As discussed here before, the Escape's generator is already a reasonably efficient charger. Most people do not have free electricity, so there is a cost and inconvenience to having a plug-in.

 

I'm very interested in this. I started looking at FEH's thinking I get an 05 with 130,000 miles assuming the battery was about shot, and then swap it out with a Lithium ion and some computer flash.

I found just the opposite. Stock batteries have great longevity and no ones really modifying and flashing...

I'm hoping for ANY way to up the initial charge, but I'm afraid if you leave on a cold start with the battery at 80%, the ECM will just burn off the excess charge while the ICE is running during the warm up strategy.

 

To do what you want, you would have to "defeat" the Ford hybrid software that "burns off excess state of charge". The vehicles are designed to operate between 40-53% state of charge. The Ford hybrid software is not found on any Microsoft or Apple software. There have been a few third party vendors that have "defeated" the Ford hybrid software-Hybrid-Plus to name one but it is going to cost you something like $32,000.00 to do so. FYI Hybrid-Plus has merged and is now under another name.

 

In my own driving tests, I've documented my trip to work. If I start out with a depleted battery at around 35-40% after a cold night, my mileage is rarely above 31 (measured with Scangauge) by the time I get to work. If I start out with a charge of 50% or above, mileage is typically 35-38mpg over the same trip route. This has been pretty consistent. That's what led me to the idea. I just received a very solid answer as to why this is not all that practical from an installer of Enginer systems. He's the only one who has bothered to attempt an answer of my question. Here is the quote of what he wrote:

"The Escape needs 350vdc to charge the battery. The car must be "READY"
to charge the HV battery. When the car is "Ready" it draws 1a (1/3kw)
just to keep the computers running. So you would need a 350v 5-10a
supply to charge the Escape HV battery. This would pull 25-30a from the
wall at 110vac. Do you have a 30a breaker on a dedicated plug in your
garage? [no but I could] In addition you would only get a mile or two out of that charge
compared to 15 miles or so out of a 4kwhr add on system. As you see
this is not simple. So the reason that you do not get an answer to this
question is that even though it may be possible it does not make sense
to do."

We've all seen how quickly the HV battery gets drained over a fairly short distance. This makes sense now that I see the math. It's a big pipe coming out of that battery. It's designed to pump out juice rather quickly if needed. Unfortunately it tends to drain quickly even when you are being conservative.

That said, it would still be better to have the battery at least charged to the neutral point after depleting it on the previous drive. D-Mac resolved that there's no need to charge the battery because the generator does that for you... True, but it's burning more fuel to do it, even during the regular warm up cycle. As evidenced by the results of my own tests. Given the above information, I don't think I'll be installing a 30amp circuit in my garage any time soon!

Incidentally... He also had some things to say about his experiences with installing Enginer products.

"... the Enginer Quality level is not up to my personal
standards. If you get an Enginer system installed you need to expect to
have to take it back to your installer 3 times during the first year to
have warranty work done on it."

He had more to say but in fairness to Enginer, this is one installer's experience and does not mean that all installers have the same experience. It sounds to me like there may be some quality issues but that Enginer stands behind their system for warrantee work.

 

My experience is similar to the installer's: since you are on the bleeding edge, there will be some hiccups. However, Jack Chen has been excellent about warrantee work. I have had 2 charger go bad, one BMS get firmware updated, and one battery pack go bad. All have been replaced by Jack. In the past 3 weeks, I am now getting 30mpg highway (no change) and 50-60mpg city (HUGE change). My recommendation is that if you like to tinker and learn about the technology, it's great. If you want plug-and-play, wait.

 

What the heck does any of this have to do with PHEV kits?

 

Uh... Nothing.

 

I did my Altima using the Enginer kit. I have small issues with it, but the quality control seems to be getting better. I've already posted my story on this board.

I am getting about 6-10 mpg increase per tank. I have also seen at least one trip of about 20 miles where I doubled what the EPA says the car should get... 73 mpg... most was in town <40 mph.

 

Thanks for posting your experiences with the Enginer kit. After doing a lot of studying on their site, the 2KW kit is pretty much what I was looking for in my original question about being able to top off the stock traction battery. It's essentially a way to store a reasonably good charge, albeit with limited capacity. That kit would pretty much do what I was looking for I think. Did you install the 2KW kit or the 4KW? I agree with the previous post - If you want to tinker and learn this is a pretty good way to do it and test out the technology. I think I will probably wait until it matures a little more. Hopefully the costs will decrease and the options will increase. I'm sure that at some point in the not to distant future the "cool" factor will converge with a more reasonable return on investment. Particularly if gas prices keep climbing. I've maintained for some time (my friends think I'm nuts) that the best thing that could happen is for gas prices to reach even more ridiculous prices. This will force more rapid development of these technologies and the oil companies will cut their own throats by way of their own unbridled greed!

 

I got the 4KW kit. I would suggest not getting the 2KW kit. I have no vested interest in Enginer and I believe that you would be severly disappointed with the smaller kit especially with the even heavier vehicle that you have. I probably need to adjust my voltage up so that I can take more advantage of the 4KW kit. Right now I get about 2 hours of assistance from it. That gives me enough to make a round trip from San Jose to San Francisco. Other people say that I am only pulling about 1/2 of what the system will supply, but I get the longer time. Does it balance out, probably. I could possibly get better mileage for shorter distances, such as my daily commute of 20 miles each way. Some of this is freeway and other part is city streets. I am able to get a solid 45 mpg with the assistance.

As far a waiting... you figure your pain point. Longer you wait, longer it takes to pay for itself.

I agree with you... the best thing that could happen is that gasoline in the US goes to similar prices as they pay in Europe. For those reasons and others.