Sunday, October 4, 2009

Charging while drifting downhill

As you drive the FusionH you will notice that the charge arrow (the bright blue triangle at the top of the battery charge gauge) comes on intermittently and frequently. One of the things that I have found intriguing is that this arrow always comes on over, say, 20 mph or so, when you are going downhill. This happens whether you are pressing on the accelerator to maintain speed, or, if you are simply driving down a hill and the accelerator is not depressed at all.

In the latter case, the question that occurs is what is actually happening with the generator system. If the charge arrow is on and the generator is charging the battery, that would mean that the generator must be engaged. So as you are proceeding downhill under power, the generator is actually engaged. This also means that some amount of "drag" must be occurring because the generator is engaged. It is subtle, and I have not noticed any drag, there is nothing perceptible here. But it must be occurring in order for that arrow to indicating active charging.

If anyone knows the answer to this one, please enlighten me.

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