Ford Fusion Energi SE

I'm loving my Ford Fusion Energi SE. I'd like to thank everyone at Revision3. First they are sponsored by Ford which let me know that Ford had some Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs).  Then the folks at Ford's Twitter account let me know I could also get Adaptive Cruise Control in the Fusion Energi SE.

As many of you know, this is not my first PHEV. My last one was a Toyota Prius with the Hymotion H5 conversion. I picked up a used 2008 Toyota Prius and the great folks at Pro Auto Care in Denver, CO converted it from a standard hybrid car to a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle.

I loved that car and was getting 80-90 miles per gallon (mpg) during regular use, which was commuting  between home and work. Road trips to visit family were between 45m mpg and 50 mpg. Roughly a year ago, the conversion battery pack started giving me trouble and the company who originally built the conversion was in bankruptcy. The Toyota Prius kept working great.

Now things are better. With the conversion, the original Prius computer program was managing the switch between electric and gasoline modes. It was very hard to stay in a a pure electric mode. Every time you start the Prius, after about 20 seconds, the engine would turn on. I assume this was to warm up the catalytic converter to help with emissions for when the engine is needed. This would happen even if I hadn't taken it out of gear yet.

The next thing I learned with the Prius is that I had to keep speeds below 45 mph to run in electric mode. I assume this was to make the transmission switch easier if the engine power was eventually needed. There were a few times that I was coasting down a hill (i.e., no acceleration needed) and as the speed increased, the engine started.

I went into this adventure to learn about hybrids, PHEVs, and electric vehicles. I've been an advocate for hybrid cars since the first ride I got in one in 2003. A friend of mine had a Prius, and the first time the engine turned off when we were at a stop light, it blew my mind. I still believe the future of transportation is in electric vehicles. Hybrids are a necessary step on the way to that future. After years and years of talk, talk, talk about electric vehicles, I decided it was time for me to put my money where my mouth was and figure out if the hype could work for real people with real world driving conditions.

The result was that I learned owning was everything I thought it could be. It drives the same as any other car. I really liked that Toyota had a Smart Key system with push button start. The Smart Key meant I never had to fumble with keys. The push button start only makes sense because you're really booting up your car, not cranking the engine. The car taught me to accelerate and brake smarter as well. That helped me get even better gas mileage.

One thing I wasn't expecting was getting in my car each morning to a full tank. When you plug in your car each time you return home, you're refueling it. Gasoline cars and gas stations have taught us to monitor the gas level through the course of many trips and many days. In a PHEV, I still had to monitor the gas in the tank, but every morning the batteries were fully charged and ready to drive.

I also learned that it was simple to keep the car charged. It didn't take long to develop a habit of plugging the car into the wall each time I pulled into the garage. It is similar to the habits we build to plug in our cell phones to recharge them each day. We also have habits about getting ready in the morning. It is easy to add to this ritual unplugging the car and storing the extension cord.

One thing the manufacturers probably don't want you to know is that there is no need for the extra high voltage charging stations in your garage. All of the PHEVs on the market today offer the ability to charge from a standard 110V outlet. This usually takes 8 hours. The charge time can be cut in half when you install a special 220V charging station in your garage. Your house probably has this capability for your oven and dryer. It sounds like you would want the shortest recharge time because you're comparing it with 5 minutes to fill your gas tank. What you learn when you live with a PHEV, is that you sleep for 8 hours. From the time you pull into your garage after work until you are ready to leave in the morning, your car is charging. There were a couple times where I turned around in 6 hours and still I had plenty of charge in the car. An 8 hour charge every night keeps you running on electric for as long as possible.

Well, the title of this blog is the Ford Fusion and I've spent all of this time talking about the Hymotion H5 converted Prius. I did that because so much of what I love about the PHEV Fusion Energi SE are the same as the Prius, like charging while you sleep.

There are some things different about the Fusion. On the negative side is no Smart Key option and no Pushbutton Start option, even though these are options on other Ford models. I would expect these options will come in future models of the Fusion Energi. Right now the My Ford Mobile app for the iPhone feels cheap and doesn't seem to have much functionality. The good news there is that the Ford software department can fix that without changing my vehicle.

On to the good things. The Fusion Energi SE was designed from the start to be a PHEV. This means that the computer logic does a better job of keeping the car in electric mode. I can drive at full Interstate speeds (70 mph) in pure electric mode. Even after the EV battery has been drained and you're driving on the Hybrid battery, if there is enough power in the battery at Interstate speeds, the engine will shut off and the car will drive on electric only.

This past week I was just driving between home and work. I charged each night. I drive roughly 10-13 miles one way and don't have charing capability at the office. According to the read out at the end of each trip, I used a total of 0.01 gallons of gas. These trips included stops for dinner on the way home and one 6 mile round trip when I had to get a drive through dinner before returning to the office to finish a project. When I was looking at the Fusion, I was also looking at some electric cars. I decided to stick with the hybrid because I am still doing a number of road trips (> 600 miles) during the year. After performance like I saw this week, the Fusion Energi SE is really an Electric Vehicle with a safety net for the longer trips.

This sounds good, and many of you are saying that while I'm not spending money on gasoline, I'm still spending money on electricity. You're absolutely right, so let's look at that. The Fusion battery can hold 7.5 kWh. Most days I was using all of that. Where I live, I'm paying $0.085 per kWh. That is a little over $0.50 per day to drive to and from work. That is $15 a month. I challenge everyone reading this article to look around their house. How much is the alway on refrigerator adding to your electric bill? Surprisingly your Internet modem and wireless router are also using energy 24 hours a day. Then there is the phantom power from your HD television set. All of these appliances are getting more efficient. Still, look at your electric usage for the next few months on your utility bill. Would you be able to afford another 150 kWh to your usage if it meant never filling up the car at a gas station again? I am lucky with my utility rate. The national average is $0.12 per kWh.

One of the other things that I like about the Fusion Engeri SE is that it provides a trip summary when I park and turn off the car. I have used this to compare the different ways I can get to work from my house. One route uses about 3.5 kWh. Another route only uses about 2.5 kWh. This kind of comparison wasn't available in the Prius. I tired comparing routes using the tank milage over the course of 3 tanks. This was very time consuming because it could take me the better part of a month to use up the gas in the 9 gallon tank. Then the milage was an average of all the driving I had done that month, not just the differences between the routes. The immediate feedback that the Fusion provides is helping me find the most cost effective route faster so I can realize the benefits sooner.

The newer car has many more options for displays in the instrument panel. There is a really nice Energy Coach display. It gives a set of bars for acceleration, braking, and cruising. I can use each of them to learn more efficient ways to drive. More gentle acceleration and longer, lighter braking give me a better score and help me get the most from a charge.

So I'm really liking my Ford Fusion Energi SE. If you want to learn more about it stop by and I'll let you take mine for a spin and I'll tell you all about it. It may be easier to just stop by your local Ford dealership and ask them for a test drive. Keep reading this blog as I intend on posting more and more about the Fusion as I learn more about it. I will probably be the only person you know who is happy when gasoline prices go up. That means my investment in this car will be paid off sooner.

Now I haven't even gotten started on the Adaptive Cruise Control. Stay tuned as I expect to be posting more about that in the future as well.