2013 Ford Fusion Hy. Ti. horrable MPG.

[LASooner]

Anyone else doing the 405 crawl in LA? I'd be curious to know what to expect. It can fluctuate from free flowing 75mph to stop and go pretty quickly. Also there's the hill in the Sepulveda pass.

[Bailey151]

......................When you operate in EV mode at higher speeds, you start to get efficiency problems because of things like back electromotive force ( EMF ) which means you need higher voltages for efficiency. Ford has variable voltage controls on their 2nd and 3rd generation hybrids but there are diminishing returns with this feature. HEVs have very different design goals than PHEVs and a compromise car that does both is difficult. It's rumored that Toyota engineers did not want to make the Prius a PHEV for this reason but marketing over-ruled. The current crop of PHEVs are not very cost effective.

Exactly. Two entirely different setups. While they may seem the same on the surface they are not. PHEV battery pack is small (relatively) when compared to a HEV. Lithium Ion batteries have many great features such as power to weight..................they also have two weaknesses, both of which affect hybrid use. Ever read about battery fires? This is due to discharging beyond it's limits (about 20%) - this generates massive heat for a LI-ion battery. They also get hot when discharged at a very high rate. They can take a higher discharge rate than other types but it's a factor. Given the much smaller pack in the PHEV I'd wager they're right at the safe limit with the 62mph limit. The HEV can do much higher with a larger battery pack & it's associated capacity.

 

Edit - example, is not the battery pack water cooled in the HEV? I'd wager that has a lot to do with it's capabilities (allowing them to push it as far as possible).

 

Yes, of my first 3 months of ownership (approx 60 commuting days) I tracked 41 days of morning and afternoon commutes (saved snapshots to photobucket), along with the outside temp during each morning and afternoon commute. I wanted to get some data on how the cold (and hot) weather affected MPG, and whether it affected it to a similar degree as my Prius or 2010 FFH. Cold weather sucks for MPG in the 2013 FFH, but also was the case in the others as well.

We should remember this affects all vehicles & not just hybrids. Turn on the heat, AC, seats, etc = drop the mpg. Ideal is no electric load & a relatively moderate temperature.

 

Also, using Toyota & engineers in the same sentence is an oxymoron..............like jumbo shrimp.

Edited April 23, 2013 by Bailey151

[hybridbear]

I'm a little disappointed to. My hyti is averaging about 39 mpg over the first 800 miles. Also realize that I drive it very efficiently to the point where people are passing me all the time. I agree with the OP that on freeway you don't get over 40mpg unless you are coasting or going downhill, even at speeds below 60mph. So I'm not sure how Ford ever thought a 47mpg highway was possible. 47 should be what you get driving conservatively with more than 47 possible if you are driving it the way....I do.

 

It's also interesting to me that all Fusion hybrids are listed at 47mpg. I wonder how much of a difference there is between a stripped down hybrid SE and a loaded hybrid titanium in mpg.

Ford didn't think 47 MPG highway was possible, the EPA says it's possible. Ford is required by law to publish the results of the EPA cycles. Blame the governement

 

1. 95 percent Highway 5 percent city.

2. 65-75 Mph

3. 40's to 60's. It is Chicago.

4. Typical BS is 95-100. I try to achieve a 100 when possible.

The problem is that your commute is not hybrid friendly. With that much highway driving at high speeds a diesel would net higher fuel economy

[rprobst]

Exactly. Two entirely different setups. While they may seem the same on the surface they are not. PHEV battery pack is small (relatively) when compared to a HEV. ... Given the much smaller pack in the PHEV I'd wager they're right at the safe limit with the 62mph limit. The HEV can do much higher with a larger battery pack & it's associated capacity.

 

Edit - example, is not the battery pack water cooled in the HEV?

Sounds like you have reversed "HEV" and "PHEV" in your answer. The Energi PHEV has a bigger battery than the Hybrid HEV. The Energi stays in EV mode at higher speeds than the Hybrid.

 

No, there is no water cooling.

[Bailey151]

Sounds like you have reversed "HEV" and "PHEV" in your answer. The Energi PHEV has a bigger battery than the Hybrid HEV. The Energi stays in EV mode at higher speeds than the Hybrid.

 

No, there is no water cooling.

Thanks....for both corrections................my mistake, there is water cooling (& heating) in the Focus electric..........I hate it when I confuse vehicle details

Edited April 23, 2013 by Bailey151

[neod192]

there is water cooling (& heating) in the Focus electric..........I hate it when I confuse vehicle details

Yeah, for some reason they didn't think the Fusion needed it. How big is the battery in the Focus Electric?

[Bailey151]

Yeah, for some reason they didn't think the Fusion needed it. How big is the battery in the Focus Electric?

23k Wh

[Charlee]

I can be driving down a gentle slope at 62mph and the EV kicks in. I can be driving down a steep slope at 63mph and take my foot off the gas and the EV won't kick in. That tells me it is programmed to stop at 62mph. I don't really have a problem with that but it seems like they could remove that. I should be able to roll downhill in EV mode at any speed if the hill is steep enough.

If I'm going down a hill at 63+ mph, I don't want my FFH in EV mode. I want the battery to be charging during this time.

[captinkirk]

Ford didn't think 47 MPG highway was possible, the EPA says it's possible. Ford is required by law to publish the results of the EPA cycles. Blame the governement

 

The problem is that your commute is not hybrid friendly. With that much highway driving at high speeds a diesel would net higher fuel economy

 

 

Ford says the MPG should be 47 City/47 Highway / 47 Combined. It shouldn't matter if my commute is Hybrid Friendly or not. I should be seeing 47 mpg period no matter what the driving conditions are. Yea I could see if I was getting 43 @ 70 mph, but I'm no where near that! Also, I took a peak at the life time statistics, and according to my computer my real MPG for the car is 33 mpg. Also, It appears there is a class action lawsuit on this very topic. http://www.dailytech.com/Ford+Hit+with+ClassAction+Lawsuit+Over+CMAX+Fusion+Hybrid+Fuel+Economy+Claims/article29495.htm

[captinkirk]

If I'm going down a hill at 63+ mph, I don't want my FFH in EV mode. I want the battery to be charging during this time.

 

Actually you do.. Because the car will coast in EV mode using no gas, and charge the battery at the same time. If your coasting down hill you want the gas engine to be off. No need to waist the gas to go down hill. You want the car coasting.

[captinkirk]

The title of this forum, horrible spelling.

 

What does it matter.... Oh it doesn't and doesn't contribute a dam to this thread!

[jared6788]

You may as well sell the car, you're never going to be happy with it after your delivery drama and MPG concerns.

[rprobst]

Agree completely! Let's start a campaign to convince captinkirk to sell his Fusion.

[PhantomTech]

Ford says the MPG should be 47 City/47 Highway / 47 Combined. It shouldn't matter if my commute is Hybrid Friendly or not. I should be seeing 47 mpg period no matter what the driving conditions are. Yea I could see if I was getting 43 @ 70 mph, but I'm no where near that! Also, I took a peak at the life time statistics, and according to my computer my real MPG for the car is 33 mpg.

 

The 47/47/47 came from the EPA Government tests, as others have mentioned, Ford did not come up with those number. Also if you read your window sticker you will see. 'Actual results will vary for many reasons, including driving conditions and how you drive and maintain your vehicle.'

 

A lot of information in the forums about real time Hybrid mileage not getting the 47. You should have been well aware of that before you purchased your vehicle. From what I understand the hybrid is not considered broken in until 5000 miles.

[captinkirk]

The 47/47/47 came from the EPA Government tests, as others have mentioned, Ford did not come up with those number. Also if you read your window sticker you will see. 'Actual results will vary for many reasons, including driving conditions and how you drive and maintain your vehicle.'

 

A lot of information in the forums about real time Hybrid mileage not getting the 47. You should have been well aware of that before you purchased your vehicle. From what I understand the hybrid is not considered broken in until 5000 miles.

 

Manual says 1000. You would think that the EPA testing would account for different situations. What good is a test if it doesn't reflect real world conditions?

[captinkirk]

You may as well sell the car, you're never going to be happy with it after your delivery drama and MPG concerns.

 

 

Sure I will sell it to you at double the cost. Want to buy?

[lolder]

Reset all your mileage counters and drive at 70 in the right lane and see what happens as the weather warms.

[milleron]

Is the Focus using the new lithium ion battery like the C-Max and Fusion?

[hybridbear]

Ford says the MPG should be 47 City/47 Highway / 47 Combined. It shouldn't matter if my commute is Hybrid Friendly or not. I should be seeing 47 mpg period no matter what the driving conditions are. Yea I could see if I was getting 43 @ 70 mph, but I'm no where near that! Also, I took a peak at the life time statistics, and according to my computer my real MPG for the car is 33 mpg. Also, It appears there is a class action lawsuit on this very topic. http://www.dailytech.com/Ford+Hit+with+ClassAction+Lawsuit+Over+CMAX+Fusion+Hybrid+Fuel+Economy+Claims/article29495.htm

Ford never says that. Ford is not allowed by law to say that. All Ford can do is what the law requires. Ford is required by law to publish the EPA test results whether they are realistic or not. You should go read some of the threads about this over at the FFH forum. There has been a lot of discussion over there about the EPA tests and how Ford programmed the FFH. And the discussion over there has been intelligent and civilized so please don't ruin it with valueless comments

 

Actually you do.. Because the car will coast in EV mode using no gas, and charge the battery at the same time. If your coasting down hill you want the gas engine to be off. No need to waist the gas to go down hill. You want the car coasting.

The ICE will use ZERO gas when going downhill above 62 MPH. Even though it doesn't shut off it has the ability to use zero gas if possible. Charlee is right.

 

Manual says 1000. You would think that the EPA testing would account for different situations. What good is a test if it doesn't reflect real world conditions?

The EPA test is like standardized tests in school. They're designed to create a benchmark for comparison. Just as we all know that scores on the SAT or ACT do NOT tell us the true intelligence of a person, the EPA tests do not tell us what YOUR mileage will be. The EPA tests just give us a point of reference for comparison. Just like the SAT and ACT are designed to allow universities and other institutions to compare potential students qualifications to attend the school. Just because someone scores high on the ACT doesn't guarantee they'll graduate college, or even that they'll get good grades in college. Likewise a high EPA test cycle number doesn't mean that this car will do that well for you in real life.

 

There are plenty of ppl getting high MPG numbers. Our 41.9 current Lifetime average is very good in my opinion for the terribly long and unusually cold winter we've had in MN. I know that in city driving it is easy to get upwards of 50-60 MPG in this car. On the highway it is possible to get 40-45 MPG at 65 MPH depending on the conditions (wind speed, temp, flat ground, etc). When we compared the FFH and TCH before buying our principal comparison was fuel economy. The TCH is rated lower, 41/39 city/highway, but we found that the TCH performed better than the FFH on the highway driving we did. The TCH got 48 MPG in our 55-60 MPH highway testing. But the Camry did much worse in the city, registering only 43 MPG in the city for an overall of 45 MPG. The FFH did 48 MPG in the city and 44 MPG on the highway for an overall 46 MPG in our testing. Thus we did not factor gas mileage into our decision of FFH vs TCH, assuming that the real world gas mileage of both cars would be equal.

 

That's why it is so important to make an educated decision about buying a car when you're highly focused on gas mileage. Test drive the car on the route you normally drive. Drive it from your house to your work and then back home and see what the gas mileage is. Only after doing that can you make an informed decision. You cannot assume that the EPA test cycle perfectly mirrors your driving patterns.

 

And if you failed to do these things, then shut up and suffer the consequences of your actions. And hopefully you'll learn to make smarted decisions in the future.

[jeff_h]

Ford says the MPG should be 47 City/47 Highway / 47 Combined. It shouldn't matter if my commute is Hybrid Friendly or not. I should be seeing 47 mpg period no matter what the driving conditions are.

 

So driving habits and other conditions should not matter? I thought the same about my running shoes, as I finish marathons two hours slower than others that wear the same shoes, same brand and model!!! However I am thinking of suing Nike (and Tiger Woods, for good measure) as the shoes are defective and they advertised their product with a guy that runs under 2:30 marathons and I can't do that. I should be able to see 2:30 period no matter what the running or training conditions are. Darn crooks, just did that to get me to buy their stuff and falsely claimed that the shoes are capable of under 2:30 -- hogwash!

 

But as for the car, yeah I do OK when using the proper behavior that is conducive to getting the best MPG that I can, here is yesterday's trip home, which moved the lifetime average up a notch to 47.6..

 

[boogs]

Manual says 1000. You would think that the EPA testing would account for different situations. What good is a test if it doesn't reflect real world conditions?

You're putting WAYYYY to much trust in the govt here

[elduche]

What does it matter.... Oh it doesn't and doesn't contribute a dam to this thread!

 

*Damn

 

Reset all your mileage counters and drive at 70 in the right lane and see what happens as the weather warms.

 

*Left Lane

 

 

It is clear you can not be pleased even with the tools of logic, reason, and color pictures. The car you want does not exist.

[captinkirk]

Ford never says that. Ford is not allowed by law to say that. All Ford can do is what the law requires. Ford is required by law to publish the EPA test results whether they are realistic or not. You should go read some of the threads about this over at the FFH forum. There has been a lot of discussion over there about the EPA tests and how Ford programmed the FFH. And the discussion over there has been intelligent and civilized so please don't ruin it with valueless comments

 

The ICE will use ZERO gas when going downhill above 62 MPH. Even though it doesn't shut off it has the ability to use zero gas if possible. Charlee is right.

 

The EPA test is like standardized tests in school. They're designed to create a benchmark for comparison. Just as we all know that scores on the SAT or ACT do NOT tell us the true intelligence of a person, the EPA tests do not tell us what YOUR mileage will be. The EPA tests just give us a point of reference for comparison. Just like the SAT and ACT are designed to allow universities and other institutions to compare potential students qualifications to attend the school. Just because someone scores high on the ACT doesn't guarantee they'll graduate college, or even that they'll get good grades in college. Likewise a high EPA test cycle number doesn't mean that this car will do that well for you in real life.

 

There are plenty of ppl getting high MPG numbers. Our 41.9 current Lifetime average is very good in my opinion for the terribly long and unusually cold winter we've had in MN. I know that in city driving it is easy to get upwards of 50-60 MPG in this car. On the highway it is possible to get 40-45 MPG at 65 MPH depending on the conditions (wind speed, temp, flat ground, etc). When we compared the FFH and TCH before buying our principal comparison was fuel economy. The TCH is rated lower, 41/39 city/highway, but we found that the TCH performed better than the FFH on the highway driving we did. The TCH got 48 MPG in our 55-60 MPH highway testing. But the Camry did much worse in the city, registering only 43 MPG in the city for an overall of 45 MPG. The FFH did 48 MPG in the city and 44 MPG on the highway for an overall 46 MPG in our testing. Thus we did not factor gas mileage into our decision of FFH vs TCH, assuming that the real world gas mileage of both cars would be equal.

 

That's why it is so important to make an educated decision about buying a car when you're highly focused on gas mileage. Test drive the car on the route you normally drive. Drive it from your house to your work and then back home and see what the gas mileage is. Only after doing that can you make an informed decision. You cannot assume that the EPA test cycle perfectly mirrors your driving patterns.

 

And if you failed to do these things, then shut up and suffer the consequences of your actions. And hopefully you'll learn to make smarted decisions in the future.

 

 

I did not fail to do those things. Kind of hard to test drive a car that isn't on the market.... Also, EPA testing is not realistic, everyone knows that. Fords problem is that thier Hybrid design is specifically optimized to the EPA test as opposed to real world driving.

The main reason for the difference is the 62mph top speed under battery power for the Fords. almost all the driving on the EPA test is below 60mph, which allows for maximum usage of the battery.

 

Toyota's hybrids usually get close to the EPA ratings. One of the reasons is that the top battery speed is around 40mph (depends on model). This means that the cars have to switch to gas power more often during the EPA test.

 

The C-MAX/Fusion are optimized for the EPA test.

The Camry/Prius/Prius v seem to be optimized for real-world driving while staying within the confines of the EPA test.

 

The biggest difference is that the Toyota hybrids have a lower electric top speed which means that their highway numbers are going to be more realistic as the gasoline engine is running.

 

To me it seems Ford is cheating allot. While it technically may not be wrong, but if you could cheat on an ACT by programming the car to ace the ACT, versus real world then that is wrong as the ACT or in this case, EPA testing, your setting your self up for failure and your customers as what you see on the testing is going not going to match real world results thus creating a flawed system as the comparison is flawed. There needs to be a test of real world speeds, as its obvious that ford does not stand up to the competition at real world speeds.

 

[captinkirk]

So driving habits and other conditions should not matter? I thought the same about my running shoes, as I finish marathons two hours slower than others that wear the same shoes, same brand and model!!! However I am thinking of suing Nike (and Tiger Woods, for good measure) as the shoes are defective and they advertised their product with a guy that runs under 2:30 marathons and I can't do that. I should be able to see 2:30 period no matter what the running or training conditions are. Darn crooks, just did that to get me to buy their stuff and falsely claimed that the shoes are capable of under 2:30 -- hogwash!

 

But as for the car, yeah I do OK when using the proper behavior that is conducive to getting the best MPG that I can, here is yesterday's trip home, which moved the lifetime average up a notch to 47.6..

 

 

That's one trip. It's easy to do on Battery..... But now run that same mileage on all highway speeds 65-75 not using any battery.. Becha you wont see anything near that! I'll put 1000 on it. Going any slower on the expressway is impractical. Here in Chicago that will get you into a wreck on the Dan Ryan, quicker than you know it. Also EPA testing should reflect those conditions. Hard to do an apples to apples test when the testing is flawed and its easy to cheat.

Edited April 24, 2013 by captinkirk

[captinkirk]

You're putting WAYYYY to much trust in the govt here

 

 

Actually, no. That's FORDS recommendations and we all also know that the Govt does not do the testing its actually the car manufacturers who do the testing and submit the results to the govt. They spot check them when requested. Ask Hyundai how that worked for them when they got caught cheating.