SnowStorm

Ford announces the all new Focus Active as "quite simply, the best car in our one-hundred and fourteen year history." A bold statement for sure! I think its good looking but will there be a hybrid? How much headroom and luggage space does it have? What does everyone think?

Yikes! A torch? No wonder they had problems aligning the wheels with a bad rim (the alignment equipment bolts to the rim). Make sure they redo the alignment after they put on a good rim!

Agree. I bought the Motorcraft MERCON LV as specified in the manual - $7.99/qt at O'Reillys. Changing it would be $150-$160 at my tire dealer (they use Wynn's) or $190 at the dealer. Would still like to know the fill plug location. There was a document on the Fusion Energi forum but its now gone (along with Plus 3 Golfer's image in post #28 above). Its time to change the air filter so I'll have a look around when doing that. I might have to rig up a hose to fill through the check plug hole.

I can't get to the image of fill/drain plug locations. Any chance you could post it again? I want to change the fluid which I can get at O'Reillys and save $100 to $150 over shop or dealer prices.

Well, I use Eco-Cruise almost constantly (city and highway) and rarely "babysit" EV mode. Once in a while I'll force EV or ICE mode because I know what's coming whereas the car doesn't. BTW, the easy way to go into EV while using cruise is to double tap the cancel/resume bar - much easier than using your foot. I don't think you can gain all that much by babysitting EV mode under most circumstances providing you already are doing the following things as much as possible: Use ICE to accelerate at about 2 bars Brake to get at least 90% score Don't drive fast. Use heat/AC efficiently. Use recirculate as much as possible, close unused vents, use moderate temp settings, use seat heaters if available, etcI agree that the cruise seems to get "stuck" at times but I'm sure its just the algorithm - and I think its pretty good considering that the car doesn't know what the road is doing up ahead and has several conflicting requirements to balance. I have frequently driven on 55 mph flat roads where the cruise will keep the ICE on "forever" with the power bar just above the EV threshold. You can tap-tap cancel/resume and force EV mode but it doesn't seem to make much (or any) difference in mileage.

Well Paul, I say "good show"! SnowStorm's stuck at 49.0. (But for the past 12 months I'm at 51.1!)

Does the OBDLink MX have a physical switch to get to MS-CAN bus that you have to flip manually? It doesn't look like it. I've been thinking I should get this module as my cheap one doesn't do MS and drops connection frequently (I'm, assuming its the modules fault - who knows). Also, do you leave it plugged in all the time? If so, does it start communicating the next time you drive without having to unplug / plug it in again?

That seems surprising. Fueleconomy.gov uses 12 cents per kW-Hr for average electric rate and 0.25 to 0.35 kW-Hr per mile for EV consumption (excepting the Tesla X). Using 0.30 kW-Hr per mile gives 3.6 cents per mile. At the 40 mpg EPA C-Max rating, electricity would cost $1.44 which is way below anyones gasoline price per gallon. Fuel for an average EV costs 54% of a C-Max. Plus an EV eliminates all the time and cost of ICE maintenance.

Got it replaced today - aftermarket glass, XYG brand, says: XYG LAMINATED SAFETAY GLASS DOT-563 AS-1 M-852 DW 01910 SOLAR 3 . 4 8 . 10 1 ACOUSTIC I went with the shop that my Ford dealer uses. Original quote was $269.54 - paid the $100 insurance deductible. Two other quotes were $400 and $245 - all "in shop". Another customer said he had gotten a quote on-line for has car at like $600 "in the driveway" but when calling on the phone got it down to $300 or something. Anyway, shop around. My installer said he had done around 50 C-Max windshields (they service a bunch of dealerships) but no roofs! They had the windshield in stock (!) and he checked the black band at the top to see that it was the same (someone on here had a problem with it being too narrow). So, 1 hour 45 minutes later its all in, cured and looks great. Just hope it stays that way!

The difference is likely to be slight and it would be very difficult to run a statistically significant and sufficiently accurate test to prove it out. I generally agree with homestead. If I knew there was a difference and had to pick, I'd pick neutral as more efficient but would "recommend" letting the car regen. I almost never use neutral, maybe 1 or 2 miles out of 1000 - too much trouble and possible safety issue.

Though I'm thoroughly used to the brakes by now, they occasionally "grab" abruptly just before coming to a stop. I think it only happens after the car was parked outside overnight (usually garaged) and, perhaps, some rust has formed on the rotors. Then when you stop, regen works almost to a stop and then the friction brakes are applied and gives a jerk. A few hard stops (with low brake score!) should smooth off any rust. Of course, your problem may be different.

What happens after the ICE starts? Does it take a while (several minutes) to build up the state of charge (SOC) or does it pop back up to a "normal" value almost immediately? How hot is the ambient temperature when this happens? It seems the SOC can change significantly if the battery heats up or cools down. But losing all indication in a few minutes certainly doesn't sound right. Maybe the cooling fan isn't working or there is some other intermittent problem with controls or sensors (as opposed to the battery cells themselves being the problem).

Yes. That will be front to back in the car where there is over 4 feet.

Just because an EV can go 250 miles and recharge quickly doesn't mean it will be operated that way all the time. Most use cases will be charging at home overnight at a "slow" rate and then going out for a daily commute of far less than 250 miles. So, most charge/discharge cycles will be fairly easy on the battery.

It should fit fine if its on its side. You have about 28 inches of vertical height to 32 or 33 inches wide. No way I'd try the roof.

That title sounds a bit funny - almost like their's collusion going on. "I'll kill my my sedan if you kill yours!" Other possible factors inflating truck/SUV popularity besides the ride height, flexible storage and 4-wheel drive: More passenger room generallyEasier entry exit (even if its a step up - better than pulling oneself up out of a sedan after banging your head on the way in!)Can replace several vehicles; sedan for commute, minivan for trips with kids, truck for hauling/towing, 4-wheel drive for snow, etc.Americans are becoming less caught up with being "stylish" in favor of more practicality.The above comments can apply to trucks too in their extended cab versions.

Another option for longer trips, especially if infrequent, is to simply rent that second car. It could be a lot cheaper and you can pick the type of vehicle best suited to a particular trip. As to charging, we really need standardized high rate charging!!! Imagine if you could only get gasoline for your Ford at a Ford gasoline station! Insane. Now for "the end of the ice age", SnowStorm might have to eat his prediction. Its snowing away like mad in VA right now! Oops, wrong ICE!

There is only one 12V battery - in the back. It is connected to the posts under the hood, which is where you should charge or use a "jump starter". Does your charger give a reading of Voltage or % Charged?

Nice write-up and energy diagram. The energy numbers show that the battery is generally large enough to handle regen from kinetic energy but not enough for larger hills and mountains. It would be nice to have manual control of HVB charge/discharge at times. Also, a 100 ft drop is worth about 1/2 mile of EV driving! Other comments: 1) If you check a graph of OBDII data for varied driving conditions, you see that the ICE tries to run at about 2200 rpm and about 70% load. Just semantics perhaps, but I'd call it "moderate RPM". 2b) I like to stop at exits that are at the top of a hill or at least have an up-hill exit ramp. 3) It sure does! 3b) Unless its a big regen hill, then you want low charge! Those rolling hills really do save gas. You get hybrid functionality with 100% efficiency. Better than using the battery! :)

Another point is that the C-Max should be compared to the Prius V, not the "standard" Prius sedan. The C-Max is taller and higher at the back (more like an SUV) than the Prius sedan, both of which hurt aerodynamics. Its really only fair to compare to the V. Anyway, I'm happy with 50 mpg, more headroom, ability to haul large items, more fun, etc!

Agree, the EV mile totals are indeed amazing! Before getting the C-Max I would never have thought my car would go over 40% of the time with the engine off! I'm at 152k miles and 64k EV with lifetime mileage at 49.0 mpg. My yearly average to date (about 11 months so far) is at 51.3 mpg. Unless you have lots of short trips or drive really fast, you can do a lot better than 39 mpg year-round average. There's plenty of info on this forum about how to do it. The other thing that came as a surprise is how nice it is to have a transmission that never shifts gears. I love it.

Any chance you're having this problem?

Another word of warning about the brakes; some shops will fail inspections because they look "rusty" (or some such excuse), likely from the little use they get. This happened to me so I went to my tire dealer (who does lots of brake work!) and the inspector there was nearly livid that someone would fail the brakes. They have continued to pass inspections for several years since then and the original pads/rotors are now past 151,000 miles! Lifetime brake score is 95%.

12.1 volts is plenty of voltage. You don't need a fully charged battery at 12.6 to 12.8 volts. In fact, the car should "start" with a "discharged" 12 volt battery at 10.5 volts. Your FOB battery may be the one that is dying. My radio has also died (was intermittent for a while) but I'm having no battery trouble.

Money melts more ICE as VW commits $25 billion to EV batteries! More news about the end of the ICE Age: VW Chief Executive Matthias Mueller says "We have pulled out all the stops over the past months to implement the Roadmap E swiftly and resolutely,” VW to have 16 plants globally by 2022 building ICE free ("zero emission") cars (3 plants at present). A goal of the VW group is to sell 3 million electric cars per year by 2025. All 300 models in the VW group to have an electric version by 2030. For 3 years a 260 foot ferry in Norway has run all day, 7 days/week on electricity! France intends to end all ICE car sales by 2040.