valkraider

I've had both, although out of 5 cars with heated seats only one included the seat back. Most common is just the cheek warmer.

It is not flimsy, it is thick safety glass. However, It is one of 11 windows in the car. I would bet that if someone is taking a bat to a window the ones easy to reach through would probably be their first choice...

Why Things Fail: From Tires to Helicopter Blades, Everything Breaks Eventually

If both are in the car how does it know who is driving?

Same for me. First Ford in 20 years, first Hybrid ever. Our last ford was a horrendous Pos. Here's to hoping they have improved!

Ford already did number 3. It comes with the Energi model and includes a larger battery. ;) All kidding aside, the extra cost may not be worth it just for 2 miles. Heck, I don't even consider the thousand dollars extra for the 8 miles in the plug-in Prius to be a good value...

They are selling pretty well without a large ad budget. :) I have seen c-max commercials during football.

Cars have been getting larger and heavier and more powerful. That's why the older cars seemed to get better economy. Now they have all kinds of extra goodies and equipment, lots of safety and emissions gear, and 200 horsepower motors we don't need. And they are big. I think an old Honda civic could sit in the trunk of a new Honda civic.

The weight will affect economy more in city driving. In highway mode wind and motor are the bigger factors. Except climbing big hills, then the weight matters... The Energi negative impact at highway driving is the shorter top gear ratio which allows the electric motor to go 80mph. That reduces the highway fuel economy for the ICE. It's one big trade-off. My Jetta TDI was outstanding on the highway. But in the city doesn't get the best mileage. We drive mostly city, so the Energi makes more sense for us.

They just need to add one more test cycle. Sustained 70mph driving for 30 miles.

Ford is watching all that, as all the usage data gets uploaded to the cloud. I wonder if this sort of thing will show up in the vehicle health diagnostic reports? But they are logging all the data about the electrical system. Much like Nissan is with the Leaf and Chevy is with the Volt. Can you imagine how much faster automobile technology would have developed if manufacturers could log usage and performance characteristics of their ICE vehicles when the technology was young? A couple years of pattern analysis and performance logs can make each generation that much better. More efficient, more reliable, and more cost effective to build and maintain. Just look at how much GM has learned about the Volt usage patterns!

I'm guessing the battery will be better at temperature extremes than the Leaf but not as good as the Volt. The Leaf has passive temp management, the Energi has active air temp management and the Volt has active fluid temperature management. If I am comfortable in the cabin, the battery should do OK as well. However I am very worried about someone packing the back with gear and blocking the air vents... I will probably be an annoying control freak about keeping those vents clear...

My wife will set hers to 6.

I've known about the plans for the C-Max Energi for a long time, I work in the industry and am also an electric car enthusiast and nerd. So I was keeping my eye open. We had test driven a Leaf extensively and really like it - but with only one car we couldn't do the electric only route. But I would take one as a second car in a heartbeat, I really liked them. But it's an expensive second car... We went and test drove a Volt and came away thoroughly unimpressed. The build quality seemed poor, the interior seemed all cheap and plastic, and the 4 seat capacity was annoying us. The engine was buzzy and the salesman was a complete idiot. We came away completely turned off (which was sad because I really wanted to like it - I think this powertrain in a small truck or mini van would sell like hotcakes! A voltec S10 would be awesome!) We have a Tesla outlet in the mall here, and the Model S is freaking AMAZING. But I don't have that kind of cash - again for an electric only car, even with the highest range model it still would not allow us to travel at all really.... But man are they beautiful and impressive... We looked at Prius, and so many people have Prius up here we know a lot about them. So we basically checked out the Prius V and it was an OK car. The Prius plugin to me seemed to me like a cruel joke. But to each their own... We were driving by a Ford dealership a couple months ago and saw a C-Max hybrid out front. We stopped to just sit in it and check it out. We liked it. The sales guy was really high pressure and I mentioned I wanted the Energi model and he said they wouldn't be available until sometime next year (which I already knew was false because I knew the dates they were entering the pipeline). His ignorance turned me off a bit, but the car was decent. Next to my office they had the Ford Driven event thing where you could sign up to drive a C-Max, C-Max Energi, or Focus Electric. They also had a Fusion Hybrid there on display (as well as a Prius and a Leaf for comparisons). We signed up, knowing ahead of time that we were already interested - but most of the people in my office also signed up. We got in an Energi equipped just like we ordered ours, with the 303A package and sunroof. Only it was the ice color. We drove it about 3 feet and knew we wanted this car, it was great. So we finished my turn, then her turn, then went back and played with stuff in all the cars. The Focus Electric was Blue Candy color, and we liked that color a lot. (We also got $15 gift cards for signing up for the event) As I said, I work in the industry so I know a lot of information which helps me when I buy a car. I sent emails to every Ford dealer in the area, coincidentally the first one that called me back accepted my deal outright, the next day we went to the dealer and ordered ours. That weekend the Ford Driven event was downtown and we went and signed up again, this time we had our daughter and our dog. We showed her everything about the car, and we were able to drive it a couple more times and play with stuff more. She was excited too, and the dog endorsed it too. This time we got free lunch for signing up for the event. Now I am checking the train hotline daily to see where my car is. ;)

Yes, I have a charger at work and also at most places we shop, so we will be looking to keep in the EV miles. ;) Well, the truck is temporary. We sold a Jetta TDI and a Camaro and the truck is filling the gap until our Energi comes in. I am really tired of driving and parking a truck with a camper in the city... ugh!

It is on the rails, I am tracking it daily. :) Yes, I will put it on Fuelly, but I am a bit nervous about that because most of our driving will be electric so I am hesitant to skew the numbers unless they create a separate Energi model to track. I will be putting probably 25 miles a day on pure electric with a few longer runs on the weekend. It is going to take me forever to need a fuel fill up (except at first where we are so excited to play with the car we will be driving all over just because we are so glad we are not driving the truck anymore).

Just because you don't use it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There hasn't been a cellphone sold in this country since the 90s which doesn't have internet capability. 2G cell phone networks have built in data capabilities. The first phones with internet capabilities hit in 1999, and were standard across the systems by 2000. It was clunky early on but by 2002 there was even an internet access standard which allowed sites to be developed to handle cell phones more gracefully (called WAP). But even before that if you were a techie it was not overly complicated to use the internet on a cell phone. Google started in the mid 2000s offering a service called "mobilizer" which would format any existing site to fit on a regular old cell phone. I had hundreds of sites bookmarked through Google mobilizer for use on my phone. Any phone which can text message can use the internet. It's just not all that fun or convenient. ;) Edit: While researching to get my dates and facts correct, I found that depending on your network provider and your phone, you could access the internet in crude ways or for oddball functions as early as the mid 90s (Finland and Japan led the charge). That amazes me, I didn't start using the internet on my phone until late 2000. I did however for a short while have a Motorola cell phone with a proprietary serial cable that hooked to my laptop and worked as an old fashioned dial-up modem, for a ridiculously slow connection... That was around 1999... It was almost to painful to bear. It is hard to believe now that I can get 43Mbps down on my LTE iPhone. !!!

That is not true, they explicitly by law have to allow you to use aftermarket products. If a failure does happen the manufacturer has to prove it was the aftermarket product which actually caused a failure. They can require that things like filters and whatnot meet certain specifications - but they cannot require you to buy Ford.

I have seen the cars do it, this was presented in the Energi demos we attended in the "Ford Driven" events, and it is on the Energi flyer we have. It's only on the Energi model, not the regular hybrid version. The system is the same one as the Focus Electric which is described here: http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=33763 There is a problem currently with the C-Max VIN numbers not working in MyFordMobile, but Ford says it should be fixed by January. The Energi comes with a 5 year subscription, and you can monitor charging status, get notified when it is done charging or disconnected from the charger, remote lock/unlock doors, remote start climate control, and some other things. The Energi also will download the locations of electric charging stations and show them on the navigation screen if you have a Nav equipped model. The "cloud" really has nothing to do with cell phones. The "cloud" means systems that run remotely, on the internet. (Cloud is just a buzz-word really, anything that runs on the internet could sort of be considered in the cloud, but generally cloud means servers and systems which run on those servers - instead of running locally on a local device such as computer, tablet or smartphone). Cell phones all have the capability to connect to the internet, the only difference is how useful their interface is and the speed at which they can connect. Yes, the cell phone network has to provide network connectivity (but not in all cases). However within a couple years, even the voice part of cell phones will be running as data over the internet and there will be no more distinction between data and voice, they will all be data on the net.

Stop-Start is great for people who spend a lot of time, well, stopped. In the city with stop&go traffic, hybrids shine. No matter whether or not it "hacks" the EPA test - when I am stopped for a train crossing, bridge lift, or 73 stoplights in a row: I don't want to burn gas to sit there not moving... :)

The Energi model connects to the cloud on its own and communicates with the cloud on its own. No driver cell phone needed. It is sending electric usage data to Ford, and then to the MyFordTouch app if you have that for yourself. This cannot be used for internet access, it is the car communicating for its own purposes. To use internet access through the built in wi-fi you do indeed have to connect a users mobile phone or other modem to the car via bluetooth or USB.

Energi models have their own internal 3G modem.

Any heated seat is too hot for a man, and not hot enough for a woman. My wife will turn on heated seats when it is 70 degrees outside, while I am constantly thinking they are on and checking the switch to make sure they're off... I think Jeff Foxworthy did a bit about this in his early "still funny" days...

I was incorrect, they are non-profit. I was wrong there. However, They do accept advertising dollars, just not for their print magazine. Go to their website. See Ads. From Wikipedia: "Their website, however, does display retailers' advertisements; Consumer Reports say that the ads are placed by PriceGrabber, who collects referral fees from the retailers and pays a percentage to Consumer Reports,[6] and that Consumer Reports has no direct relationship with the merchants.[7] Consumer Reports does publish reviews of PriceGrabber, and at least in one case recommends them as the best choice.[8] Previously, CR had a similar relationship with BizRate.[9] CR also has had relationships with other companies including Amazon.com,[10]Yahoo!,[11]The Wall Street Journal; The Washington Post;[12] BillShrink;[13] and Decide.com.[14] CR also accepts funding in the form of grants from other organizations,[15] and at least one high-ranking Consumer Reports employee has gone on to work for a company he evaluated." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports

You threw in the "and it applied to car owners in general" while we clearly were discussing differences between CMAX and Prius owners...