Here's what mine does: as soon as I start to level off, it jumps up into 3500-4000 RPMs.

Does it in D as well.

 

Your hybrid battery state of charge has exceeded 53% and the engine will rev up to burn off the excess charge. This is a built in mechanicsm to promote longetivity.

 

Ah - thanks. Makes sense.

 

If you don't have navigation in your vehicle that can display state of charge, obtaining a scanguage will do the same thing.

 

Although...why always at the bottom of the hill as I level out? I've seen the overrevving on a long, long descent - so that makes sense with the high SOC explanation, but the pretty much consistent overrevving at the end of a hill that's only a few blocks long seems less likely to pin on that. (Didn't someone post about a service bulletin on overrevving a bit back?)

And how does overrevving of the ICE burn off battery charge?

 

You keep stating that the engine is "over-revving". 4000 RPM is well within the normal operating range of this engine. IIRC, the rev-limiter kicks in at six grand so four is really not too bad.

In the long down hill runs, the way I understand it, the gas engine is being spun by the electric motors to use up the generated electricity that the batteries don't need. I think it has been proven by the Scan Gauge users that the fuel is cut off.

Absolutely nothing to worry about. Perfectly normal and just another example of how well thought out these vehicles are.

 

Let's call it "unexpectedly revving up". I understand now why it does it on the long downhills; it feels odd when it does it for a few dozen seconds on the short downhill by my house, always as I level out, never during the downhill.

I know a Scangauge would provide more insight - I only have a version 1 model, so I don't have access to SOC at this point. Maybe Santa will fix that.

 

Would the system also use ICE run-up to keep from overheating the regen system as well. I can see a scenario where a long stretch of regen could cause a good bit of heat in the battery even before the SOC reached it's limit?

I know Ford is VERY protective of the battery and EV components with their programming.

 

Rember, the hybrid battery has a cooling vent located on the driver side cargo window and an airconditioning system.

 

Hi Everyone.. My first post here.. so forgive me if I'm thread-jacking...

I've got a 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid and it is doing the same thing as others have reported in this thread.

It started about 3 weeks ago.

The engine will rev at 1700 rpm when idling in Park, even after running for 30 minutes or more. It does not kick into hybrid mode, even when the engine is at full operating temp. (the heater controls are set for econo) I will be driving along on a flat road at 50kph (~30mph) and the engine is rev'g at 2500rpm. This is much higher than normal.

If it does enter hybrid mode at a stop light, it only last for a little more than 30 seconds.

I read some of the first posts in this thread suggesting the system was going a charge/discharge cycle to warm the batteries, but it was still doing this even after driving around town for 3 hours, on a day that was not that cold. And it did not do this last March when we bought the truck.

I've taken the truck in to the dealer, but thought I'd post here to see if anyone else had other in-site.

Thanks