Bugzuki

The 108 is the center to center distance between the studs in millimeters ~ 4.2519685 inches. It would be the distance between the bolts across the hole in the star pattern. We got this lug spacing because the car was designed in Europe. The Escape and Taurus got the 4.5 spacing which makes it so that more wheels fit. The focus should have the same 108 spacing so you can use those wheels. Lucky us. I am pretty sure the ET40 is the backspacing. Most likely 40mm toward the outside face of the wheel. The goal with the wheel is to get the wheel steering turn center in the center of the ground contact patch. That way the wheel turns in a perfect circle on the ground. If the wheel is too far out of in it can cause the wheel to move forward or backwards while steering. It also can cause the wheel to put more strain on the bearing as Windy stated.

Li-Ion batteries have a minimum discharge amount of around 80% of their capacity. So, when the car shows that the battery is dead there is actually about 80 percent of the full capacity left. But, if you go below that 80% level of discharge on a regular basis it will drastically shorten the life of the battery. With Ni-CAD batteries and the old RC cars we would always run them until they stopped turning, then use a bank of lights to drain them the rest of the way. With the new Li-Ion batteries on the RC cars they go dead and stop moving all together when the internal controller gets to the programmed state of discharge, then we just charge them. Li-Ion batteries have a general degradation over time. Barring degradation from low depth of discharge or thermal overrun they should have a consistent number of charge cycles. Leaving the battery discharged would probably lengthen the time, but just because you are not cycling the battery completely. You would only be using the hybrid portion of the charge. I didn't notice any degradation in the FFE over the 3 years we owned it while charging it every time we parked somewhere that had power available.

It is amazing that it takes more energi to heat the car than it does to drive. I understand that on a cold day they batteries have to be heated and on hot day cooled. But, Still why does it go from 30 mpc down to 10? Out here in Seattle we have hills everywhere. The best I have done on the freeway in rush hour is about 19 miles on a charge. I usually have to turn the defroster on and off during a drive to keep the windows clear of moisture. With rain almost every day the windows like to fog up. There is no setting to just have the vent blow on the windshield. If you turn on to front defrost it sucks the power down even with it set to the lowest temperature setting. We have a lot of hydroelectric power up here, so a kilowatt hour of electricity costs about 10 cents. The 5KWHs it takes me to get to work is about 50 cents. A gallon of gas for the trip in the Escape or GTO is about 3 bucks. It isn't always just about the hybrid and getting 40 miles per gallon. It is sometimes about going 900 miles on a tank of gas instead of 300. It would be really nice if it didn't take so much power to stay warn and keep the window clear. I don't have my pictures online somewhere so I can't link to them. Not sure why I can't attach a picture to the post. This morning I drove a distance of 19.3 miles. 16.6 EV Miles, energy used was 241.0 MPG / 5.2kWHs. My trip meter for this fill-up of Gasoline says: 91.0 MPG, 731.9/531.3 EV mi. I have just under 3/8s of a tank of gas left. Doing the math: 731.9/91.0 = 8.0429 gallons of Gasoline. 731.9-531.3 = 200.6 miles on gasoline. 200.6/8.0429 = 24.94 miles per gallon of gasoline for those none EV miles. 25 MPG is not actually that good. So, for me the EV miles is a BIG part of owning the Energi instead of the Hybrid. We dumped the Focus Electric for the Energi because of the option to go farther than 70 miles in a day if needed. But, for my commute to work it would be nice if I could make it every day on just electric. I can charge at work, so I would be able to make it home on electric too. In the Focus EV it took between 5 and 7 KWH in varying weather conditions.