Fuelly MPG Going Up!!!

[Adair]

I just noticed that 16 of the 196 are not hybrid and most of those are diesel.

 

Could one of the Fuelly members get these 16 United Kingdom cars moved to the UK tab?

 

Hmmm, if you use the Engine type filter at the top, there are 135 Hybirds, 1 listed as L4 gas, and 3 listed as Gas. I think some may be misclassified....selected the wrong type on registration maybe?

[wab]

I just noticed that 16 of the total 212 C-Max are not hybrid and most of those are diesel.

 

Could one of the Fuelly members get these 16 United Kingdom cars moved to the UK tab?

 

 

Hmmm, if you use the Engine type filter at the top, there are 135 Hybirds, 1 listed as L4 gas, and 3 listed as Gas. I think some may be misclassified....selected the wrong type on registration maybe?

 

I corrected my post to read 212 C-Max.

Here's the link I'm using.

 

http://www.fuelly.com/car/ford/c-max

Edited June 4, 2013 by wab

[roninsd]

If you set the filter to "Hybrid L4" it shows 137, with an average mpg of 39.2.  I'm guessing that the others listed on the site are also hybrids (non-European), but even if you take those out we're still running just .1 below the average of the entire group.

[fredsw]

New owner here. I bought a used C Max a week ago. it had a little over 10,000 miles on it. We also have a 2010 Prius and have had a 2008 Prius. Hybrid driving is a different type of driving for sure and even a difference between makes. Our '10 is doing about 51+ mpg now and wil rise another 2-4 mpg when the weather stays in the 80's+. The Max is doing approx. 43 mpg right now and I'm still learning how to handle it. It has much more torque than our Prius. I'm sure it has a heck of a lot more than the Prius V, which is more of a comparison. I look for this Max to hit close to Ford's EPA estimate, but it has to be driven as a hybrid should, with a little stealth and keeping your right foot out of the bucket. BTW, the winter plays hell with the Prius's mpg. It will go down to the mid forties when w're here in Ohio.

[JohnnOhio]

I purchased my CMax in March temps were low 20s to mid 40s during break in and was getting average 38 mpg. Now after 3,000 miles and warm temps my lifetime average is 44 + - a point or 2. I get 46 to 55 mpg trips regularly now. I have been wondering what will happen to my mpg's come winter. Just how low will it go?

[salsaguy]

johnnyo -you might look at getting an engine block heater for your c-max for the cold winter months.

you can warm the engine in your garage overnight so that when you start it in the morning it won't take forever to warm up when driving around town. since the hybrid wants to use the battery mode more often the engine doesn't warm up very fast hence the low mpg since the engine has to kick in and engines and batteries don't like very cold weather at all.

 

hybrids do much better in warm weather like 65-75 deg F like we have here in So. California.

Also the EPA tests are all based on that temp range for the mpg ratings.

Edited June 8, 2013 by salsaguy

[fotomoto]

Up another point:  39.4mpg

[salsaguy]

this is good news especially with more Cmaxes out there.you'd think new owner mpg would be low and push average down but summer temps are helping the beta test early adopter owners as well as the longer break in time on those cars and now with all the updates and TSBs.

[Jus-A-CMax]

Added a nice chunk to the fuelly for the CMax :yahoo:

[mtb9153]

You are 100% right. Fuelly should require you to put in your vin# or something else to prove you own the vehicle you are reporting on. I hate the fact that some people try to ruin other vehicles reputation. Are they really that afraid Ford is going steal all of Toyota Prii sales? Oh, wait yes they are. Ford has taken 12% market share from Toyota since last year. Ford has 18% and growing and Toyota still has a whopping 58%, but that numbers goes down monthly. (Last year at the beginning of March Toyota had 71% of the hybrid market.)

Numbers are proven, as I continue to see Pruis's sitting in the resale lot of area Ford dealerships.  Owners are defecting to what is an obvious better choice.  I saw one sitting in the used lot at Frontier Ford just last Monday.

[Jus-A-CMax]

Numbers are proven, as I continue to see Pruis's sitting in the resale lot of area Ford dealerships.  Owners are defecting to what is an obvious better choice.  I saw one sitting in the used lot at Frontier Ford just last Monday.

I'll drive a Prius, no problems with that....not sure how long though. One thing I never liked about the Prii was the small, teenie, weenie tank. Sorry but I need the range & space, especially to Mammoth.

[salsaguy]

easy to say NOW jus, after becoming the new range king with a 760+ miles range tank just today

;)

[fotomoto]

Update:  39.5

 

Hmmm.  At this rate of increase, I'm thinking 40.x before the end of the month. :happy feet:

Edited June 14, 2013 by fotomoto

[fotomoto]

I've been off line for a while so don't know when it change but now it's up to:

 

39.6

 

8 days till the end of the month.  Going by the entries in this thread, it looks like a trend of about an increase of a tenth per week so I don't think we'll see 40 by July 1.  

[Jus-A-CMax]

I'll see if I can help with my mega tank before the end of this week ;)

[fotomoto]

I'll see if I can help with my mega tank before the end of this week ;)

 

Funny that you replied to this thread.  I actually though about you and other "supertankers" who are getting great mpg's and how you might be slowing down the upward progression because it takes ya'll longer and longer to reach the end of tank and log in your results to fuelie!    :)

[Jus-A-CMax]

Funny that you replied to this thread.  I actually though about you and other "supertankers" who are getting great mpg's and how you might be slowing down the upward progression because it takes ya'll longer and longer to reach the end of tank and log in your results to fuelie!    :)

don't remind me...if you have been following my threads...its so true, this is like slower than watching grass grow, mate. Matt is much faster than me cause his job takes him everywhere and what he can get done in 1 super tank, takes me like 1 1/2 week more because I drive to work & back and to the golf course on the weekend. Much slower. Orphoto is somewhere like Matt. He may sneak in an 800 or high 700 as well, hes understatedly good.

[salsaguy]

until they switch to median mpg instead of average mpg, it's all subjective. avg is such a worthless statistics when trying to speak about a sample set to represent the population due to it taking the extreme values and skewing the data because of them. simple stats 101 students know this.why can't these websites?

you don't see avg home prices, do you? nope it's median home price for a reason.

 to minimize the effects of the extreme high/low value which DON'T represent the majority of the other owners/values that do.

one day.....

Edited June 23, 2013 by salsaguy

[wab]

until they switch to median mpg instead of average mpg, it's all subjective. avg is such a worthless statistics when trying to speak about a sample set to represent the population due to it taking the extreme values and skewing the data because of them. simple stats 101 students know this.why can't these websites?

you don't see avg home prices, do you? nope it's median home price for a reason.

 to minimize the effects of the extreme high/low value which DON'T represent the majority of the other owners/values that do.

one day.....

I’ve been saying the same thing to friends for yrs.

 

“I can prove either side of an argument with THE same set of statistics.”

[plus 3 golfer]

until they switch to median mpg instead of average mpg, it's all subjective. avg is such a worthless statistics when trying to speak about a sample set to represent the population due to it taking the extreme values and skewing the data because of them. simple stats 101 students know this.why can't these websites?

you don't see avg home prices, do you? nope it's median home price for a reason.

 to minimize the effects of the extreme high/low value which DON'T represent the majority of the other owners/values that do.

one day.....

Average is not worthless in fuelly because it's based on total miles driven divided by gallons consumed.   

 

This is not the housing market where the sales value varies by square footage, location, amenities and so forth such that one $10 million sale might be the equivalent of 50 median priced home sales.  In the housing market, median is appropriate.  In FE (assuming sample size is appropriate), average or median is fine as there's likely little difference between the two.

 

Look at the graph and data below, there are 211 C-Maxs for 2013 (with 1 being labeled a diesel).  The median falls in the 40 mpg bin.  The average is 39.6. Looks like very little difference between median and average to me.  Certainly nothing to worry about and it's a long way from 47 mpg. It's simply not the same as the housing market. ;)

 

 

[C-MaxSea]

Old, perhaps worn out take; my impression is that many C Maxes are being bought by folks with little idea of what they have under them, thus lots of complaints about 'funny noises' .....('why doesn't this car behave exactly like my old _____' ...... and much more typical ICE driving habits being applied.  Great to see the rate creep up, but I would be shocked to see much more than a creep.  On the contrary, Prius owners tend to be iconoclasts out to break the MPG bank.  Another way to put it:  C-Max, a great car with normal (fantastic) dash & more 'normal' drivers; Prius, a goofy car with iconic (goofy) dash & more iconic drivers.  Perhaps I am overstating the case, but my impression from all of the readings which tend to yield 'positive'/youthful/irrational vibes for Prii (a good car, but not nearly as good as a C-Max).

 

It will be interesting to see who survives the next decade, it could be brutal with many hybrid options, and a blood bath in the end if the price of gas remains 'low' - or the opposite (exciting success stories) if gas prices remain 'high' -  'low' & 'high' being very relative & subjective & perceptive terms. 

 

Keep on feathering,

Nick

Edited June 23, 2013 by C-MaxSeattle

[fotomoto]

I missed 39.7 but it's up to 39.8 today.  

[salsaguy]

plus 3, the fuelly numbers WOULD benefit from using median instead of avg since it IS like the housing market, where different states have different yearly temperatures (like the home costs). each driver is different like the sq footage of each home, etc, etc.

 

this is especially true here in So Cal where the houses are much more expensive and temps are very different year round compared to the rest of the USA..just ask JUS-a-c-max. he is a real estate agent. if they used avg for home price data,  data here in CA would greatly skew the home price average to a higher number for the overall and that would affect the loan rates and economy numbers.

 

and the very fact that we know there are bogus numbers/users in the fuelly data sample and the diesel user who you mentioned should not be in there, who are all pulling the cmax avg down inappropriately.

 

the sample size of about 200 is not really enough to represent the population of all 2013 C-Max's since the population is about 70,000?? or so. i don't have the cmax sales numbers to date and don't have my Minitab stats software handy to calculate the minimum sample size needed to be valid but.... yes with at least 35-50 data points you can start to get a initial basis sample avg but since there are 50 states in question to make sure all temps are covered you'd want to have at least 10-30 cmax owners from each state report in to fuelly to really be representative, which would mean you need at least 500-1500 fuelly data points to be real, and each would need at least a years worth of their mpg data since we know that the cmax is temp sensitive so we need to see  how the low and high temps affect the numbers during the summer and winter months. some have more winter months than spring/summer months.median is the way to go due to so many variables present in the data. if you worked in quality you'd know that you could not take an average with so many different data streams present to weed thru.

 

 

you also have the engine break in period which can be 1/4 to 1/2 a year (3000-5000 miles). many folks  fuelly haven't even come close to driving that many miles yet.

 

you also have the learning curve time for this car even for seasoned Hybrid drivers since the cmax has a lithium ion battery and a different mpg algorithm programmed to max it's fuel economy in its own special way.

 

i think the cmax Fuelly data has a long way to go before we can use it as a fact for this or any car.

the prius has many more owners and its been out for a long time so it's fuelly data can be trusted more than the cmax data. there are over 2200 Prius data points on Fuelly now.

 

you can't just look at the graph and guess, and you can't say there is no significant difference between the avg and the median of 200+ values. you have to run the numbers, which i will do.and we know a 0.5 mpg difference means a lot more to a c-max rated at 47mpg than it does to a car rated at 24 mpg.

 

Also if you apply the filter to only show those who correctly picked HYBRID as their engine you have 152 data points and the avg avg mpg  is closer to 42/43 mpg instead of just the 39/40 mpg if you include all 225 data points.

 

further more there are a bunch of n/a zero mpg posted users (most suspicious of being bogus to lower the avg value on purpose) so you need to use the "hide zero values" link/button which then drops the total data points down to 152 data points.

 

a key statistic missing is the variance or standard deviation between the values to show how much difference there is between drivers/owners of the cmax. we know it's pretty high as can be seen by the graph and range of 32 avg mpg all the way to 48 avg mpg = 16 mpg difference from low to high

 

this is what i do in my job (one of the MANY things so i do know statistics. I'm a certified quality engineer (CQE)

 

fuelly needs MEDIAN. time for a petition.

 

=======

plus 3 said:

 

"This is not the housing market where the sales value varies by square footage, location, amenities and so forth such that one $10 million sale might be the equivalent of 50 median priced home sales.  In the housing market, median is appropriate.  In FE (assuming sample size is appropriate), average or median is fine as there's likely little difference between the two."

Edited August 26, 2013 by salsaguy

[fotomoto]

Also if you apply the filter to only show those who correctly picked HYBRID as their engine you have 152 days points and the avg avg mpg  is closer to 42/43 mpg instead of just the 39/40 mpg if you include all 225 data points.

 

I did some digging to find out why or how there could be a driver with a 29mpg rating.  I found it's an owner with a gas car in the Netherlands.  <face palm>

[plus 3 golfer]

salsaguy, again, average is fine for fuelly and is not "worthless" - your word. Median adds little. At least the average takes into account miles driven, median does not. It's easy to see where the median falls as all cars are listed and graphed in buckets. But, why add more confusion by adding statistics (like median, mode, skewness, kurtosis, standard deviation) to fuelly or any FE site like fueleconomy.gov or truedelta.com. What fuelly needs is a big disclaimer like fueleconomy.gov on the FE pages:

DISCLAIMER: Average user estimates are based on data from My MPG users rather than official sources. Since the source data cannot be verified, neither DOE nor EPA guarantees the accuracy of these estimates.

I have no clue what you are trying to do with your dissertation but it sounds like you want to isolate causal variables. You need regression for that not median. Fuelly doesn't contain enough nor verifiable data (like the housing market) to begin to do any serious analysis. Until such time as we know the driving conditions for each tank entered into fuelly it's pointless to argue that certain data should be excluded and that median will do such appropriately. I would expect that both the average and median FE of the 2013 fleet will continue to increase for another 4-6 months. After that I would expect the 2013 fleet FE to stabilize. The break-in and learning how to drive a hybrid are then moot.

 

You do know that as tires wear out, FE increases by about 1.5 - 2% over the life of the tires. ;) Could this be one of the reasons fuelly is going up. :)

Edited July 3, 2013 by Plus 3 Golfer