Marty G Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 We are traveling quite a ways for several days with our 2014 Energi. Obviously, the battery ran down on the first 20 miles. Is it OK to just keep driving all the way, without charging up the battery off and on, or can we just skip the battery charge and keep driving on the engine. Is it bad to leave the large battery at 0%? Thanks Marty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill-N Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 Not to worry. The car will operate in normal hybrid mode. Cheers cr08, C-MaxA2 and homestead 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homestead Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 May be able to charge overnight at motel otherwise no worries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cr08 Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 (edited) 3 hours ago, Marty G said: We are traveling quite a ways for several days with our 2014 Energi. Obviously, the battery ran down on the first 20 miles. Is it OK to just keep driving all the way, without charging up the battery off and on, or can we just skip the battery charge and keep driving on the engine. Is it bad to leave the large battery at 0%? Thanks Marty Also in case you haven't caught the reply I made in your other thread, you really should avoid using EV mode (Auto with EV charge available or EV Now) on the highway as it really stresses the battery. If you have charge available, switch to EV Later. If the plug-in charge is depleted, EV Auto (it won't let you switch out of it in this case) will operate in the 'safer' hybrid operation. Other than that, the other comments here are correct. The battery still has some level of charge internally like 10-15% or thereabouts for that fallback hybrid operation that it constantly cycles up and down as you drive. Edited April 5 by cr08 C-MaxA2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grege Posted April 6 Report Share Posted April 6 On long trips with lots of downhills, try pressing the downhill regen button on the shift lever; that will help regen charging of the HVB. Able to significantly recharge m wife's energi HVB in some downhill parts of the Shenandoah mountains. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stolenmoment Posted April 8 Report Share Posted April 8 Additionally, slowing down from highways speeds can generate a few percent of charge. My son went to college in Vermont, and it was really fun to climb the hills with gas, then charge the battery rolling downhill. You can get out of Hybrid mode this way: charge it going downhill, park it, turn it off, and when you turn it back on, it might have enough charge to go into EV Later mode, from which you can recharge as you go. I generally arrived with a fully-charged battery, even after driving in EV mode on the flats. "Recharge as you go": watch the battery percent in the Settings screen, remember what it was when you last hit EV Later. If it's higher than that, cycle the mode button three times to reset the target charge level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nogoodbum Posted April 11 Report Share Posted April 11 Ford did a very poor job of explaining the different modes of the HVB programming via the owner's manual for average drivers. If anyone has figured it completely please post. One thing to keep in mind as you travel. the HVB performs best & last longest at the same temps as humans do [60-80 F] I you travel to an area of the country with high temps & low humidity, you may be comfortable at 85F+ & a light breeze but your HVB won't be. As I understand it, most of the cooling air for the HVB comes from inside the car cabin to keep cool. May want to keep the AC on in spite of what little gas you may save with it off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atomatom2 Posted April 19 Report Share Posted April 19 nogoodbum - i believe the air intake for the HVB comes from the passenger side rear wheel well. so, if very hot outside, that could be a problem for cooling. we have a 2016 energi. i was curious about the recharge on hills after reading some conflicting and confusing information on the internet. i took the car skiing, and on the way back down the hill it managed to charge the HVB to nearly a 1/4 charge. i did not need to pull over or turn anything on or off, i just went down hill gently using the brake. (i didn't know about the hill mode then). we plan on driving half way across canada this summer. some of those mountains are really long climbs/descents. i'm interested to see how full the HVB can get. in any respect, i was pleasantly surprised to see that the HVB does indeed charge up on hills. cr08 - i'm curious to know how the battery gets stressed by being charged/discharged on the highway - do you mean heat, or something else? i was hoping to drive on the highway in EV auto mode, trying to keep it in that sweet spot of a bit of gas, a bit of electric power at the same time. i'd at least like to get some cruising along for free after we come down a large mountian. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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