The conection with Ford patents and Toyota patents was with Aisin. Volvo was also part of the design and patent ownership with Toyota and Aisin was the manufacture of those CVT's. Ford bought out Volvo along with their patents on the eCVT. Ford further developed the design with Volvo and now they choose Aisin has the manufacture because they were on the ground floor for manufacturing the eCVT.

GaryG

 

Willard, you've gone out of your way to suggest Toyota designed the FEH. You discuss efficiency of WOT and high octane fuel on the FEH, yet have little to no experience to compare FE. You came out of nowhere and stated Toyota sold a system to Ford cheap for the FEH that didn't meet the Lexus standards. That's just crazy because the FEH owners love the thing for the most part.

I happen to like the Prius, and my wife has also expressed interest in a purchase. IMHO, I think the Highlander and even the 400H should have been available in a I-4 for better FE. I think Toyota lost a lot of sales because of the V6 hybrid, I for one anyway. IMO, Toyota was not the only one because I think the same about the HAH.

GaryG

 

First, I was in line, high on the list, to purchase an RX400h but cancelled my order just as soon as the advance advertising started to be slanted toward 0-60 times. I think Toyota/Lexus made a HUGE mistake not building an I4 version, at least for the HL.

My son has an AWD Ford Escape, I4/stick, of which he seems to be very pleased.

As for myself I have been looking into how one might improve the freeway performance, or maybe even the overall performance of any of these hybrid vehicles.

The idea I have centers around using an "out-board" generator, something on the order of 6000 watts. The idea would be to mount it on a tag-a-long one wheel, swivel wheel, trailer and only have it start up and run, always at WOT, just before the hybrid battery is discharged to the point wherein the on-board ICE must be used, and only until the battery is fully recharged.

The genset motor will be modified (head milled, new intake cam) to use the miller cycle with a salvaged air pollution pump as the supercharger.

Our smaller scale experiments already indicate a gain of 30% FE for the genset engine running full throttle to recharge a fully discharged lead-acid battery bank versus longer term recharging at 1/3 throttle. I expect to see another 20% improvement in FE with the Miller Cycle.

I wish to eventually have both engines run on CNG, but the out-board for sure initially. You can now "home brew" CNG via a market available pump system.

I was initially looking at the MMH as a TOAD, but have switched my interest to the Suzuki SX4 for that purpose. Which, by the way, seems to be an ideal target for a Prius drivetrain transplant if/when one shows up in a salvage yard.

But I'd much rather see a Prius drivetrain transplanted into a Porsche Cayman keeping the RWD aspects of the Porsche intact but maybe converting the Prius' Atkinson Cycle engine to the Miller Cycle. Add a positive displacement SC driven by an MG1 setup (variable speed) and you get FE and HP when you need it.

How many watts, HP, do you suppose it takes to move a Porsche Cayman along at say, 72MPH??

 

"...Ford bought out Volvo along with their patents on the eCVT..."

Sorry, the Volvo CVT developements, later Volvo and Ford, did not concern the "eCVT" as used by the Prius, FEH and MMH. Volvo's CVT was of the mechanical belt (chain??) type whereas the one Toyota developed and patented has the functionality of the Volvo CVT, infinite or continuously variable gear ratios.

Leave out the eCVT's planetary gearset and you can think of the Toyota eCVT as a simple open diff'l operating in reverse, a motive force driving each axle "input" shaft and the "output" shaft coupled to the driveshaft. Turn each input at an equal rate but in "opposite" directions and the eCVT is effectively in neutral. ICE idles at 800 RPM while MG2 turns in opposition at 800 RPM, 2400 RPM if you allow for the planetary gearset.

Want to move forward..?

Raise the ICE RPM while decreasing the RPM of MG2.

 

I move in my FEH quite well thank you. In great weather, I can nail down much better milage than the EPA rated Prius. If Toyota could offer 70+mpg in their SUV, I would agree. They can't! I can! You have no idea, I do!

The botton line, Ford has a SUV that some driver's can kick the crap out of the Prius drivers because of design. If yota could get a SUV that could compete with the FEH, they would, they can't and they don't!

AS far as design, Ford is building a kick *** SUV with a eCVT that yota can't claim crap. Now, what in the hell are you claiming Willard? Ford has all the patents they need. Your BS is just BS and have no facts!

Lets see pictures, articles or links that support your claims! Nothing so far! Stir up other sites if that is your goal!

GaryG

 

Runs counter to what I've been told by a Ford Engineer, but that Ford Engineer wasn't on the Explorer project so someone else might have been covering their butts.

 

Okay, let's cool things off.

We've gone off topic for a few pages here, let's just move on, or start a new topic thread if you really can't let this go.

 

Hello all,

I own a 2008 AWD FEH, have since June 2007, and it has a little over 6000 miles on it. Over the past two days I've had an unusual situation pop-up, similar to one described earlier in this thread. I apologize if I am asking a question that has been answered somewhere else; searching the forums has been hit-or-miss for me.

Now, I thought my situation was the same as described way back at the beginning of this thread: car is warm, has been on for several minutes, and when sitting at a stop light or coasting to a stop, the ICE will not turn off. But my NAV screen also indicates that the battery gauge is FULL ... not the normal "full" where you can still see a slim band of white at the top, and the rest is 95% green, but FULL (100% green, no white visible). My fiancee noticed that the arrows occasionally drew a path from the Electric Motor to the ICE, but the battery remained FULL.

Again, I thought that this thread would answer my questions - why is this happening / how can I get the ICE to turn off when it should - and unless I'm missing something, I didn't find it.

The reason that I suspect something is "wrong" is because the car successfully went to EV earlier in the same trip. In other words, the FEH operated (seemingly) completely normal, going to EV at stop lights, etc., and then later in the same trip would not shut off the ICE.

Of note: (1) I have recently begun experimenting with using the "N" gear while coasting, slowing to stops, and sitting at long lights/trains. I never had this problem before using "N," and until I've got a grip on what's happening, think I will refrain from using "N" (whether it is the culprit or not). (2) The temperature in the Chicago area has decreased a bit over the past few days, so I'm not ruling out temp as an explanation ... it just seems odd that the ICE would shut off like normal at one stop light, and then the RPMs stay around 1400 and keep the ICE on at another stop light.

If anyone has any thoughts, comments, or suggestions they are much appreciated. Thanks!

-Andrew-

 

It sounds like the FEH was going through a HV battery self-reconditioning process to optimize performance. See the owners manual for more details.

Also, there are two "Neutral" operating states, passive and active. If you are in neutral below 6mph (passive neutral), the engine will remain in the state of running or off. It will not shutdown if it's running and it will not start-up if you are in EV in passive neutral. Above 6mph (active neutral), you can get a start-up or shutdown for EV while in neutral. There is no regen in either passive or active neutral.

In passive neutral, the engine is controlling its own idle and is described as a secondary idle. This is because the generator motor transferred the speed control to the engine itself.

You can use neutral all day long with no problems if you understand how it works.

GaryG