Elastopithecus

I still have and love my 2014 Volt. The optimal use for it is for daily commutes that are 30 mils or less as a pure EV and occasional road trips anywhere used as an ICE car. It took a while but I did get a service tech to admit to the obvious parallel mode. The parallel hybrid mode comes in automatically when using what they call "mountain mode". This only comes in when operating as an ICE car where the series mode can't provide enough power to climb a long/high mountain above 60 MPH. This would be like the Grapevine into LA on I-5 from about 500 ft to 4400 ft in one solid climb at 65-70 mph. I regularly use it in the "normal" mode (pure EV) to climb CA17 from Si Valley to visit a friend at the top of the pass and charge at his house. I could easily make it home without going into ICE mode because of the downhill run on 17 but he doesn't mind me charging at his house and I don't mind him charging at my house when he comes down the hill in his e-Golf. I generally use no more than a couple of gallons of gas per year unless I take a road trip to LA to visit family. If my wife and I both go, we take our Fusion hybrid. All that said, I plan to get a Cybertruck when I retire to Oregon (no sales tax) to be with our kids and granddaughter. (c: BTW, One reason I think GM discontinued the Volt was that it requires an enthusiast to drive it optimally. My wife does not like driving it. -Steve

MD, thanks! What you and Allen have said makes total sense regarding the extended license. I'll definitely get the temp key and see how it goes and then I'll probably spend a few bucks if it's not too much to have the capability to deal with other issues in the future without the hassle of getting another temp key. I also have a soft spot for small software companies that spend a lot of time and effort to write the code for this stuff *if* it's not crazy expensive ($30--$40 range). A disclaimer about the re-balancing dissertation: While I am an electronic engineer, my main experience is with medical device failure analysis and semiconductors but I'm *not* an expert in hybrid and EV electrical systems. I do know something just because I'm a curious sort. This is also to say that I'm almost never a social media and discussion group participant. I do want to contribute something useful for anyone interested but I will have to "research" how to create a new topic and a new thread. I'm sure it's easy but I've never done it! -Steve

Allen, I'm glad you're still monitoring this discussion! I may take you up on your offer of a temporary key if needed but I'm not to that point yet. Last night I ordered a $20 USB code reader for Ford products from Amazon that they say works with FORScan and other apps. I should be good to go with that and my Dell Windows 10 laptop. Once I try and hopefully succeed, I'll post details about which device I bought and what I experienced to add to the discussion knowledge base here. BTW, would you or anyone else in this discussion be interested if I wrote and posted a short "dissertation" about what re-balancing is and why it's necessary? I don't know all the details but I can at least provide a basic understanding about what it is. Thanks again for what you've done! -Steve

Hi Allen, Like everyone else here, I'm suffering the no EV issue. Thanks so much for your post! I have a question that maybe should be answered by FORScan but let me try here first since this seems to be a very knowledgeable group: You had mentioned in the beginning that a license key needs to either be purchased or you can use the 2-month version. Although I haven't downloaded anything yet, I did go to their website and they say that the "standard" key is included as part of the software. The extended key is has access to some special (hidden, etc.) features such as programming the key (which I don't need). This issue requires configuring the BECM but I can't tell from what either you or FORScan has shown so far if the extended key is really necessary for resetting the battery age timer on a 2010 Fusion hybrid. Did you already try it and found the extended key is necessary for this? Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks, Steve (Elastopithecus is the old dog's nickname)