2017 FFE let's get some real data here.

[fbitz777]

I noticed two unrelated threads discussing the 2017 FFE but having a hard time to find real data so I'd like to have a thread that
"focuses" solely on the 2017 FFE rather than new '17 owners revisiting topics related to earlier models.

I have a 2017 on order and considering trading my 2016 already and would like to get insight on:

Battery real capacity: how much of the 33.5KWH is actually "available" ...I would assume that a kind soul could volunteer for a drawdown test or run a driving test until empty. I do that all the time on my '16FFE but that is easy as I am always close to a charger.

Get a sense on how many people are trading up/ordering/receiving the 2017. I hope to see a pick up over the dismal 2016 numbers for the FFE. If the '17 is a dud I might want to wait 6 months and get the Bolt instead.


Thanks!

 

[cutler03gt]

I'd offer, but it'll probably be a couple months until I can get my garage cleaned out enough to fit my car in, as well as get a 240V outlet installed.

 

[Jon_h]

2017 owner here. Have had it a week.

Looking at the CAN signals on Forscan, it appears that about 29 kWh are useable. I have not actually measured it at full charge, but I am extrapolating from SoC vs energy remaining at the time i took a log. 29 makes sense, though.

I live in Michigan and have been driving to work. Averaging about 230Wh/mile in commuting traffic. Goes over 250 at 70 mph, but i have limited miles there.

Longest drive in 1 day was a total of about 65 miles over 3 separate drives. Weather was just below freezing. SoC was at 40% when i got home. I rarely if ever use cabin heating except if I am plugged into prewarm. Rely instead on heated seats.

Love the car. Bolt is great too, if you can afford it.

 

[arbywon]

Picked up my white gold '17 yesterday. The most significant observation was my high-range-anxiety wife's pleasing response to the 108 miles shown on the guess o meter. We live west of Chicago. Temp was low 50's. When I left the garage, the 2014 FFE said 65 miles on the battery.

 

[arbywon]

Spent some time this morning setting up radio stations, nav preferences, etc.

First impression of Sync3 is positive. More experience will tell the real story.

Total frustration with myfordmobile setup. Dealer entered VIN into web app. App said it would send message to my car. It's been 2 days and no confirmation message. Searched pdf manual and NO INFO on how to setup/access myfordmobile in car. Logged into web app and found charging info for the 2014 that I just turned in, (Strangely, latest entry was 11/17/2016). There was no info on my 2017. Tried to add the new VIN and it said another user has already claimed that VIN. Dealer is going to try to track down problem. We'll see.

 

[fbitz777]

INFO from the door post.

My 2016 says:
275Kg /829lbs load
38PSI for tires

What is your '17 saying for load (I already heard PSI is at 41)

Since the GVWR is about the same I am curious if the larger battery capacity reduced the load or if they improved the batteries
and made them lighter per KWH.

Thanks!

 

[cutler03gt]

INFO from the door post.

My 2016 says:
275Kg /829lbs load
38PSI for tires

What is your '17 saying for load (I already heard PSI is at 41)

Since the GVWR is about the same I am curious if the larger battery capacity reduced the load or if they improved the batteries
and made them lighter per KWH.

Thanks!

Mine says: 375 kg or 827 lbs

 

[fbitz777]

oops I meant 375kg too..

so they really improved the batteries by 30% or so in terms of weight/kwh

unless they saved weight other places

 

[joeyfraser]

Hi,

I was an happy co-owner of a C-Max 2014 for almost 3 years. I knew that I would appreciate the FFE 2017. Finally after only 1 month, I am more satisfied than I would thought.

I am living in Eastern Townships (Quebec, Canada) for more than 6 years and I work in Montreal. I was using our second car, a Nissan Versa Note 2014 to drive at the bus parking. My daily commute is 130 km (81 miles). My gas consumption was about 300$ per month.

I have hesitated for a long time between the Leaf 2017 and the FFE 2017 because I was owner of a Nissan car since 2009. I had always hated the Nissan Connect System. It is still not compatible with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. With the DC Fast Charging on the FFE 2017, a better battery (33.5 kWh for the Focus vs 30 kWh for the Leaf), the compatibility of Sync 3 with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and a lower price of 5000$, my choice was easy to do.

One of my principal concern was how Canadian winter would affect the battery range. I got my FFE 2017 on March 17th, few days later the temperature was between -10 C/-15 C (14 F/ 5 F) and I had the opportunity to drive 145 km (90 miles) between Brossard and Melbourne. The drive was 90% on the highway, cabin was preheated, minimum heating of 21 C (70 F) for about 50% of the trip. I finally got to the fast charging station safe with only 2 km (1 1/4 mile) available.

The speed of fast charging is very interesting. I got the maximum of the charging station (average of 40-45 kWh) for the firsts 80%. The charging speed reduces at 50% between 80% and 90%. After 90%, the charging speed is almost similar of a L2 charging station. It took me 45 minutes to charge my FFE from 1% to 90%.

I will keep you posted when I have better results this spring.

Joey

 

[user 5614]

The speed of fast charging is very interesting. I got the maximum of the charging station (average of 40-45 kWh) for the firsts 80%. The charging speed reduces at 50% between 80% and 90%. After 90%, the charging speed is almost similar of a L2 charging station. It took me 45 minutes to charge my FFE from 1% to 90%.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I think that's expected behavior of the DCFC. It only goes to 80% at full speed to protect the battery.

 

[Jon_h]

My father just got a 2017 FFE too. He drove 117 miles "up north" and still had 25 left on the GOM.

No freeway. 55 mph the whole way.

 

[joeyfraser]

Summer is coming soon and we already have higher numbers on the GOM this morning!
132.5 miles / 212 km.

 

[pcph]

I want to share my experience with fast charging my 2017 FFE.

I recently did a trip of 200+ km one way, with a stop in the middle to fast charge. Shortly after plugging in, the charging rate was somewhat stable around 320V 125A, according to the panel on the charging station. My car went from 10% to 80% charge in about 30 minutes. I unplugged after roughly 41 minutes, by then I had reached 95% and the charging rate was down to about 320V 40A. It would have probably fell some more if I had waited longer. During my attempt, it did not drop all the way to a speed similar to a 240V charger, like a previous poster mentioned, but I suppose in the last few percent it could happen.

On the way back (2 days later, after trickle charging back to full from the wall for 30 hours), I had a similar experience, but I allowed the car to recharge to 100% unattended, so I don't know how low the charging rate got. That thing charges pretty damn fast.

Overall it was pretty much painless and it seemed to charge unbelievably fast. Don't think I've ever seen a battery, ANY battery, charge this fast. However, the big disadvantage I can see here is time: a 2.5 hours trip took 3.5 hours. By going on this trip with my FFE, I just proved myself that it is very much possible to do this kind of trip with an FFE, but I think that for the sake of convenience in the future I will do longer trips with my ICE car. (please don't grab the torches and pitchforks now, guys!) The one hour delay kinda sucks.

A note on the economic aspect: due to the higher cost of charging at a fast charging station, my savings VS doing the same trip with gas have been impacted. I estimate it cost me about half of what it would cost in gas. While this is still lower, to put this into perspective, you should know that my cost to drive electric is usually between 1/4 (for trips at high speed) and 1/10th (under absolutely ideal urban conditions) of the cost of gas for the same trips. In addition, while fast charging, I was more or less obligated to eat at the nearby, somewhat expensive, restaurant, which negated any leftover savings. One more reason to use the ICE for this trip.

 

[pcph]

Summer is coming soon and we already have higher numbers on the GOM this morning!
132.5 miles / 212 km.

Probably due to higher inflation of the tires due to higher exterior temperatures. I've also started seeing 200+km on the GOM and we live in the same climate. Last time I checked my tire pressure, it was up to 45 psi, instead of the 41 psi I put some weeks ago.

 

[EVA]

PCPH - nice you took a long trip. That's very cool.

Charging for an hour isn't really that horrible. Doing something else while waiting is a good plan, eating at a restaurant or taking a nap are good things to do with that time. Your other option would be to Uber to a less expensive restaurant. Or grab carry out from a restaurant on your way.

We discovered there is a Cracker Barrel that does this all the time - phone when you are about 20 minutes away and place your order. Then stop by, pick up the food, head to the charging station, and eat while you charge. Either eat in the car, or bring along a chair to have a picnic. It does end up being a nice time.

 

[user 5595]

Charging station providers should be obligated also to provide free Wi-Fi, especially if they are in the middle of nowhere.

I don't personally find an hour delay to be horrible if I'm by myself, but I can see that it might be trying for a passenger who wasn't into the whole "EV" thing. I look for opportunities and excuses to build breaks into my day, so I actually see this as a plus.

 

[triangles]

I want to share my experience with fast charging my 2017 FFE.

I recently did a trip of 200+ km one way, with a stop in the middle to fast charge.

Thanks for sharing! Depending on how long you are at your destination 200ish km away, you could just stop for 15 min at a quick charge to give you a little buffer to get to your destination and then L2 charge once you are there. This of course assumes L2 charging is available and you are there long enough for it to charge. Then you could head home with maybe another 15min break to add a little range buffer.

 

[EVA]

Charging station providers should be obligated also to provide free Wi-Fi, especially if they are in the middle of nowhere.

I don't personally find an hour delay to be horrible if I'm by myself, but I can see that it might be trying for a passenger who wasn't into the whole "EV" thing. I look for opportunities and excuses to build breaks into my day, so I actually see this as a plus.

Wow we have taken this thread a long ways off track...

Even though you put a joking face at the end of the WiFi statement, I'm guessing you would like to see that happen. The more demands put on somebody to include things with a charging station would increase the cost and lower the likelihood that they would install the stations. I'd love to see free WiFi. I'd rather see more charging stations. And my solution is to just turn my phone into a hotspot and use that. I don't see anything wrong with using my own data that I pay for if I need the internet.

The passenger thing depends a lot on the person, and how you approach the trip. Flipping around from, oh darn we have this EV we HAVE to charge for an hour, let's figure something out to do. To, hey let's have a picnic or go out to dinner / lunch / breakfast - and while we're there we can charge the car. That's a whole different program.

 

[user 5595]

Wow we have taken this thread a long ways off track...

We have indeed. But why stop now?

Even though you put a joking face at the end of the WiFi statement, I'm guessing you would like to see that happen.

Not really "joking", but more "lighthearted". I'm completely kidding with the word "obligated", but really, who wouldn't want to see that? (Also, my "middle of nowhere" might mean just more than a kilometre from a coffee shop.) You could take the word "free" out of my sentence, and it would still mean the same to me, as long as anybody could sign up.

I suppose you and I may come from different worlds, but around here "free" Wi-Fi is commonplace and mobile data is typically rather expensive.

The passenger thing depends a lot on the person, and how you approach the trip. Flipping around from, oh darn we have this EV we HAVE to charge for an hour, let's figure something out to do. To, hey let's have a picnic or go out to dinner / lunch / breakfast - and while we're there we can charge the car. That's a whole different program.

Or better yet: "Hey, why don't we take a break? We'll find something nearby to interest you while I sit here with my own thoughts. Oh, and I can charge the car while I contemplate things."

 

[fbitz777]

A few remarks:

Seems to me that the "one hour" fast charging of the '17 FFE brings a totally different set of expectation and trip profiles.

I noticed that moving to the TeslaX 3 weeks ago and the idea of superchargers (1 hour charge) is a similar shift for me from my '16 FFE.

I now dream life with Tesla around superchargers and their amenities (food, lodging) not even bothering with L2 chargers (unless at home).

Let's remember that until the '17 FFE the FFE would take at least 3 hours to charge (80 miles) rendering long trips impractical.

I have not yet studied the location of the fast DC chargers around me (I have however found a free one 2 miles from me at 50kw) so not sure the '17FFE is really for me (although I have one on order).