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Highway FE?


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I made my longest trip to date in my C-Max today.  512 miles door to door, Pensacola to Houston.  My car reported mileage at 47.0 MPG.  My best previous had been 42.  This trip was all I-10 which is pretty flat.  I noticed it frequently going into the mode where SOC is maxed and the instantaneous MPG was jumping up around the 50 mark for miles.  I ran posted limits most of the way as traffic was moderately heavy. 

 

I got the 50+ at 67-70 MPH.  The speed limit that I saw was 70 until I hit Texas and then was 75 but the traffic was flowing about 65.  I will let you know about the return.  Will probably be going back tomorrow or Monday.

It is suprising how your MPG's keep going up with the outside temps. LOL Yesterday with temps in the low 90's and A/C on about half the time, I-85/I-285 around Atlanta, 90miles I averaged 52mpg. I had some stop and go on I-285 and even had to get off the FWY for a short stretch , but I was also going 80-75mph a good chunk  of the time.  Also filled up last night, 746mi.,13.5gal and 55.45mpg, you've got to love high temps. LOL :)

 

Paul

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I just got back from a 1000 mile round trip from Jacksonville to Key West. Temps around 90, A.C. going strong the entire time.

The first 380 miles is interstate, ran about 75 mph and the average was 37.5 mpg. The last 120 miles is 2 and 4 lane road that is mostly 45 mph, sometimes can make it up to 60, but not for long. By the time we got to Key West the average was 41.4.

On the trip home the first 120 miles brought the average up to 41.9, then the interstate miles brought it back down again.

Got home with an overall average of 39.4 mpg for that trip.

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  • 1 month later...

If you click on my Fuelly Icon you can see all my trips for the last 2 1/2Years/ 91Kmi. and I usually have notes for each tank on conditions,speed, temps, winds and drafting. I have Grill Covers on pretty much all the time except going up long uphill grades where I remove lower cover. I have 82% HWY miles with 46MPG Fuelly average and CMAX Life Time of 47MPG. :)

 

Paul

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How do you remove the lower grill cover when "going up long uphill grades"?

It is Velcro-ed on and so It only takes a second to rip it off. If I know I'm going up a long hill I will make a quick stop to take it off and put it back on at the top.  You can also use your heater to control WT. Now I have just installed an automatic lower Grill Cover I made and I will see how it works. It is connected to shutters so when they open the lower Grill Cover opens. :) 

 

Paul 

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Just for a reference point on highway FE. Right after I bought my C-max Energi I started on a long cross country drive. I started with a battery pack having a SOC of about 22%. My absolute worst tank was in heavy rain, climbing up through the mountains, high winds, high speeds when no rain, hot temps with AC on and generally not favorable conditions for fuel economy. The C-max was totally loaded with my wife and a bunch of gear.

 

I was still learning to drive for better FE and my wife drove and has no clue about how to maximize FE with a hybrid. The absolute worst tank on that trip was 33.6 mpg. We drove often in excess of 80 and were generally running 75mph or higher up the mountains of New Mexico. You would have to work very hard to do worse than we did on that tank. Most of the trip was running the same way as we had to cover a lot of ground in a few days as I had to be back at work on the West Coast.

 

The extra weight of the Energi model didn't help us either. Since we couldn't charge at night, we got no real benefit out of the extra battery capacity. 

 

Contrast this with a trip we took from LA to Vegas where we averaged 70mph (75 mph cruise) the entire trip and we still got 40mpg. That was pretty much uphill, strong crosswinds and very high temps (100-114F). 

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