Nervous but Excited Posted December 19, 2021 Report Share Posted December 19, 2021 I have been told that holding the OK button on the left of the steering wheel during startup will initiate an "Engineering Test Mode" which will display some diagnostics including HV battery health. Can anybody confirm whether this works? I am strongly considering buying an Energi and want to be sure that the HV battery is in good condition - any additional insights would be great ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous but Excited Posted December 19, 2021 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2021 Also: As I understand it you can test the battery health by: -Start with a fully charged battery -Switching to EV only mode (however that is done) -Drive slow enough to prevent the ICE from starting until the HV battery is totally dead ( I assume you'd know when this happens because the ICE would kick in) -Note the distance travelled and the kWh used -Compare distance and kWh to a new car (I think a new battery has around 5.5 kWh and distance is advertised around 20miles... but the BMS might limit the charge to 80% and the discharge to 20%... so that might be a problem). Can anybody comment/add/adjust to this approach? Again - any insights would be much apprecaited! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billyk24 Posted December 20, 2021 Report Share Posted December 20, 2021 The battery capacity test is what you are referring to the second post. 1. Charge to full 2. switch to EV NOW--this is the middle switch between EV Auto and EV Later and prevents ICE from starting in 99% of cases 3. Drive until the ICE kicks on-you can drive up a mountain, drive 60 miles per hour, etc as we are looking for #4 4. When the ICE kicks look at the dash to find the kWh consumed. At new, 5.6KWh is considered the "usable" amount for a new battery pack. You are testing for the usable amount of the battery pack. All automakers provide a "walled off" top and bottom portion of their battery pack in an attempt to enhance longevity. Some provide a minimum buffer such as Tesla which explains why they frequent refer to owners should only charge up to 80% of capacity on a regular basis. Miles per range is really meaningless as MG2 contributes to range. Heck, my Energi reports 47 miles to empty and I do not fully charge my battery pack. Heat is the biggest degrader of battery pack capacity. Heat comes from excessive EV usage, excessive EV charging, continuous high speed, high amp loads being placed upon the battery pack, normal summer temperatures, just sitting in the summer sun with the car off can raise the battery temperature to unhealthy levels. You need to monitor the battery pack temperature, amps used, state of charge via third party hardware or FordScan software in an attempt to minimize issues. The Energi does not have an adequate thermal regulatory system to keep the battery pack cells at a safe temperature during the warm summer months. Do drive the car with the engine ON during the warm summer months in an attempt to minimize heat buildup and unhealthy battery temperatures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous but Excited Posted December 20, 2021 Author Report Share Posted December 20, 2021 Thanks @Billyk24 ... It seems as though getting a good sense for the battery is complex, but best done as you described by comparing the usable kWh to the 5.6 kWh expected from a new vehicle. thanks for the insights! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous but Excited Posted December 29, 2021 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2021 (edited) Hi again @Billyk24, The car that I want to buy is far away, so I asked the dealer to run these tests. The dealer replied with this note: "After a full charge, and driving till it drained, it showed 8.4kPh" I am assuming that he meant to say kWh and not kPh (although "W" and "P" are far apart on the keyboard). Aside from that I am really confused about how he would have achieved 8.4kWh... Is it possible to achieve an additional 2.8kWh from regenerative breaking? Unfortunately he wasn't sure how many miles he drove on the trip... He estimated 11 miles, but seemed far from sure (this was on a very cold day - about 20F). Any insights? Edited December 29, 2021 by Nervous but Excited Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billyk24 Posted December 29, 2021 Report Share Posted December 29, 2021 On 12/28/2021 at 11:42 PM, Nervous but Excited said: Hi again @Billyk24, The car that I want to buy is far away, so I asked the dealer to run these tests. The dealer replied with this note: "After a full charge, and driving till it drained, it showed 8.4kPh" I am assuming that he meant to say kWh and not kPh (although "W" and "P" are far apart on the keyboard). Aside from that I am really confused about how he would have achieved 8.4kWh... Is it possible to achieve an additional 2.8kWh from regenerative breaking? Unfortunately he wasn't sure how many miles he drove on the trip... He estimated 11 miles, but seemed far from sure (this was on a very cold day - about 20F). Any insights? IT is called BS selling. You, not them, must do the test. It must be done in EV NOW which is different from EV AUTO or EV LATER. Go back can demand to drive the vehicle and perform the test yourself. If they refuse, Walk away. A RAV4 hybrid-more easily found on dealer lots and the other car I owe-may provide almost as good as MPG without playing games trying to keep the battery cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous but Excited Posted December 31, 2021 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 In an exciting turn of events I have gained access to the car via myfordmobile.com The car is currently charging, and tomorrow they are going to take it for an EV-NOW trip until the battery is depleted. My understanding is that myfordmobile.com will show me the total kWh output of the battery on the attached graph... This should be a super accurate indicator of the battery's capacity. At the moment the battery is about 70% charged and indicating that this amount of charge would get the car 7 EV miles... If that is accurate I suspect that the battery is severely degraded because then 100% charge would only get 10 miles... which is about half of a new vehicle. But maybe the car is making estimates based on the super cold temps in MN and the bad driving style of the people who have been test-driving it... any thoughts/insights here? I am really hoping that this will answer my questions about the battery. Exciting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous but Excited Posted December 31, 2021 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 This morning the salesman took the car for an approximately 11mile drive in 13F temp. And he spent 4.8 kWh doing so (see updated graph below). This seems to indicate that the battery is in okay condition. Yay ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous but Excited Posted December 31, 2021 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 This screen is also quite nice: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homestead Posted December 31, 2021 Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 Any idea how much of the 4.8 kw power was consumed by heating the cabin? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous but Excited Posted December 31, 2021 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 On 12/31/2021 at 2:49 PM, homestead said: Any idea how much of the 4.8 kw power was consumed by heating the cabin? No. No idea. I don't think there is a way to tell that. But to be honest this doesn't bother me much. The question that I am trying to answer is to what extent has the battery degraded. If the battery is able to put out 4.8kWh (which is energy, not power. Power is measured in Kw) then I can be relatively sure that it is in good condition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billyk24 Posted January 1, 2022 Report Share Posted January 1, 2022 On 12/31/2021 at 10:32 AM, Nervous but Excited said: This morning the salesman took the car for an approximately 11mile drive in 13F temp. And he spent 4.8 kWh doing so (see updated graph below). This seems to indicate that the battery is in okay condition. Yay ? Re-look at the data: the drive was 15.5 miles total as shown in the right upper hand corner. Next to that figure is EV 62%. Errr....Driving in EV NOW is suppose to be 100% EV. The fuel mpg should be ....well if it is all electric then why does it say 71.9 mpg? Sooo....was the test done in EV NOW? EV AUTO? Was it done in EV AUTO for 15.5 miles with regenerative braking adding a bit of charge and capacity to the battery pack during the 15 miles. with the real capacity less than that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous but Excited Posted January 1, 2022 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2022 Yeah I did see that. My understanding is that he drove on EV NOW until it cut out (11 miles) and then drove back to the dealership (another 4.5 miles). Being far away doesn't make this easy. These results give me hope that there is a high enough probability that the battery is in good condition. I plan to fly to MN in the coming week. Once I am there I will do all of the tests in person and make sure to double check everything that I already believe to be true about the car. Tickets are about $75 one way, so if there is anything dodgy about the car I will just fly back instead of buying the car and driving home. I don't really know what other options I have right now. If you have thoughts about how I could be handling this better let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stolenmoment Posted January 2, 2022 Report Share Posted January 2, 2022 Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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