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That's a big part of what makes them so good. They're not blue. Blue light has two problems.... 1) we can't see any detail in blue light. I have a demo using red and blue LEDs... you can't read in blue light. Too few blue sensors to resolve letters. 2) blue light doesn't play well with air. If you search "why is the sky blue" you'll find this from NASA: "Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth's atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time." When blue light hits air, it stops and goes sideways. It doesn't illuminate the road, it illuminates everything between you and the road. Add water in any phase, snow, rain or fog, and blue light will hide the road even better. I wear gradient, blue-blocker sunglasses. They sometimes help in rainstorms, allowing me to see many car lengths farther through the spray. At night, sunglasses are a no-no; you need good lights. I plan for worst case. Have fun, Frank

The back end is interesting; Ford took a modular approach, using large styrofoam blocks to define the underfloor space and support the cargo floor. The undersized spare sits on a spacer, bolted to a bracket over the 12v battery, and surrounding blocks give the floor even support. The 155/70-17 spare has lots of room around it, but not enough to fit a 225/55-19. The well is only about 28" wide while the tire is 29" tall. A slight undersize might fit, but then you have to deal with height since the load floor sits on the mini-spare. And a slight undersize still causes speed mismatch on the axel, so there's no great advantage over the mini-spare. And we're not keeping any snow up here. 5' have fallen, but there's barely any on the ground. Warm January... Have fun, Frank

Thanks for your reports - jealous of the extra ground clearance! Is there room for a full size spare (even if the floor cover has to stay raised a bit)? I looked at an Escape Hybrid at my dealer and there was room for a larger diameter than the temporary spare. By "apologies for the weather" I suppose you mean keeping all the snow up there and not sharing any with Virginia? SnowStorm hasn't had his fill yet!

Time for a report. I'm over 100 miles now, and I've done nothing to the car. Tire pressures (max 41 psi BTW) are at 33 psi. Fuel is whatever the dealer put in, 87E10 I suspect. Initial aerodynamic mods were temporary, "snow covered" the first day. It's a very nice car. Ride is quiet and smoother than the C-Max at 50 psi on the tires. No idea if it's as nimble. Ride height doesn't seem much higher until you realize you can see over the C-Max next to you. The car is 4.5" taller and you sit higher in it so it feels like twice that. The sloping hood gives the same kind of forward view, so it's really not noticeable at the wheel. I like the inside rearview mirror better (darker) and don't miss the wide-angle mirrors on the wings as much as expected. BLISS isn't intrusive, although I do get an odd steering feel sometimes, I really miss the road feedback of a direct steering linkage, but the computer can't save the unskilled driver without being in control. I'm waiting for Big Brother to take over, like the C-Max did with the faulty RSC module. I believe all hybrids get the fancy display, speed to the left, power to the right with a user-selectable screen in between. The power screen shows ICE and EV kW being provided, based on throttle position, switching to a single regen power display on braking. There's also a perimeter display around the numbers, 0-180 kW of power, with regen displayed as negative values. There is no "My View" option. The center screen shows the kind of data C-Max shows in the left display, like trip odos, along with an EV Coach that's similar to the C-Max Empower screen power display. A single horizontal bar shows Regen power to the left and ICE power, EV power, and EV Available to the right. Yes, the blue outline showing EV Available in the Empower screen has been retained, and it behaves similarly. I can EV up to a maximum of 19 kW at speed before the ICE kicks in. The only sign of HVB charge status is a shrinking blue outline in EV. When the ICE runs, EV Available shrinks to sort of say "I'm here" without saying how much is there. I'm learning to use the throttle to switch to EV, but it's not as easy as the C-Max. At the same time, "chasing blue" from a stop works much better; I'm routinely getting to 20 MPH before ICE kicks in. That said, the first time I went out to see what I had, I hit 50.4 MPG in 32F weather over snow-covered roads. Auspicious, but I drove slow and had a tail wind. This was my old work commute, albeit at 3:00 AM Sunday morning, so I also took a return trip that was faster into head wind. I had no traffic and a very well known route where ICE burns points and durations were well defined over many years. Average trip time was 35 minutes for 15.3 miles, same as C-Max, at 48.4 MPG for the round trip. Average in the C-Max at 32F was 45.4 MPG, but those were 100% cold starts, which this was not. Still, auspicious at least. The one big dissatisfier is the block heater... Ford didn't route the cable, just left it behind the engine. Dealer set it up under the hood and using about half the clamps, clips and tie-downs placed along the harness, and a ton of slack. I doubt Ford issued a generic power cord. If anyone has access to the Ford routing documentation, I'd be very grateful. It's length easily reaches the lowest grill opening where there's lots of space and easy access. Under the hood is a non-starter. Any questions? Frank