My husband wanted an American made hybrid car. Not so easy to find now that the tax incentive for hybrid vehicles is gone. We found a low mileage Ford C-Max Energi Titanium and we just love it. Saw your column in Sunday’s paper and calculated our savings using your formula. Thank you. Now my question. Instructions say that it takes about 7 hours to full charge the batteries. But we don’t want to walk out the garage around midnight to see if it is fully charged so it is plugged in larger than necessary. Does it continue to pull kW as long as it is plugged in? Or does it automatically stop charging when batteries are full? And if it keeps charging will it shorten the life of the batteries if they are repeatedly overcharged?
Just for the heck of it, I went through the owners manual for you vehicle. To my surprise it does not answer your question.
For a definitive answer I would ask the service department at your Ford dealership.
My GUESS is that the charge system switches off or to a maintenance mode.
EVs don’t keep taking in energy once full. I have not tested that exact one, but all the rest show a status change on the charger. You should participate in some Facebook owners clubs for EVs. They talk in great detail about topics like this daily.
I’d bet the charger is plenty smart enough to shut off once it’s charged. My other battery chargers sure are.
3 Likes