SnitGTS

I tend to stick with the 2 bar burn the majority of the time, really the only time I do a 1 bar burn is when my battery is really low and I want to let it charge a little longer. If I'm in traffic I'll start off in EV, hang back until a 2 bar burn won't send me through the back of the car in front of me, and if I catch up before I hit the speed limit I'll coast for a little until I have room again. Every time the ICE is going I make sure it is charging the battery. Do you just use the 1 bar burn to build your SoC or is it for something else? Actually, I try to stick to 1 bar burns during the warm up cycle so that my first half mile or so is around 25 mpg, if I use 2 bars I've seen it get into the single digits...

I'm at 497 miles and will pass 500 on Sunday just as I predicted and I am at 53.1 mpg, last week I hit 65.5 mpg on my way to where I'm going so I should be able to bring my mpg up to 53.3 or 53.4. I've been averaging 54-56 mpg round trip to and from work, it's the other trips I've gone on that are bringing my mileage down. I actually got stuck behind a semi this morning on a single lane road and it killed my battery in a section of road I usually do well in, so my trip to work was 'only' 65.7, I thought it was going to ruin my chances but somehow I still pulled off a 54.7 mpg round trip. I have no idea how you could get a 66 mpg round trip! Do you feel like the update is helping now that you've driven the car a while longer?

I'm going to do my best to take over the #2 spot, I'm at 53.1 mpg now and 440 miles. I should hit 500 miles on Sunday, I've been averaging 54-56 mpg round trips to work and where I volunteer on Sunday I got 65 mpg on the trip there last week, I should pass the mark on that trip so if things go well I should easily top the 53.2 mpg mark. About 175 miles of this tank have been highway miles where the speed limit is 55 mph. In addition, I should easily top my 647 mile tank but I'm not sure if I'll get my mpg up enough for a 700 mile tank, although I am very tempted to buy a container and a gallon of gas and keep it in the trunk so I can make a run for it! I can't wait till my car actually breaks in!

Well I just crossed the 350 mile mark on my current tank of gas (1st full non-vacation tank since the update) and I've burned 6.56 gallons of gas, good for 53.3 mpg. I'm a little shy of where I need to be to hit the 700 mile mark on this tank unless I can pick it up a little, it didn't help that I drove up to my friend's house with my girlfriend Friday night and she required the air conditioning the whole way up, it's a 70 mile round trip at highway speeds. Even if I don't hit 700 I should have no problem breaking my previous best, 647 miles at 51.4 mpg. The update definitely seems to have helped me!

I'm on my first full non-vacation tank of gas since getting the update and this week driving to and from work I have gotten 54, 48, 56, and 54 mpg for the round trip! (the day with 48 mpg I had the AC on) I have a shot at 700 miles for the tank, I've driven 225 miles at 53.1 mpg and it says almost 500 miles till empty, my previous best was 647 miles at 51.4 mpg. It took me a while to get used to the changes but I really feel like they've made a difference!

I typically reset the "trip" gauge that is part of Empower when I'm in the mood to see what my day to day trips are coming in at, the conversion works too though!

I'm on my first non-vacation tank of gas since getting the update and so far so good. I got 54.1 mpg round trip to work today and that included a short run to pick up some lunch, which added a third warm up period and probably hurt my overall mileage for the day. It's still early, but at 124 miles on the tank (68 miles highway!) the car is telling me I have 592 to go...

I just topped 500 miles on the same tank that I drove home 375 highway miles from Niagara Falls and I am at 47.3 mpg for the tank. That's 75% highway and 25% city and I'm over 47 mpg. I could easily top 600 miles on this tank, however I dropped the car off at my ford dealer to get the headliner recall and an oil change, so I guarantee they will mess that up for me. Oh well, should be interesting to see what I get for the next tank!

I agree with the higher highs and lower lows. I'm getting 70+ every day to work when I used to get 65-70, but coming home I've been around 41-42 when I used to be pretty consistent at 45.

Agreed and understood, but this was pretty consistent over a near 1000 mile trip. I was in Eco-Cruise the majority of the time so pressing of the pedal did not affect my results.

Jus, curious if you think the car feels a lot different now then before? I am surprised how different the car behaves now, depending on the state of charge the EV is much more aggressive at assisting. Above 2/3 charge you get EV assist almost any time the ICE is on, 1/3 to 2/3 charge you get EV assist if you are over 2 bars, and below 1/3 it gets increasingly difficult to stay in EV. It's a little frustrating to me because I used to pulse at 2 1/2 bars and then glide for as long as it took to get the state of charge up to 2/3 or higher, after which I would use the EV to keep my speed constant until the battery was drained, rinse and repeat. Now if I do that after the battery is 1/3 charged the EV kicks in when I go above 2 bars, so I have to keep my acceleration at 2 bars to charge any higher. I bet our mileage will get better as we re-learn how to drive our cars.

I do drive a gray C-Max but no that was not me, I crossed on the Lewiston / Queenston bridge a little north of Niagara Falls. I wish I had chosen another route, took an hour and a half to cross!!!

In my day to day commute I never top 55 mph, my morning commute has improved since the update from 65-70 mpg to 70-73 mpg and my ride home has remained about the same at 45 mpg. This was my first extended highway trip and it is likely to be my only for a while. My car has 3000 miles on it now and 1000 of that was my trip last week, I've had the car a little over 3 months...

I would say it stayed about the same, as you can see in Rapier's video once it gets to that 75-80% mark and the chevron changes up & down every 5 seconds or so it doesn't have much time to charge or discharge. I'm sure the state of charge is changing but it just isn't perceptible.

Your car is doing exactly what mine was doing on my way home from Toronto, but I only ever got into EV mode on a downhill slope. Any idea why you hit 50 mpg with the ICE charging the battery (up chevron) around 75-80% charge but drops down around 40 when the EV is assisting the ICE (down chevron)? That's blowing my mind that it works that way, it's opposite of how I think it should work...

100% positive I was not in EV, the engine remained on the whole time I was on level ground and the charge / discharge arrow on the battery would switch between up and down maybe every 5 seconds. When it was down (discharging) my instant MPG gauge read 40-45 and when it was up (charging) it read 45-50. I determined what state I was in based upon your explanation in your previous post of the different modes and what I was watching. I wish I could have taken a video but there is no way I would while driving. I only ever got into EV mode when I was on a downhill slope and the instant MPG gauge shot to 60+ and turned blue. Edit: Rapier took a video, it's almost exactly what I was seeing except I never got into EV mode except on a downhill slope. Same speed and I was driving home from Toronto too!

nsteblay, I have a question and you might be the person that can answer it! I was driving home from my vacation last week and I was driving along at 67 mph in Eco-Cruise (which I don't use often but did for this trip) and once the battery was charged about 75% the instant mpg gauge would read 40-45 during Negative Split Mode and 45-50 during Positive Split Mode on level ground. I have the 13B07 update, if I tapped Eco-Cruise down it would go full EV but leaving it alone it would go back and forth between Negative Split Mode and Positive Split Mode. Anyway, my question is why would I get better mileage in Positive Split Mode then Negative Split Mode? I watched it do it for hours of freeway driving so this is no mistake, and others have said their car does the same thing. It does not make any sense to me why I would get better gas mileage when the ICE was charging the batteries versus when the motor was assisting the ICE...

That's pretty crazy, the only thing I can think of is you are doing mostly highway driving, the speed limit is probably 75+ where you are, you probably have the AC blasting being in AZ, when you are not driving 75+ you are in traffic, and there is an elevation change where work is higher. If those things are true then your commute is a rough commute for a hybrid... Does your mpg change much during the seasons? (assuming you've had the car long enough) My commute is pretty hybrid friendly, on my way to work I never top 55 mph and when I get to those speeds I'm on a highway that gently slopes downhill, the rest of my trip the speed limit is 35 or 40, and my averages to work are 65-70 mpg before the update and since the update 70-73 mpg. I pay for the hill on the way back, but still my average is 45 mpg. On my recent trip to Canada I averaged 40.7 mpg on the way up and 45.6 mpg on the way back. (average speed about 69 mph with AC on)

I did 'manage' to get a 33 mpg ride home once, but it was a horrible rainy day that I was stuck in horrendous traffic such that the car had to run the ICE to charge the battery several times because I wasn't moving at all in the traffic. How someone "averages" 29 mpg I have no idea.

Correct, with cruise control on the Prius is better because it has a smaller engine that uses less power overall and is more aerodynamic, however if you pulse & glide I believe the C-Max will have the advantage. You can accelerate up to speed or a little above the speed limit with the ICE, let off the gas and use the EV to glide up to highway speeds now with the update, the Prius is not able to match that.

I absolutely agree that it is a great car and the drive train is light years better than the Prius. (in my opinion of course, specifically being able to drive higher speeds in EV) In that you can argue that they were looking to put the best possible vehicle in the hands of the driver and therefore looking out for the customer. The part I can't deal with is the copy paste of the MPG from the Fusion. If they didn't so highly tout the mileage being better then the Prius than it wouldn't be such a big deal, but that is exactly what they pushed and the mileage isn't better on average. They were only looking out for themselves when they published MPG rates that they knew weren't realistic for the average driver! (although I don't get lowering the city economy number, no one complained about that...)

I was able to get it into High ICE at 67 mph, once the battery charged up to about 75% the instant fuel economy gauge would sit in the 45-50 range on flat ground. When I was on a slight downhill grade the instant fuel economy gauge hit 60 with the ICE on! Also, if you are on a slight downhill and in Eco-Cruise you can click down once to get it into EV mode. mcfarlak64, ICE is Internal Combustion Engine, EV is Electric Vehicle, click on the P&G to improve FE in your PZEV, what the hell are u talking about? link in Jus-A-CMax's tag to see all the abbreviations.

I could be wrong, but with the right driver I believe the C-Max can get better gas mileage than a Prius. The reason I was not surprised that the C-Max was rated higher than the Prius is that it has a significantly stronger electric motor and larger battery pack, thus allowing it to not use gas at speeds that the Prius must use the ICE. With that said, the extra power is a double edge sword, looking at the chart that +3 Golfer found on fueleconomy.gov you can see the FE range for the C-Max is 27 mpg (56 high versus 29 low) which is more than DOUBLE the Prius's FE range of 13 mpg (48 high versus 35 low). It also backs up what I said that with the right driver the C-Max could potentially get better fuel economy. Still, I'm not happy with what Ford did. I'm getting better than the old rated fuel economy around town and on local highways, but even with the update my recent highway trip was below it. It is shady and is a black eye for the C-Max and Ford. I love my car and am not getting rid of it but at the same time I hate supporting companies that don't think of the customer first. You want loyal customers then you have to return the loyalty, and in that sense they clearly failed.

Does anyone else feel like Ford swung too far in the other direction here? I mean I am starting to feel like +3 golfer does how Ford was shady about how they rated the mpg for the C-Max, but I haven't had a problem averaging 50+ mpg on my daily work commute that from everything I have read is similar in speed and duration to the EPA highway test and many other people here hit the 47 mpg mark without much effort. 45/40/43 just feels too low, I mean we had a poll going here whether the car should be 47 city 44 highway! On my vacation, my only extended highway driving since buying the car, I averaged 43.1 mpg over 1000 miles of highway driving using Eco Cruise 90% of the time with air conditioning 75% of the time and an average speed around 69 mph. (71 mph up and 67 mph back) Turn off the AC and pulse & glide instead of using Eco-Cruise and I'm sure I could have done 45+ mpg for the trip. Edit: Not saying that we should have to turn off the AC and pulse & glide to get the EPA rating, just that I could have done better and even with the AC on and Eco-Cruise I topped the new 40 mpg highway easily.

Actually I have a question. As I was driving home I was watching the instant MPG gauge and I noticed that when the battery was about 75% and charging I was getting better gas mileage then when it was discharging to assist the ICE. Huh??? I would think that the mileage would be worse as it was charging and better when it was assisting the ICE, but after watching it today I have no doubt that it was better when charging. There was a few sections of road that I would describe as "level" and while the battery was high and charging I was getting 45-50 mpg on the instant MPG gauge and when it was discharging I was getting 40-45. Can someone please explain to me why I get better MPG when the battery is charging versus assisting? It doesn't make sense to me at all... Incidentally, there was a section of road that was slightly downhill and I was in high ICE and the instant MPG gauge hit 60 mpg! It was momentary and the power requirement was low at the time but I couldn't believe it got that high!