Real Time Look at Accessory Power Consumption

[Rwbill]

I'll copy and paste something I put in another Forum.

Thanks to Jeff A and a couple of threads lately, I finally did what I've been intending to do for 6 weeks, play with the many options of the displays.

Specifically I had wished there was a way to see what was going on and using energy other than driving.

One thread, and sorry I can't remember by whom, alluded to adding gauge numbers along the vertical bar in a couple of displays. You can see if your driving is pulling 300 WattHrs, or watch it go up and down adjusting quickly to acceleration or coasting. I believe you have to click to the right in this view and check the "gauge" box option to add the numbers.

I wished there was a way to see how much the heater and accessories pull, and it is here. Parked in my driveway last evening after a drive, outside temp about 50, I rotated the temperature up to 76 degrees. You can see how much the climate started pulling to raise the cabin temperature. I believe it was at this point the range also dropped from 52 to 44, certainly believable if I was to run the heater that much for the next hour.

I rotated the temperature back down to 68 and watched the climate bar quickly fall to the left and disappear. The headlights were on, which probably accounts for the small nub next to "other". This still shows 44 miles, I believe it went back up to 52 when I clicked the climate button 'off'.

I can't remember the tree of options to get here exactly, these 2 shots were a right click from "MyView", or something like that. I don't remember how I got there, I think under the "Energy" menu.

I also don't know if these views display while one is driving. Note this is "Accessory Power", the power used to actually move, 250 - 350 WHrs, is piling up in addition to the accessories.

As someone else mentioned, somewhere, there was no visual drop in mileage range by turning on the seat heaters, but I'm sure that would show up here somewhere and obviously does pull more juice than a radio. Fortunately that is not something that would normally need to stay on.

This was a long overdue lengthy exploration of more menu options than I had afforded myself to do but had wanted to. Obviously I'm not going to tinker with the menus while watching out for drivers and sudden stoppages on I-95.

 

[dwf123]

Good Job Rw,

I got to the budget view excactly as you have pictured. I cannot get to the accessory power screen...... Turning the heater on took 14 miles immediately off my range. If you can redo this procedure, would you mind posting the steps?

In exploring these menus options I found multiple items I did not even know existed - like setting the lights to auto so they come on in light rain...

I am driving a 2012 in the event that matters.

Wood

 

[klaus]

Wow, very good to know, thanks a bunch for taking the time to take pictures of the screen in your Focus Electric and then to upload them! I know it's a lot of work!

 

[Rwbill]

Well, the answer is yes, you can display these accessory gauges while driving in My View.

I like this car even more, getting off my lazy behind and finally exploring the menus. I believe I still have just scratched the surface of this car's capabilities.

This view shows, actively, real time while driving, all power consumption (well, for practical purposes). It has become my newest favorite view.

From the right you'll recognize the "AA battery". To the left is that gauge that someone referred to as a "cup", with the white bar that goes up and down. To this I was able to add the gauge scale, "Watt Hours per Mile X 100", showing how much is being used for propulsion. This is informative. If on cruise control when I hit a slight incline the bar quickly rises to the top, on flat terrain it levels off below 300 WHr at 60mph, and even down a slight decline the bar will drop as you see below to about 100WHr.

The new display I found is pasted on the left of the screen, same as I posted above. This just shows that it displays while driving 50 mph, taking pictures not advised, it took me about 10 minutes until I was by myself and I had to snap a few times because they were blurry.

As well as a text view of "Charge Point" and "Surplus", this shows how much is being consumed by the climate control and other. Here the climate was turned off. But if I turned it on to warm to 72 degrees, the white bar quickly maxxed out to the right and the range might drop 6 - 8 miles, even more when at a full charge and it is estimating the effect of driving with heater on for 60 miles. Once the set temperature was reached, however, the white bar on climate drops all the way to the left as shown. To maintain the set temperature, heating will periodically cycle on and off, as reflected in the white bar occasionally pegging to the right for a couple of minutes, then falling all the way to the left as the heating shuts off. Although the heating unit does apparently shut off, or go to standby, the reduced range number will always stay at the pessimistic number. Only when I turn off the climate altogether does the number jump back up 6 or 8 miles.

Someone else, somewhere, in some thread, made the observation that the seat warmers used less than the climate control. This is true 10X over, I discovered to my surprise. Turning on the seat warmer barely, barely, nudges the "other" bar to the right. I was so surprised that I turned on both front seat warmers to max, "5", setting, and the "other" bar didn't even get to 500W, or halfway to the first bar, which also included headlights full on. I thought the electric seat heater would draw much more than that. I was wrong.

Clearly, the way to create warmth in the 35-45 degree weather I've experienced so far is to turn the seat heater on, and minimize the climate as much as possible. I have driven home in short sleeves in this weather completely using only the seat heater and reducing it from 5 to 3. Granted I have an unusual tolerance for cool weather and I will probably have to start using the climate more and more as temperatures drop into the 20s, but with a very warm seat there isn't as much need to run climate, or at least you can run it at a reduced temperature so that the white bar regularly will drop off as the heater cycles off. With a long sleeved shirt or jacket while driving you may not need to run the climate heater at all, or occasionally to ensure the windshield is defogged.

This surprised me, as my perception based on the traditional car is that the heater didn't take much juice once the engine coolant got hot, and I sparingly used the electric seat heaters on the one car I had that had seat heaters. I had thought that the electric seat heaters used a lot of juice, a high amperage. Clearly with the Focus Electric this perception is completely wrong, the seat heaters use less than 1/10 the energy that the climate does to blow hot air. In fact to make the blown air feel warm you may have to set it to 74 or 76 degrees, which will consume quite a bit of the battery capacity as compared to the air conditioning of the summer.

Had I just looked at the range button on the AA battery display, as I have been, I thought the climate was constantly using a high amount of energy because the reduced range number stayed low until I turned it off. With this new display now I know differently, climate usage will drop off to nothing as it cycles off and on.

This is probably a longer narrative than it needs to be, sorry! I'd meant to get back on here a few days ago and update.

 

[Rwbill]

I meant to say dwf, I had read that the auto wipers was possible but never knew how,

 

[mountaineer]

I just achieved the identical setup -- really nifty and informative for us geeks -- by using the left steering-wheel five-way switches to set Display Mode, MyView, Options (with both Budget Text and Gauge boxes checked), Change MyView, Accessory Power, OK, Budget + Av, OK. This will display probably all the real-time energy data you need to understand what you're using and how the range-predicting algorithm forecasts and interprets your three Ts—Technique, Terrain, and Temperature.

See also 0:24 in the Ford video https://owner.ford.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Owner/Page/OwnerVideoPage&year=2013&make=Ford&model=Focus%20Electric

I also find it useful to use Trip 1 and 2, both set to the Enhanced option.

 

[wplate]

I just achieved the identical setup -- really nifty and informative for us geeks -- by using the left steering-wheel five-way switches to set Display Mode, MyView, Options (with both Budget Text and Gauge boxes checked), Change MyView, Accessory Power, OK, Budget + Av, OK.

Thanks for the tip. I was able to finally get there too. They really make this one hard to find!
But there is a bug in the steps above. After you choose Change MyView and select "Accessory Power" to display in the left 2/3 of the customizable area you need to press RIGHT (not OK) to move the focus to the area just to the left of the battery. My vehicle had this set to "Blank" by default. Now I was able to select "Budget + Average".