Leaderboard

Actually after the Federal Tax Credit on the Energi in Dec. 2012, it wasn't much more than a Hybrid SEL. I really wanted to buy an Energi but given its slightly smaller hatch space, a premium over the Hybrid, and the known issue with the Nissan Leaf in hot climates in late 2012, I went with the Hybrid. I knew at that time (based on the Leaf and my research) that I would have to limit my number of times charging especially in the summer in Phoenix area (my garage doesn't get much below 100F when low temps are around 90F. I also knew that Ford used air cooling of the HVB. So, my estimates were that to mitigate HVB capacity fade, I would never recover the cost difference between the Hybrid and Energi with EV wall power in a reasonable time period (I used 5 years). But if there is a silver lining, the Energi can still be used just like a Hybrid as it is a great car. But it is frustrating that Ford couldn't have done something even after a few years to help mitigate capacity fade. I believe it would have been relatively easy for Ford to modify software and add a toggle in the left hand display to limit charging to say 80 to 90% of the 7.6 kWh capacity and inform owners of the consequences of charging fully frequently and during high temperatures. Yes, one might lose say 5 miles of range by using the toggle, but there's at least 6 months where one could likely fully charge overnight with minimal capacity fade. Of course wouldn't do that because they would be admitting to a "bad design" and Energi sales would tank because the "reasonable true" range in hot climates would also tank. What I really find amazing is that Ford continued to sell the Energi to uninformed buyers through 2017 and still selling Fusion Energis albeit with a larger 9 kWh HVB. Larryh on the Fusion Energi forum has this great thread on the HVB in 2016. Here's an excerpt from it. Now consider someone in Phoenix, AZ. During the summer, the HVB temperature will be around 45 C and during the winter around 27 C. At 100% SOC, that corresponds to capacity fades rates of -7.4e-3 and -4.8e-3 (the value for 45 C is off the chart so I have to guess). Assuming 50% of the time is winter and 50% is summer, the average degradation rate is the average of those two numbers or -6.1e-3/sqrt(day). At that rate, the battery capacity degradation will reach 20% in 2.9 years. The actual degradation will be greater than 20% after 2.9 years since I have not included degradation due to cycling. A test of the Nissan LEAF driven in Phoenix, AZ can be found here: https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/vehiclebatteries/FastChargeEffects.pdf. In this test, the actual battery degradation was 25% after 1.5 years. Cycling was probably responsible for 8% of the 25% degradation. https://www.fordfusionenergiforum.com/topic/4121-hvb-degradation/#comments