Hybrid Battery Seemed to Stop Working on Drive Home Today

[Glen Baker LLC]

Thanks for posting that old thread. I read it all and there is a lot of good info there. I guess the high temperature just shouts down the High Voltage Battery (HVB) for protection. I had no idea but it makes perfect sense.

I guess if nothing else this post will serve as a reminder to those of us who live in extremely hot (or cold) climates, that there is a normal operating range for the HVB and it is not going to be available at those extremes.

I'm just surprised that our Escape has not done this yet, but I guess it is just dumb luck and it probably will happen one of these days.

I think we are getting to a period of information overload.
Sometimes you just have to drive your Maverick and let it do its thing.

Wait, the Torque app can be displayed on the truck's screen like an add-on gauge panel?

Yes I saw that too and liked it.
I think it involves using some type of Russian created mirroring app??

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[heady]

I think we are getting to a period of information overload.
Sometimes you just have to drive your Maverick and let it do its thing.


Yes I saw that too and liked it.
I think it involves using some type of Russian created mirroring app??

Screen2Auto (rooted) or Android Apps Auto Downloader (non-rooted, open source, uses an emulator to achieve the same effect) are the ones I remember offhand. Good for if you want to have Torque, or a trailer rear view IP cam, or really anything else on your built-in car display instead of having to use the phone screen or a third party screen to display to same information.

 

[Glen Baker LLC]

Screen2Auto (rooted) or Android Apps Auto Downloader (non-rooted, open source, uses an emulator to achieve the same effect) are the ones I remember offhand. Good for if you want to have Torque, or a trailer rear view IP cam, or really anything else on your built-in car display instead of having to use the phone screen or a third party screen to display to same information.

Thank you for the information.
If you don't mind please. I have one more question.
Are you using streaming or mirroring with the screen2app?
I am a newbie when it comes to rooted, unrooted, mirroring..etc.

 

[Oscarcat]

There's been other reports of similar behavior in high ambient temperature conditions, for instance Anyone else experiencing massive hybrid MPG drop in this heat wave? - almost certainly the battery management system is backing off the current limits allowed on the HV battery as a normal behavior - with a OBD data logger you'd be able to see what the actual battery pack temperature is when this happens, but seems like most reports seem to notice just north of 110 F ambient conditions, one use reports noticing it about 112F in that reddit thread. Seems to be the thermal design limit of the coolant loop.

When something actually abnormal happens to the coolant loop, it looks like you'll get a popup warning "Performance reduced to lower temperature" https://www.mavericktruckclub.com/f...rformance-reduced-to-lower-temperature.33398/ - this seems to have occurred to people that have had recent service done on the coolant loop but weren't operating in hot conditions, my speculation is a air bubble from having the system open/drained that creates a temporary high reading on at least one temperature sensor, this makes sense for those instances where the situation is only transient in non-hot weather; eventually the coolant loop gets degassed with normal circulation.

in each case, having extra gauges/readouts from an OBD interface in the truck would be helpful to diagnose or monitor the situation I would think. Scangauge, Torque Pro, etc.

RE: OBD II logger = excellent suggestion! The dealer should be able to provide one to the OP.

[I had a Chrysler minivan that intermittently would loose power, they let me run with an OBD II logger and found the crank angle sensor tested good but had an intermittent glitch during actual use]

 

[heady]

Nah, I've never used it yet, maybe someday when I'm feeling less lazy or somehow hyper motivated...

 

[The Real Maverick]

With a dedicated cooling system, it’s interesting the hybrid battery has such a low tolerance for heat. I often drive in temps ranging upwards to 110* and have yet to undergo a such a shutdown.

It has a high tolerance for heat actually. I've had mine above 120°F and no shut down or reduction that I could notice.

What it has a low capacity for is air conditioner use. Think about how much your power bill goes up using A/C in your home. It costs about the same to cool your vehicle. You're just paying in gasoline units.

The A/C on maximum setting can be a 10 horsepower draw. That's 7,500 watts peak. Run it at half, use half as much power.

The battery is tiny.
This should be expected.
I do not expect anything is wrong here.
It is the heat and necessary A/C use.

 

[Darnon]

Thank you for the information.
If you don't mind please. I have one more question.
Are you using streaming or mirroring with the screen2app?
I am a newbie when it comes to rooted, unrooted, mirroring..etc.

I don't think it requires mirroring apps, just sideloading the AA Torque app.

 

[Glen Baker LLC]

I don't think it requires mirroring apps, just sideloading the AA Torque app.

What the heck is sideloading??
Simplified plz

 

[Glen Baker LLC]

??????

 

[Maverick123]

??????

I was trying to post a meme but it doesn't work

 

[notfast]

I think we are getting to a period of information overload.
Sometimes you just have to drive your Maverick and let it do its thing.

Reminds me of when Nissan Frontiers had actual oil pressure gauges and they had a lot of warranty diagnostic work because the indicated oil pressure would fluctuate.

They were replaced with an idiot switch plus idiot light combo and those calls all but disappeared.

What the heck is sideloading??
Simplified plz

I know it as installing an unauthorized or unverified app. Like how you can install any Android app you want onto an Amazon Fire tablet if you sideload the Google Play Store onto the Fire tablet.

 

[heady]

Yeah, "sideloading" is just smartphone speak for "installing." The difference being major smartphone manufacturers lock you inside a restrictive walled garden unlike a real computer operating system where you just install software that you want without having to jump over extra hurdles, in this case tapping a toggle setting that says "Allow installing software from this other source/place".

 

[KO Stradivarius]

A couple more things to add for the record:

1) Today it was a few degrees cooler here (111-112°F) and things worked much better. Still not 100% back to normal, but close. On my 40 mile trip home at 4:30pm I got about 10 electric miles, a big improvement from yesterday. Normal would be about 13-14 miles. Amazing that only a small difference in temps made that happen.

2) Yesterday I said that our Escape never had this same problem, but my wife said that yesterday she noticed the electric power was also "acting funny" on her ride home at the same time as I me. I can never get the full story from her, but I'm sure that it was the same issue. That is the first occurrence that I know of on the Escape.

 

[MakinDoForNow]

A couple more things to add for the record:

1) Today it was a few degrees cooler here (111-112°F) and things worked much better. Still not 100% back to normal, but close. On my 40 mile trip home at 4:30pm I got about 10 electric miles, a big improvement from yesterday. Normal would be about 13-14 miles. Amazing that only a small difference in temps made that happen.

2) Yesterday I said that our Escape never had this same problem, but my wife said that yesterday she noticed the electric power was also "acting funny" on her ride home at the same time as I me. I can never get the full story from her, but I'm sure that it was the same issue. That is the first occurrence that I know of on the Escape.

The HVB has a temp set point which routes the battery coolant through a heat exchanger which is cooled using the AC refrigerant (when the lower portion of the radiator cannot cool the battery coolant to that set point normally about 95°F-106°F). I believe the Transaxle fluid also has its separate area within this exchanger.

 

[pigsareus]

A couple more things to add for the record:

1) Today it was a few degrees cooler here (111-112°F) and things worked much better. Still not 100% back to normal, but close. On my 40 mile trip home at 4:30pm I got about 10 electric miles, a big improvement from yesterday. Normal would be about 13-14 miles. Amazing that only a small difference in temps made that happen.

2) Yesterday I said that our Escape never had this same problem, but my wife said that yesterday she noticed the electric power was also "acting funny" on her ride home at the same time as I me. I can never get the full story from her, but I'm sure that it was the same issue. That is the first occurrence that I know of on the Escape.

I can make the exact same trip with the exact same conditions and my mileage can vary by at least 10 percent, the smarts in the truck use complex algorithms as to what to do when - unless you are consistently getting substantially degraded MPG over some longer duration (a week) it's just the truck doing what it's programmed to do and highly unlikely that the dealer will be able to fetch and analyze all the metrics it used to show you why you have low electric miles. In that you're in the heat belt just take it out for a drive when it's at the coolest (yeah that involves a lack of sleep :}) and see what you get.

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