at the very end of a trip to protect the HVB. HVB mV cell variation increases greatly at the low SOC of Hybrid Mode. Extended time driving in Hybrid Mode will likely cause more aggressive HVB capacity loss. You can leave Hybrid Mode by doing enough regen that the 2D battery icon is completely full. Once this happens you can again select EV Now, EV Later & EV Auto. We were able to do this when driving through the Rocky Mountains in our Energi.
Please let me know if you have other questions I could help answer. Feel free to send me a PM & we can talk through e-mail.
