A recent review of the Tesla Model S indicated glitches and other issues in these new technologies hitting the road.
Post your very own here for the Ford Focus so that the automaker can act on it swiftly.
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Here’s the problem:
If one of your main charging stations is a much higher elevation than your commute, you will have to go down that drop in elevation with a full charge unless you manually stop the charging before it is full. Why is this a problem? For three reasons. First of all it is a waist of all the potential energy that could be captured by regenerative braking as you drive down the drop in elevation. Secondly it causes unnecessary wear on your break pads. Thirdly the car doesn’t handle as good going down the hill and the L mode (low) is disabled because the computer is preventing any regeneration from occurring in order to not overcharge the batteries.
I experience this each day as I drop down 1000 feet to the town a few miles from home. This must be really bad for people with even larger elevation drops miles from their home on their daily commute. Even people at a few hundred feet elevation drop would benefit from an update that will fix this.
I also just purchased the 2014 Fusion Energi and it has the same problem but it is even worse because if you put it in low it turns on the engine to “engine brake” all the way down the hill and it has a super high revving engine noise and wastes gas instead of creating electricity. It is honestly a surprisingly overlooked design flaw in the software.
The solution should be a simple update to the software. It should have a charge percentage feature that lets you turn down your total “Location Charge Percentage” for any given charging station that you save to your GPS Markers. That way it could be your home or you work, or any point that is at a much higher elevation than where you will be going next. I was told by a Tesla sales rep that their software does have this feature.
How do we get Ford to put this into an upcoming software update?
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Sounds like your smarter than the Ford engineers. It does sound strange as you explain it.
Charge when you get home. Take the “free ride” when you leave the upper elevation.
Or does your employeer provide free charging?
A lot of ownere would enjoy your problem.
My sympathys.
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I have been dealing with Ford forever and they listen but often it doesn’t seem like it. I would bring the issue to their attention and ask all other Ford ev owners to also email Ford to help get the ball moving.
One thing ford could change about the focus is the lack of insulation,if it kept more heat you would not have to run the heat or air so much and it would increase milage.
they are great little cars but you hit the nail on the head with that comment above.
I was thinking of putting some solar panels on my roof to off set the amount it ttakes to charge my focus at 240,I was wondering how many kwh per mile this car takes so i know how many panels to buy.
The wind resistance caused by the panels might negate any power gained. These cars are very “slippery” Any added structure that disturbs airflow takes power to overcome at automobile speeds.
Sorry iwas talking on my garage,I’ve heard of tesla selling a solar garage chargeing kit,i wanted to do somthing like that at home.
Sounnds better. Solar has come down in price rather drastically. If you do this PLEASE give us a blow by blow running commentary. This subject is gaining interest from a lot of people.
Would you have a battery bank to gather input full time from the system? Or would you only use the car’s battery pack?
Right now i have two 120 w panels hooked to 8 car batteries,with a days charge i can charge my car with a 110 charger for a little over a hour or 6 miles,I do not know if it is safe to increase my battery bank,“8 batteries is a lot of amps” and if i add more panels will i need a seperate bank,this is all at 12 volt.
[quote=julzian;19715]Here’s the problem:
If one of your main charging stations is a much higher elevation than your commute, you will have to go down that drop in elevation with a full charge unless you manually stop the charging before it is full. Why is this a problem? For three reasons. First of all it is a waist of all the potential energy that could be captured by regenerative braking as you drive down the drop in elevation. Secondly it causes unnecessary wear on your break pads. Thirdly the car doesn’t handle as good going down the hill and the L mode (low) is disabled because the computer is preventing any regeneration from occurring in order to not overcharge the batteries.
I experience this each day as I drop down 1000 feet to the town a few miles from home. This must be really bad for people with even larger elevation drops miles from their home on their daily commute. Even people at a few hundred feet elevation drop would benefit from an update that will fix this.
I also just purchased the 2014 Fusion Energi and it has the same problem but it is even worse because if you put it in low it turns on the engine to “engine brake” all the way down the hill and it has a super high revving engine noise and wastes gas instead of creating electricity. It is honestly a surprisingly overlooked design flaw in the software.
The solution should be a simple update to the software. It should have a charge percentage feature that lets you turn down your total “Location Charge Percentage” for any given charging station that you save to your GPS Markers. That way it could be your home or you work, or any point that is at a much higher elevation than where you will be going next. I was told by a Tesla sales rep that their software does have this feature.
How do we get Ford to put this into an upcoming software update?[/quote]
I’ve had some luck in the past with Ford by emailing them directly with the issue and they have replied in the past. Dosen’t mean they will immediately fix the issue but it at least gets the issue on record from a customer their bread and butter. I’m also sure they read the forums
It take a lot of solar panels to produce practical amounts of electricity . And a lot of equipment that goes along with it .
I have been reading about solar for years . For me , it is no where near the point where it is cost effective .
God bless
Wyr
Awesome! 