Mike,

I live in Dearborn -- so I'd love to go ! How do I get in touch with the folks that set this up?

Thanks & Regards,
Tim

 

Thanks to all you friends who have sent me emails. I am burried and am trying to reply to everyone.

A correction: My short list is only a list I have started to try to be sure you have a chance to get into this event if you do not receive an invitation from Ford in the next two weeks. All current FEH owners (about 12,500) will be getting theirs in the mail. Next to be sent out will be those who are buying the Mariner Hybrid, and then those that have responded to the Ford Hybrid website for more info. If you are in these catagories you have a chance. Please do not email to get on a list until after the invites go out and you do not get one.

I believe the response will be overwhelming and Ford will have to go to a 'Road Show' as they did last year.

I will post additional information as I get it.

 

I was at the "Dearborn Experience." While I learned a few things, I was more impressed with the opportunity to talk with the Engineering Development team. I had hoped there would be more of a chance to meet and get to know other FEH users, but things were otherwise structured.

One of the things I didn't get to explore was the question - What comes after the gasoline/electric hybrid? I am convinced that it is a temporary/transitional technology. The development team had a display of a 10 cylinder hydrogen engine and I have heard a lot of talk about fuel cell powered cars.
____________________________
John M. Dwyer
dwyerjm@udmercy.edu
Owner of the '06 FEH "Sainte Marie"
Prof. of Math, Stat, and Computer Science
Detroit, MI

 

As a new hybrid owner I was wondering if Ford is still offering any type of interaction/training like this still today?

 

ddderek - Shortly after the "Dearborn experience," Mary Ann Wright (who was in charge of the FEH and MMH programs) left for another position. The proposed series of regional meetings never occurred.

You might check with your dealership (or with other FEH dealers). Some have ad hoc hybrid groups, others have owners meetings. They are rare, but do occur.

You might also want to try to organize a group, either on your own or through a dealership. With gasoline prices the way they are, you could well have better success than people have had in the past.

Good luck, and remember that much of fuel efficiency from a full hybrid like the FEH is based on the same principles of fuel efficiency for a standard ICE engine.

 

If anyone in Atlanta with a FEH would like to have a meeting like this, let me know. I would love to meet other owners in the area and share techniques. On the same note, if anyone else is ever in Atlanta, let me know.

 

It's so funny that you said that John, after driving the Escape this weekend and practicing those fuel saving techniques, I got back in my 6 cylinder Ford 500 this morning, for my 20 minute highway ride to work, and wondered, will the same gas pedal feathering work on this? So I reset the MPG gauge and lo and behold IT DOES !! If you really ease your pedal useage and massage the speed to where to want to set your cruise, it gives you much better overall mileage. And of course coasting when you see red lights ahead etc. does the trick as well.

So the moral of the story is... no matter what you drive you can increase fuel economy if you choose to.... (drive like an old lady, as my kids would say!)

 

I certainly would be in favor of having participating in a FEH owner's get together in the Detroit area of Michigan if others are interested... If we had enough folks, maybe we could encourage some folks from Ford to attend to give us input as well as us give them input! They can certainly learn what drives this market by listening to those that already drive these vehicles! I'll start a new thread for the purpose of beginning the discussion.

 

I drove a '89 Ranger before my '05 FEH and I got better than EPA mileage out of it. There is a technique to driving any vehicle efficiently.

But there are also some techniques which uniquely apply to hybrids. Some of them are different depending on the type of hybrid, but there are many that are valid across the board.

There are two in particular relevant to the FEH. One is to recharge the HiVoltage battery with the engine running fast (if you can) and then drive on the battery more slowly. Be careful with this since it can annoy other drivers.

The second is the "low gear" advantage. The only difference between "D" and "L" for an FEH is that the vehicle is in "free wheeling" in "D" but the engine/motor remains connected all the time in "L." So for slow or stop-and-go driving, it is frequently better to use "L" in order to use the engine/motor slowing of the vehicle for additional HiVoltage battery recharging. For highway driving, it is usually better to use "D."

Discussions of these (and other techniques) appear on various threads throughout the GreenHybrid site.

 

I was at the event they originally did when the car came out in '05. There was a lot of great information shared and a lot of specifics that the rest of us would have a hard time developing ourselves (e.g. the effect of running various things in the car like rear-window defrosters, headlights, fan, etc.). Ford had a powerpoint presentation with a lot of that info.

Unfortunately a lot of people didn't get to attend because they needed to limit the number of attendees per session (not really just about the size of the facility... each owner was assigned an engineer to talk to, take a ride, etc. and there are only so many of those folks to go around.)

I'm sure they'll probably have similar info at this new event and it would be REALLY GREAT if they could make that info available to those who can't attend (e.g. provide a copy that could posted here to the website?)

Regards,
Tim