My instructions on restoring the hybrid EV function on the Ford Fusion Hybrid approaching the 8/9+ years mark.

[Elastopithecus]

2 hours ago, lolder said:

The volt wasn't what GM claimed. It could also operate in parallel mode. None of the other manufacturers transmissions are like Toyota/Ford's except Nissan which licensed it.

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

Edited February 21, 2021 by Elastopithecus

[lolder]

On 2/21/2021 at 12:16 PM, akirby said:

I thought both Toyota and Ford (maybe Nissan) used an Aisin e-CVT.  It was the software that was proprietary not the hardware.

They used Aisin's up until the 2013+ FFHs. I think Ford and Toyota traded patents to reach agreement. The Nissan was a Toyota eCVT type under license. 

[akirby]

4 hours ago, lolder said:

They used Aisin's up until the 2013+ FFHs. I think Ford and Toyota traded patents to reach agreement. The Nissan was a Toyota eCVT type under license. 

You don’t need a patent or patent license when you buy a transmission.  Anybody can buy Aisin or any other e-cvt tranny.  You only need patents or licenses on things you build yourself.

[PaulGo]

Unique devices can and should have patents.  This applies to electronics, cars and many other devices.

 

https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2016082776A1/en

 

Antonov

As of autumn 2005, the Antonov Automotive Technology BV Plc company has sued Toyota, the Lexus brand mother company, over alleged patent infringement relating to key components in the RX 400h's drivetrain and the Toyota Prius hybrid compact car. The case has been pending in secret since April 2005, but settlement negotiations did not bring a mutually acceptable result. Antonov eventually took legal recourse in the German court system, where decisions are usually made relatively swiftly. The patent holder seeks to impose a levy on each vehicle sold, which could make the hybrid SUV less competitive. Toyota fought back by seeking to officially invalidate Antonov's relevant patents. The court motion in Microsoft Word document format can be read here.^[36]

On 1 September 2006 Antonov announced that the Federal Patent Court in Munich has not upheld the validity of the German part of Antonov's patent (EP0414782) against Toyota. A few days later, a court in Düsseldorf had ruled that the Toyota Prius driveline and the Lexus RX 400h driveline do not breach the Antonov hybrid CVT patent.^[37]

Ford

Ford Motor Company independently developed a system with key technologies similar to Toyota's HSD technology in 2004. As a result, Ford licensed 21 patents from Toyota in exchange for patents relating to emissions technology.^[38]

Paice

Paice LLC received a patent for an improved hybrid vehicle with a controllable torque transfer unit (US patent 5343970, Severinsky; Alex J., "Hybrid electric vehicle", issued 1994-09-06) and has additional patents related to hybrid vehicles. In 2010 Toyota agreed to license Paice's patents; terms of the settlement were not disclosed.^[39] In the settlement "The parties agree that, although certain Toyota vehicles have been found to be equivalent to a Paice patent, Toyota invented, designed and developed the Prius and Toyota’s hybrid technology independent of any inventions of Dr. Severinsky and Paice as part of Toyota’s long history of innovation".^[40] Paice earlier entered into an agreement with Ford for the license of Paice's patent.^[41]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive#Patent_issues

Edited February 23, 2021 by PaulGo

[Waldo]

12 hours ago, akirby said:

You don’t need a patent or patent license when you buy a transmission.  Anybody can buy Aisin or any other e-cvt tranny.  You only need patents or licenses on things you build yourself.

 

That's not true at all.  There are many instances all over the world and in multiple industries where suppliers build items for companies that own the patents.  If Toyota or Ford own the patent for the e-cvt transmission, then Aisin would be required to pay a royalty for every transmission they sell to somebody else.  Even beyond just the patent issue, there are many, many exclusive supplier contracts.  GM can't just go to Faurecia and order up 1000 Ford Fusion front bumpers.  In many cases Ford pays suppliers to do the engineering and development work on the parts they will buy, so if they didn't have exclusivity contracts, those suppliers could go and sell those parts to others at a much lower price than Ford is paying, because Ford already paid for the development.

[akirby]

1 hour ago, Waldo said:

 

That's not true at all.  There are many instances all over the world and in multiple industries where suppliers build items for companies that own the patents.  If Toyota or Ford own the patent for the e-cvt transmission, then Aisin would be required to pay a royalty for every transmission they sell to somebody else.  Even beyond just the patent issue, there are many, many exclusive supplier contracts.  GM can't just go to Faurecia and order up 1000 Ford Fusion front bumpers.  In many cases Ford pays suppliers to do the engineering and development work on the parts they will buy, so if they didn't have exclusivity contracts, those suppliers could go and sell those parts to others at a much lower price than Ford is paying, because Ford already paid for the development.

 

Correct.  I should have clarified.   If Aisin owns the patents for their e-CVT transmission then they can sell that transmission to anybody.  If somebody else owns the patent like Toyota they can still sell it to others with permission from Toyota and by paying royalties.

 

The point is you don't need to own the patent to use technology or a product made with that technology.

 

I'm pretty sure Tremec owns a lot of patents on their transmissions but I can go buy one, put it in a vehicle and sell the vehicle without paying royalties.  I already paid them when I bought the transmission.

[PaulGo]

30 minutes ago, akirby said:

 

Correct.  I should have clarified.   If Aisin owns the patents for their e-CVT transmission then they can sell that transmission to anybody.  If somebody else owns the patent like Toyota they can still sell it to others with permission from Toyota and by paying royalties.

 

The point is you don't need to own the patent to use technology or a product made with that technology.

 

I'm pretty sure Tremec owns a lot of patents on their transmissions but I can go buy one, put it in a vehicle and sell the vehicle without paying royalties.  I already paid them when I bought the transmission.

They don't sell the transmission but they sell the patented technology to the auto manufacturer.  The auto manufacture will then use the technology in the transmission the build specifically for the cars they produce. 

[akirby]

Ok I guess hybrid patents are more complex than I thought.   Sorry for the confusion.

[lolder]

The only hybrids that use the same MG1, MG2, and planetary gear arrangement are/were Toyota, Ford and Nissan and they all had agreements with each other. It is a marvelous device and the ones Aisin made were bulletproof. Less so for the later Ford built ones circa 2013+.

[whateverdude]

I'll add another "thank you" for this thread.  I just applied it to my 2012 Fusion hybrid with 83k miles and immediately saw an increase in how often EV mode appears and how much I can use it.  My car is a little over 8.5 years old right now (build date July 2012), and I'd noticed for the last few months that a) the battery was always at or near full, yet the car rarely went into EV mode and when it did anything but the gentlest acceleration would push it out, b) most annoyingly (and the reason I searched for possible know issues) I was increasingly noticing an intermittent 1-2 second delay in throttle response from a full stop (as others have mentioned, probably due to a lack of power from EV mode before the engine restarts).  If this is truly an unintentional bug, I'm really surprised it's only a TSB and not a full blown recall. This thread has seen reports from this entire generation of hybrids (2010-2012) so it's almost certainly just a matter of when, not if, it'll happen to all owners.

 

I wanted to add one more thing that I hadn't seen mentioned yet.  I've seen some complaints about not getting a timely response when signing up for the Forscan forum (in order to get the free 2 month extended license).  If you don't get an approval message within 24 hours, it's probably because they rejected your request thinking you're a bot for whatever reason (they do NOT send you an email if you are rejected, this is mentioned somewhere on their site).  That's what happened to me on my first attempt to register.  You can test this out by trying to log in.  If you get "this account is inactive" then your request is still pending approval.  If you get "invalid username" then your request was rejected and you need to re-submit a new user request (not sure why my first request was rejected, might have been that I didn't fill out the "make/model/engine/year" field correctly or they didn't like the username I selected...shrug).  Once I re-submitted my request, it was approved within a few hours.

Edited March 18, 2021 by whateverdude

[PaulGo]

With all the problems owners have been having Ford should offer the fix for free.   For man owners in not only a gas consumption issue bet a safety issue. 

[Fairlane500]

Throttle lag, full battery but little or no hybrid drive. This is my wife's car for past several years after I gave it to her when I bought a 2015 Energi (gawd I luv that one).  I only recently drover her car a few times this last Fall and winter and noticed it wasn't acting right and the mileage sucked. Thankfully I found this post.  Great instructions. It worked on her 2010 Fusion Hybrid today.  Allen84 is a hero & I will send a paypal donation.

 

I did this with a strong IT guru (Bert I work with and two Win10 laptops working in parallel as we anticipated problems based on some posts. Sure enough we started having problems not with Forscan download but the driver(s) for the OBD device.

 

Purchased the OBD II bbfly pro as suggested (on Amazon). Now the box label shows "BF32302 USB".  Their  instructions for Windows indicates BF32302.  But the paperwork also references VINT-TT55501 and VINT-TT55502.  When you go to the FTDI website (per the paperwork) to get the drivers you can find as downloads: bbfly-BF32302+User+Guide, bbfly+VINT-TT55501+User+Guide, bbfly+VINT-TT55502+User+Guide and also bbfly-BF32301+User+Guide (older than 302).

 

These are user guides in PDF format BUT with the link in the PDF document to the actual download. BUT, several of the PDF's refused to open properly using Edge, Firefox, Adobe etc. Couldn't figure out why.  We finally got the older one BF32301 to open on one computer and downloaded the driver which caused a pop-up stating that the baud rate was not good enough or something but we used it anyway with the BF32302 device. Worked as far as we could tell.

 

Another small item.  The comment about the toggle switch got clarified once we got going.  The software asked to put the switch outward for MS to see the complete list of functions in the car but once the battery topic area on the long list was selected, it asked us to put the toggle in the HS or inward towards the cable (as ref in Allen84 instructions). Now I understood.

 

After this sidetrack (that I expected from a few other posts), we were back on the trail and the fix was as easy as described. I cleared the dash mileage indicator but got worried for a moment when the battery level dropped to almost nil. After driving everything normalized and the resulting mileage was like when it was new. Hybrid kicked in per original.

 

Again thanks Allen84 (and my Bert B).

 

[DannyD]

Did anyone try this on a 2013-2014 FFH? Just curious and admittedly I didn’t read pages 3-17 of this thread. Thanks!

[BRYANHORNSBY]

Hi, I have 2010 Fusion Hybrid and Im attempting the same fix. Im using Mac OS and have installed FORScan for Windows with the CrossOver app and have the extended license key as well. When I connect laptop to car with ODBII ELM327, it only provides modules and configurations for a 1999 and 2002 Ford Focus. Not sure if it’s a driver problem or Mac problem. Any advice anyone can offer would be great. 
Thanks

[Pavel]

On 5/2/2021 at 4:35 PM, BRYANHORNSBY said:

Hi, I have 2010 Fusion Hybrid and Im attempting the same fix. Im using Mac OS and have installed FORScan for Windows with the CrossOver app and have the extended license key as well. When I connect laptop to car with ODBII ELM327, it only provides modules and configurations for a 1999 and 2002 Ford Focus. Not sure if it’s a driver problem or Mac problem. Any advice anyone can offer would be great. 
Thanks

 

Try VMWare or some other hypervisor with Windows in - just did the reset on my 2010 FFH + WiFi tool with Forscan under MacOS + VMWare Fusion and it worked just fine.

 

Had a problem with Forscan forum registration but it turned out to be Google spam filter to blame - the activation email was in the Spam folder.

 

Thanks allen84!

Edited May 10, 2021 by Pavel
More details

[Elnureko]

Thanks to Allen84 !

I have 2012 Lincoln mkz hybrid and I followed Allen84's instruction .

Works !!! 

[Taurus]

Hey guys, I'd like to share my experience.

 

I've performed the reset a few years ago. However yesterday my car started to acting up again when I was going someplace - battery fully charged, no hybrid mode, a bit of lag when stepping on the accelerator. I thought that it was going through reconditioning. On the way home after I got off the highway I could use the hybrid mode. Made it home with a HVB with about ⅓ left. However when backing into a garage (as you know backing up uses electric power) front wheels couldn't make it over a small step, I had to let the car roll forward and accelerate in order to be able to park.

 

Anyway, I've requested another 60-day trial license from FORScan last night and this morning went to do another battery reset. For whatever reason it again was showing the message "Incorrect value or not configured". I've changed it again to Year 1, as per instructions. Battery level went to a bare minimum and the engine started to recharge HVB. Went on a test drive, as soon as HVB got charged to about 50-55% level, hybrid mode started to function again.

 

I went through all of the pages of this thread last night and I've seen that a few people experienced no hybrid function within 48 hrs or so when reset was performed by someone else and not the current owner. I've replaced my 12V battery in January of 2020 and I've had no issues. Also FORScan didn't show any DTC today.

 

 Has anyone experienced anything similar to my situation after the first reset?   

[allen84]

So now it has been 2 years now since I've discovered and applied this self-fix for the battery reset.     The car is still going strong without any issues so far.  Still getting get great mileage.

[PaulGo]

16 hours ago, allen84 said:

So now it has been 2 years now since I've discovered and applied this self-fix for the battery reset.     The car is still going strong without any issues so far.  Still getting get great mileage.

About 19 months for me on my two 2010 Mercury Milan Hybrids since I applied your fix.   Both cars are working fine with no issues.  

[dpete15312]

Overall my 2010 Fusion Hybrid is working well with the restoration with the able assistance of allen84. But here's the thing. It restores the hybrid battery as expected when I am in the restorative braking mode. However when I gently accelerate it jumps out of regeneration as indicated with the diamond at the top of the battery gauge disappearing. As a result, normal driving at 50 mph or above does not restore the hybrid battery much beyond halfway up the battery gauge, then stops and never tops off the hybrid battery to the full mark at the top. So when I come to city traffic I cannot restore it enough when i brake to keep up and the vehicle falls out of EV mode once the batter level falls to about 1/3, then I have to feather the accelerator pedal to keep it in EV. Then with the use of the EV mode, eventually of course I am back on gas engine. My overall is only 34 mpg on a tank of gas as I live in a rural area and don't do a lot of city driving. But like I said, the main problem is that normal driving at 50 mph or above does not result in the hybrid battery level getting up to any more than half way up the battery dial and never tops off. What could I be doing wrong? I am hoping that I could be able to get the average mpg up to around 40 mpg on a tank. Any suggestions would be appreciated and keep in mind I am not a bonafide techy....Thanks in advance. 

 

Dean Peterson

Isle MN

[akirby]

10 hours ago, dpete15312 said:

Overall my 2010 Fusion Hybrid is working well with the restoration with the able assistance of allen84. But here's the thing. It restores the hybrid battery as expected when I am in the restorative braking mode. However when I gently accelerate it jumps out of regeneration as indicated with the diamond at the top of the battery gauge disappearing. As a result, normal driving at 50 mph or above does not restore the hybrid battery much beyond halfway up the battery gauge, then stops and never tops off the hybrid battery to the full mark at the top. So when I come to city traffic I cannot restore it enough when i brake to keep up and the vehicle falls out of EV mode once the batter level falls to about 1/3, then I have to feather the accelerator pedal to keep it in EV. Then with the use of the EV mode, eventually of course I am back on gas engine. My overall is only 34 mpg on a tank of gas as I live in a rural area and don't do a lot of city driving. But like I said, the main problem is that normal driving at 50 mph or above does not result in the hybrid battery level getting up to any more than half way up the battery dial and never tops off. What could I be doing wrong? I am hoping that I could be able to get the average mpg up to around 40 mpg on a tank. Any suggestions would be appreciated and keep in mind I am not a bonafide techy....Thanks in advance. 

 

Dean Peterson

Isle MN

Dean - you shouldn’t be driving to keep it in EV mode.  Drive normally and Let the system determine how to use the battery.  It’s not always efficient to use EV power.  
 

It can’t fully charge the battery at highway speeds because as soon as you hit the brakes to slow down it regens and adds more charge so you need room for that.

 

Sounds like it’s working normally and you just need to drive it and stop worrying about the battery level.

[Spirit10]

As I Recall, Ford's target is about 50% so there is room to reclaim energy when braking or going down hill.  Is the "diamond" you are talking about really the triangle that shows energy flow into or out of the battery?  If at the target 50%, I wouldn't expect the ICE to be demanded to burn more fuel just to charge the battery higher thus removing capacity to recover energy upon deceleration.

 

Have you learned to accelerate to speeds 45MPH or less and then significantly ease off to switch to EV mode and then gently apply throttle to maintain the target speed?

 

Driving this car is not like driving a Volt.

 

Refer to my dash shots posted a page back on February 2 for my actual results over a mix of city/freeway driving over the course of 70-80 miles. I will average about 4 mpg better than my wife over the same course I think because she holds a steady throttle when <=45 whereas I do the back off technique to switch into EV mode more often.

 

FWIW

[Spirit10]

I see "akirby" essentially said the thing as I was pecking away at typing my post.  I agree, your car is working as designed, just improve your technique.

 

By the way, my other hybrid is a Chrysler/GM partnership product and it's design point attempts to recharge the battery to 7/8ths so that often on down grades there is no room to store that reclaimed energy.  It also shifts out of EV mode at lower speeds.  All in all, I wish I had the Ford algorithms on the Chrysler. 

 

But I will add, the Chrysler product is a year older and I never had to apply anything like Allen84's fix to maintain original functionality in that vehicle. Whether Ford was pre-planning obsolescence, design oversight, or just an oops, I'm glad Allen84 found and posted a working solution to this problem.

Edited June 21, 2021 by Spirit10

[dpete15312]

Thanks to everybody concerning my question. Just needed some confirmation as to the restorative ability of my 2010 Fusion Hybrid. I agree in that I can't drive this like a non hybrid. There is definitely a technique to both the acceleration and the braking that is different than the non hybrids. 

[lolder]

On 6/21/2021 at 10:34 AM, dpete15312 said:

Thanks to everybody concerning my question. Just needed some confirmation as to the restorative ability of my 2010 Fusion Hybrid. I agree in that I can't drive this like a non hybrid. There is definitely a technique to both the acceleration and the braking that is different than the non hybrids. 

46 mph is the max EV speed. 50% is normal HVB charge level. Do not force EV mode, use ICE to accelerate. There are 8 different normal conditions that cause the ICE to run. About every 10k miles the ICE may run for about 20 minutes and charge the HVB to F. That's re conditioning.