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As long as you quote corrections as well, yes, quoting anything I post is fine with me, as long as it leads to greater accuracy. Since you grabbed one I got right the first time, no issues. Just saw my first Fusion Hybrid... Thanks, Frank

I feel your pain... Note the absence of a center bar on either side of the Ford badge...thunder started shortly after first coat. Thankfully slow moving. Have fun, Frank

Did something similar, albeit with Plasti-Dip. Very easy... now for some bright sun! HAve fun, Frank

Make that (sans period at the end) http://www.calipercovers.com/ Interesting customization option... Have fun, Frank

I can't find any specs on that Focus package, but the C-Max specs allready show 25.5mm front and 22mm rear sway bars with gas shocks. Regardless, what would "soup-up" a 2900 lb. car may not have as much effect on a 3600 lb. car... but what soups-up a Focus Hybrid may be just the ticket! I like the idea of talking performance parts for a hybrid, but I see very little need for it in this case. Wonder what the Prii aftermarket's like... Have fun, Frnak

Gary, we share many of the same perceptions, however, I've yet to hear the tires squeal. A gentle moan is the most I get... not pushing har denough, I guess. My autocrosser is an '83 BMW 320iS, and my era was the '80's; last National was maybe '91? I had that car up on 2 wheels twice, both times in a slalom, and both times due to low roll stiffness with the stock suspension. At 1g+ lateral acceleration, it's not hard to push a suspension close to the bump stops, and it will swing very nicely to the other side if you ask the right way. I left when it became standard practice to corner on 2 wheels - bicycling - but with inches of air, not the feet I got. It was an era when technology was leaving old cars behind as fast as the rule changes! HAve fun, Frank

At the same time, I never expected to make that comparison with a hybrid! This is a very well-mannered suspension, handicapped by electronics. Imagine what the C-Max slalom time would have been without RSC!! Don't kid yourself that it didn't slow the car down... Have fun, Frank

With the corrected values for KE (and I'd still like someone to verify...), 0-45 is more like 8.8% of an 80% discharge depth. The most straightforward way to test would be a 10m free-roll test. With losses, you should end up around 25mph, and no more than 30. (link to diagram) Again, I'm just trying to get some idea of relative energy content, so folks see how much energy they have in variouis forms. High gas mileage is a simple matter of tapping on the chemical side as little as possible by managing energy among the other three. I'm hoping it helps to see their relative capacities. Have fun, Frank

Please note corrections to post 81.

Remember the part about energy required to achieve speed? The example I gave used EV for the first 15 mph, ICE after that. It's using EV for only 25% of the energy required to get to 30 mph, and only 6% of the energy to 60 mph. That's perfectly consistent with what Ford is saying, if you add in: - the hypermiling technique of never stopping completely when driving ICE - the idea of returning EV re-gen energy from the brakes back to kinetic energy. I also update the energy flow with energy capacities... very enlightening! (I'll list assumptions below; can anyone check my math?) Orders of magnitude variation in energy capacities! 13.5gal gas tank contains 1747MJ (mega joules) C-Max @ 60mph has 0.63MJ Hybrid HV battery capacity is 5MJ A rolling down a 10m hill gains only 0.15MJ, but that's 30mph. Clearly, the battery can't accelerate the car to 60! yes, it can. - reaching 30MPH from stop is 0.15MJ, so that would drain the battery at 100% charge, 2/3 utilization. - reaching 60mph is only 0.63MJ, so well within EV capability. BIG caveat: I've ignored parasitic losses, like rolling resistance, drag and ICE inefficiencies which along absorb 2/3 of the fuel's energy content per the EPA. Have fun, Frank Assumptions - Wikipedia has correct data for gasoline and Li-ion battery energy densities - Wiki also has accurate unit conversions - car weighs 3600 lb., has a 1.4kWh HV battery and 13.5gal tank - gravitational acceleration is 9.8m/s^2 - potential energy is mass x grav. accel. x height in meters - kinetic energy is 1/2 x mass x velocity^2 CORRECTION Ah ha! I found it! Now th enumbers make sense... a 10m drop gets you to 30mph, and you don't kill the battery getting to 60! Does this fit more with what you see Jus? Frank

Jeff, My background is Physics, so I see the system's energy balance a little differently. My mental model looks like this: Chemical energy is gasoline, one-way transfer to either battery or drive wheels Electrical energy is battery charge, one-way charge from ICE or two-way charge/discharge to drive wheels Potential energy is gravitational - being on top of a hill - so you store or use this energy based on terrain. Of course, Kinetic energy is motion... Reduced fuel consumption comes from only using the ICE in a very efficient mode, as measured by "brake specific fuel consuption" (BSFC) mapping. BSFC maps show contours of equal fuel consumption on a specific torque vs. RPM axes. Most ICE's are most efficient at low RPM (low pumping loss) and high load (so open throttle). (This link has a lot of data in the attachment to the first post, and it's an interesting read.) Hybrid are efficient to the degree that they allow the ICE to operate infrequently but efficiently, and store/use the excess energy efficiently. Minimum fuel consumption is achieved by only running the ICE in BSFC region of maximum efficiency. The control system sets RPM, the driver set the load by selecting a throttle position and terrain (road choice). To your specifc question, motion (kinetic energy) is proportional to speed^2 (speed squared). - accelerating to 0-15 MPH requires 1/4 the energy of accelerating 0-30 MPH. - accelerating to 15 MPH doesn't put enough load on the ICE to reach the minimal BSFC operating region - accelerating from 15-30 requires 3x the energy of 0-15 - the higher load pushes the ICE closer to the BSFC minima, increasing ICE efficiency The gist of the hypermiling advice is to run the ICE as little as possible, and then with the highest load achievable without discharging the battery, to minimize fuel consuption. Make sense now? As to the big-motor/small ICE approach, I see it as an issue of torque - ICE has lots more than any comparable EV. I find myself using ICE to get moving (see above) and to climb hills (see attachement). I'd need a larger battery and traction motor to achieve the same drive wheel torque, which is doable (Tesla) at a price. The current ICE/EV balance is likely a result of practical tradeoffs. The link talks a little about the ICE size range found in the hybrid market today - 1.5l to 2.0 for Prii and Ford. Have fun, Frank

PapaJ, if you don't see a similarity, you haven't driven it hard enough. Granted, it's hard to beat physics, as Ford has finally admitted, so the same 3600 lb. curb weight that gives the Prius an MPG advantage also appliles to the Mini, but in spades at 2800 lb. However, factor in weight distribution, and I stand by my assertion that the C-Max has less body roll than a Mini, if you take height out of the equation. Perhaps not a Mini S... but with the required trade-offs in handling vs. ride quality befitting an "S" variant. The whole point of this thread is that, according to Car and Driver's Mini S review, "By the time you get the tires howling, your passenger will be dialing 9-1-1." C-Max passengers will never call 911, the driver will. That bothers me. HAve fun, Frank

Are you sure? Jus may be speaking Australian...

Has something changed back? It seemed your issues were resolved a week ago... Have fun, Frank, who double posted due to the twists this thread's following!

+1

Thank you all for your mature responses; I'm going to like this forum! HAve fun, Frank

If you want to be an ass, I can't stop you, but I would prefer a harmonious relationship. If you have nothing of value to add, please don't post. The problem isn't that your "bottom line is different" but rather that your bottom line is better... you "can't think of any rationale answers." Your value judgments are out of place here, and will continue to be a source of conflict as long as you promulgate them in place of true added value. Please seek your ego gratification elsewhere. Have fun, Frank

How do you remember all that? I figured I'd count stop signs and stop lights on my route; took several tries before I got the same answer twice... 6 and 11. where'd all those light come from? +1 on the 2-bar burn. Have fun, Frank

The phenomenon is called "metamerism" defined, per Wikipedia as: the matching of apparent color of objects with different spectral power distributions. I'll leave the link for anyone who wants to learn more about spectra, but a simple definition is "reflectance as a function of the wavelength of light," which we perceive as color. The trick is that our eye has 3 types of color receptors, red, green and blue, so any two colors that excite the three receptors in the same proportion will be perceived as the same color. The big variable is illuminant, the color of the light source used to view the color. Daylight is universally accepted as a standard, but direct sunlight is different from indirect/skylight. In direct sunlight, Ice Storm is a greenish hue, and since sunlight is the normal standard illuminant, the car really is green. Park in the shade on the North side of a building on a clear day and I get the car looks blue. That's what makes it metameric... The difference, analytically, is that sunlight has a ~6000K color temperature, while skylight is more like 9000K. for those who haven't studied color theory, that means there is a lot more blue content in skylight and a lot more red in direct sunlight. That the car is perceived as a different color is what makes it metameric. Have fun, Frank

Plus, it's insulting of you to presume otherwise. That's twice you've presumed in ignorance... As i said before, your objective contributions are quite valuable, but the third time, things may get ugly. You should be aware that, in addition to 30 years with a license, I've got a complete set of runner-up trophys from the SCCA Solo II Nationals, have instructed at track schools and taken other people's cars home on my trailer. Autocrossing, I've had air under my right-side wheels repeatedly and never got the shiny side dirty for one very good reason. I practice in everyday driving, especially when it's snowing, and my driving record attests to the fact that I know the difference between spirited and wreckless. When I make a car sllide, no one can tell besides me, as the car is not out of control... until RSC intervenes to "fix" it. RSC is too sensitive, as implemented, and the same is true of traction control. Ask your plow guy. HAve fun, Frank

Yes, but Ford may be required to provide an updated EPA rating sticker to the owner...

I trust you waved as you went by Rochester on the Thruway... and where in NJ? I was born in Camden... Congratulations! Have fun, Frank

Thanks for reading; I found a lot on Ford's RSC problems in the F-150 forums. Seems it kills brakes in snow plow applications, so those guys pull the fuse... and disable the ABS. I find that unacceptable, for reasons other than the "wonderful world of lawyers." ABS only has a couple disadvantaged scenarios (eg. deep snow), and it's of great advantage in low traction conditions. RSC needs a SW switch like traction control. Turning off traction has no effect on RSC; you have to take out ABS, too it appears. And what's with "traction control" that traps cars on flat-but-slippery surfaces? The menu option to disable is not there for looks!! I'm also surprised at the presumption of poor handling from the C-max, as I find nothing of the sort. Mini's I've seen have more body roll, even though they're shorter. Have you tried rocking a C-Max? This thread started because I was able to activate RSC in a situation where the driver was in complete control of the car. This thing is very nicely balanced at the limit, no excitement until the hammer hits. Missing the point regarding short wheelbase (same as Focus...). Turning circle is huge like most FWD cars, but the bigger impact on handling is the weight distribution; front engine, rear battery is reminiscent of the Porsche 944 with front engine, rear transmission, and an actual short wheelbase at 94.5". The added height is a small factor at street speeds compared with placement of the drive train and battery mass to give a very low center of mass, which is what really improves handling. It's what reminds me so much of driving a Spitfire. And yes, armoredsaint, I am not looking forward to winter of the car fighting me back when I drive. Snows may not be optional... My bottom line is still close to HotPotato's sentiment: "...electronics make it unwise to carry speed through corners." Have fun, Frank

Well, this kind of thing ruins a great love affair... RSC is "disabled when the transmission is in position R." Not an option When activated, it de-stablizes the vehicle. Not a desirable option; what was Ford thinking?. If it's activated by driving at the limits, well wait until winter... half the fun of living where you get 8' of snow is driving in it. ABS acts at my request. I've held on to RWD cars for a reason... Anyone here perfoprmance-minded enough to find a work around? HAve fun, Frank, who downloaded the manual a month ago, but didn't realize Ford was on a roll... my fault as they did rate it at 47 mpg, so the warning were there.

I had an odd and unsettling vehicle response yesterday, and I don't see anything similar in a search, so... Coming down a slight grade to an acute right turn, after a battery-draining straight. I (re-gen) braked a little at the entry, and went around with feet off pedals, but carrying a lot of speed. At about the mid-point, when I had maximized lateral acceleration and was diving toward a late apex, I felt the left front wheel start to lock up. It released very quickly, but I had a definite stab of braking, nothing like the gentle re-gen braking. The only positive out of the experience is that the front tire didn't slide at all. No steering correction needed, no change to the arc. Felt like an extraordinarily brief gust of headwind, but it was a calm day and I was in a bit of a hollow. My butt told me it was the LF wheel, but cornering this hard, most of the car's weight is on the LF so it's possible other wheels were involved, but were not loaded enough to impart noticable force to the driver. This is a commuting route, so I'll try again, but I was curious if anyone else has seen anything like it. Remember, I had just taken my foot off the brake pedal, headed for the gas pedal, so I'm sure I didn't apply the brakes by accident. HAve fun, Frank, who is finding the greatest challenge is to exit a spirited turn in EV...