Powerboost idle time in electric?

[delidave]

Can anybody provide some feedback on their experience with their Powerboost idle time in electric. How long does it stay in electric when idle before the trucks ICE kicks to charge the battery again? without anything plugged into the Pro Power. just straight idling with nothing really on in the truck. I am not getting the performance I expected out of mine.

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[Snakebitten]

Depends on day VS night (headlights) and your climate control burden, but for both of my Powerboost trucks (1.5 years total ownership) it would average between 18-19 minutes of EV, and then 50-80 seconds of ICE.

I usually round it to make it easy to describe as about 3-4 minutes of ICE per hour. (daylight, AC on)

 

[delidave]

Thanks for the feedback. Mine is definitely not getting that. it will maybe stay in EV idle for about a minute then the ICE kicks on even with no climate control or lights. I did have the Aux Battery Isolator replaced but didn’t think that would have to do with anything. I am going to have my dealership look at the Hybrid battery and make sure everything is working properly. it seems odd that it would kick in so much.

 

[Snakebitten]

It'd be interesting to monitor your Hybrid Battery SOC, as well as the rate of charge/discharge, to compare what is going on with your truck VS the typical Powerboost.

There's 2 Pids that would be very revealing.
(you can monitor them with an app on your phone and an ODB adapter)

I have spent so much time with those 2 pids on display that I can predict within a few seconds of when the ICE will start, and when it will go back off.

They look like this on an Android phone

The -14.5 represents the RATE of charge in Amps, at 276Volts (the voltage is displayed in the amber gauge)

The 43.59 is the percentage of battery charge (state of charge) of the Hybrid battery.

Ford has the software logic programmed to keep this battery between roughly 40%-60% state of charge. On this truck it is actually 42%-63% most of the time.

So if I were sitting in the truck idling in Park, I can watch the SOC bleed slowly down and predict that the ICE will come on at around 42% SOC. Immediately the charging rate will be a negative number of Amps (negative meaning current is going INTO the Hybrid battery) and you can watch the SOC increase rapidly until it reaches ~60%. (it charges at a faster rate if you have "Eco Idle" enabled and you are in Park)
As stated earlier, it will take from ~55 seconds to ~90 seconds to reach the SOC that Ford has set as the limit.

The ICE will turn off, and then you will see the Amps switch to positive + and the battery will begin to drain again.

If your truck is cycling between charge/discharge as often as you describe, I would be curious if it is because something is limiting the full range of SOC? Or do you have an excessive discharge rate far exceeding the normal discharge rate of 4-7amps?

 

[Oxford_Powerboost]

Thanks for the feedback. Mine is definitely not getting that. it will maybe stay in EV idle for about a minute then the ICE kicks on even with no climate control or lights. I did have the Aux Battery Isolator replaced but didn’t think that would have to do with anything. I am going to have my dealership look at the Hybrid battery and make sure everything is working properly. it seems odd that it would kick in so much.

Heat is not on? The only time I’ve experienced that short of EV idle time is if it’s unable to warm up and I’m demanding heat from the HVAC (it cuts the engine on at 130 degrees coolant and back off at 140). Otherwise, something is up. What does the power flow screw in sync say “engine on due to?”

 

[BroCo]

It'd be interesting to monitor your Hybrid Battery SOC, as well as the rate of charge/discharge, to compare what is going on with your truck VS the typical Powerboost.

There's 2 Pids that would be very revealing.
(you can monitor them with an app on your phone and an ODB adapter)

I have spent so much time with those 2 pids on display that I can predict within a few seconds of when the ICE will start, and when it will go back off.

They look like this on an Android phone

The -14.5 represents the RATE of charge in Amps, at 276Volts (the voltage is displayed in the amber gauge)

The 43.59 is the percentage of battery charge (state of charge) of the Hybrid battery.

Ford has the software logic programmed to keep this battery between roughly 40%-60% state of charge. On this truck it is actually 42%-63% most of the time.

So if I were sitting in the truck idling in Park, I can watch the SOC bleed slowly down and predict that the ICE will come on at around 42% SOC. Immediately the charging rate will be a negative number of Amps (negative meaning current is going INTO the Hybrid battery) and you can watch the SOC increase rapidly until it reaches ~60%. (it charges at a faster rate if you have "Eco Idle" enabled and you are in Park)
As stated earlier, it will take from ~55 seconds to ~90 seconds to reach the SOC that Ford has set as the limit.

The ICE will turn off, and then you will see the Amps switch to positive + and the battery will begin to drain again.

If your truck is cycling between charge/discharge as often as you describe, I would be curious if it is because something is limiting the full range of SOC? Or do you have an excessive discharge rate far exceeding the normal discharge rate of 4-7amps?

What App is this? Very interesting!

 

[Severdog]

What app is this? I am using TORQUE on Android and I can't get a reading for the HV battery PID. I can get "state of EV Charge" and it shows it moving between 40% - 60% like you say.

In fact, many of the PIDs that the app supports are "greyed out" on my config screen; not sure if this is because Ford does not support them, or that my OBD2 interface is weak sauce.

Thanks for getting me started down this route. Really fascinating.

It'd be interesting to monitor your Hybrid Battery SOC, as well as the rate of charge/discharge, to compare what is going on with your truck VS the typical Powerboost.

There's 2 Pids that would be very revealing.
(you can monitor them with an app on your phone and an ODB adapter)

 

[LHoffmanjr22]

Any more details on what OBDII monitor you have and the apps you use would be great. I've always wondered exactly what the battery and hybrid system is doing at any given time. I wish Ford would build in a little more of that info into their infotainment system. Seems like there's lots of room on a few of the different screens that have to do with what mode the truck is currently running in for that info. Electric only cars seem to get in on all that kinds of info, but hybrid is left out.

 

[RickBullotta]

Are you in generator mode or just idling? I suspect that in generator mode you'd do better. Also, turn off the main display, turn off HVAC, lights, etc...

 

[HammaMan]

With only DRLs running, the truck should easily go 15 minutes+ between starts.

For simplicity sake, even if the truck starts every 10 minutes, that's about 2.25kWh of usage per hour, which is pretty high. For comparison's sake, if you pull about 450 watts worth of total power out of your 12v battery, the truck isn't likely to start.

Your 12v system may be low, try charging it and resetting your BMS once charged. key on, engine off, 5 bright flashes, 3 brake pedals, 4 fog light pushes.

 

[Snakebitten]

What App is this? Very interesting!

This thread discusses the software app, the ODB adapter, and the PIDs.

There's more Hybrid pids than you can shake a stick at.

Sorry for the rabbit hole you might be going down.

 

[Snakebitten]

What app is this? I am using TORQUE on Android and I can't get a reading for the HV battery PID. I can get "state of EV Charge" and it shows it moving between 40% - 60% like you say.

In fact, many of the PIDs that the app supports are "greyed out" on my config screen; not sure if this is because Ford does not support them, or that my OBD2 interface is weak sauce.

Thanks for getting me started down this route. Really fascinating.

See post above.
But in summary, it's OBDLink and the Ford/Lincoln/Mercury add-on

Here's my main screen for monitoring ICE on top and Hybrid on the bottom

 

[Severdog]

OK Cool. OBDLink apparently only talks to its own OBD2 bluetooth device. I got one of the $20 amazon wonder OBD2 bluetooth dongles, makes sense that the OBDLink devices would have more available information.

First time messing with these.

See post above.
But in summary, it's OBDLink and the Ford/Lincoln/Mercury add-on

 

[delidave]

Thanks everybody for the feedback on what to look for. My PB is going to be going in for service for a non-related issue so I am going to have them take a look at the hybrid battery at that time. Will update once I get some more info from the dealer.

 

[Atlee]

Can anybody provide some feedback on their experience with their Powerboost idle time in electric. How long does it stay in electric when idle before the trucks ICE kicks to charge the battery again? without anything plugged into the Pro Power. just straight idling with nothing really on in the truck. I am not getting the performance I expected out of mine.

I can't speak to exactly the situation you are describing. I will, however, talk about my experience of the performance of the ICE/Hybrid battery when the trailer was plugged in.

I haven't used my trailer's A/C much but I did a test run early this summer while in my driveway running the A/C. I observed about a 10 minute run on the battery, about a 2 minute run of the ICE, then 10 more minutes on the battery. Rinse and repeat. I did this for an hour.

I've used the PB for 4 boondocking weekends (tailgating) at my universities football games so far, the latest being the weekend of Oct 15th. We ran a small electric heater. I do not know the interval between ICE charging and strictly battery use, but I would guess 15 to 20 minutes between ICE usage. Didn't stand around timing it. More important things to do. The most watts I observed was about 1150-1250. This would have been when the electric heat was on. Other times it was down to 200 - 450 watts. This would have been mostly with either/or a combo of the fridge running on electric and the converter keeping the trailer batteries topped off.

This I do know. The trailer was plugged into the PB for 62 hours between Thursday night at a Walmart and about 10 AM Sunday when we packed up and left. During that time, I used 7.75 gallons of gasoline. That is less than I used when running the twin Honda E2000i inverter generators I've used in the past.

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