I want to know how Ford was able to get 80 mpg or more for 24 hours in their economy run. I can occasionally get up to 58-60, but have never gotten more for any significant distance. Don't just say "you have to coast to lights", "don't use A/C", etc. as there has to be more to it than that. After 2 months of driving and about 4000 miles, I can average 46-47 on a tank, so that's better than EPA estimates, but that's still a LONG way from 80.

I saw that they were using straight gas (no ethanol blend, which is impossible to find in the real world). Were they kicking the tranny into neutral, then back into gear before using electric mode (saves charging the battery back, but disables charging under braking). Driving 15-20 mph? Is it better to accelerate and coast, or come up to speed slowly when the gas engine kicks in? I seem to find the former better, which gives poorer mileage under acceleration, but gets you back to coast/electric mode quicker. Driving 30-40mph on the gas engine typically returns pretty poor mileage, especially when the batteries need charged.

Your experience? Anybody that can regularly get 70-80mpg for at least half a tank of fuel on level roads? You can't go downhill all the time!

Bob

 

Regular gas would be a huge help and add about 10 mpg to your score. Here in MI. regular gas is plentiful at least for the time being.

 

Pulse and Glide hypermiling technique was utilized extensively. You can go to cleanmpg.com to learn about this technique. As for the event, I'm not positive but traffic may have been blocked off the course which would boost mileage efforts.

 

There are a ton of videos covering this test/event on You Tube.

The tires were at max side wall pressure.
The trunk was empty of all excess stuff.
The road loop was open streets with traffic so they stayed in the sloooow lane and crawled to lights and crawled from lights. They stayed in EV mode as much as possible with zero regard to the guy behind him.
All turns were as wide as possible to reduce tire scrub.
They never used any electric accessories other than the lights at night.
They did from time to time have more than one person in the car sometimes 3. But I bet it was mostly one the driver only.
They were nearly always under the posted speed limit and if they ever got up to it it was time to slow down for the upcoming slower section.
The driving IIRC was never faster than 45mph.
The temps were high 60's to low 70's at night, and 70's to 80's in the day. IE perfect temps.
When the road was uphill they would coast up to the red light and try to put the nose as far as they could without getting into the intersection so as to min the uphill distance.
If the light ahead was red they would coast hoping that someone else would race up and change the light before they would have to come to a complete stop. They were working hard at anticipation. I don't know how many laps were made but I think each lap was about 3 miles. This would give you a lot of trys to drive the perfect lap.

 

OK, a couple of good ideas here that I can use, even in traffic. I pumped my tires up to max sidewall pressure and made my ex wife get out and walk.



Bob

 

That last one will go a long way to making the ride much quieter.

We have our X plan # and are just waiting for the dealer to get one the way we want it.

Soon we will be FFH owners. Looking forward to playing. Curious to see how much better than the EPA MPG I can do. In our 08 FEH AWD I could get 32MPG on the hyw and this was with 4 in the car plus the AC on cruise control set to 65mph. That's 5 mpg better than EPA or 18.5% better. If I can do the same then it will mean the FFH will get 42.5 mpg on the hyw which is about what folks here seem to be doing. I think 43 mpg tanks are more than possible. For me maybe 45 mpg tanks. This is near Prius mpg's and in a much more comfortable and larger car to boot. I figured that the FFH would be good for about 40% better mpg's over our 08 FEH AWD. This plus the bigger fuel tank means one fill up per month on our average day to day use. Trips would be more of course.

I cannot wait to go play.

 

I am finding that if I don't achieve at least 45mpg on a trip (of any length), I'm disappointed. Ditto for 700+ miles on a tank, or overall mileage on this tank > 46.

I reset "long term mileage" about 1200 miles ago, and it's now up to 45.2. I got the worst mileage ever on a trip this weekend, which was about 37 mpg in pouring rain, all on Interstates at 60-65 mph. It bummed me that it pulled my mileages down!

I'm finding that I'm doing the higher mpg things automatically now, not having to monitor or think about it, and typical mileage is in the 47-48 range on my trips. Sidewall max pressure is shown as 44psi. I pumped mine from factory 35psi to 40psi (that's as high as my good, calibrated gauge goes) this weekend and it seemed to make a surprising mpg difference. The ride is much more harsh, though. Going to 44 would be more of a compromise than I want to make right now... at least with gas prices "down".

Maintaining speed on uphill stretches of road really kills mileage, even if only slightly uphill. You have to be willing to lose some speed if you want to maintain good mileage. I find that on really flat roads, I'm better off to use cruise because I get impatient. Central Indiana is, thankfully, pretty flat.

Bob

 

You had better check the tires to be sure they support those types of pressure or you may find yourself with a blowout at high speeds when the tire pressure go up another 4 or 5 lbs. Is it worth your life?

 

Thanks for the warning, but do you know ANYTHING about tires and tire pressures?

I've not only put myself through college working for Firestone, but raced cars and karts for 35 years. Frankly, 44psi in a car tire is probably going to run cooler than 35 psi in the same tire. Less flex, less rolling resistance, less heat, and only slightly less contact patch.

Besides, I use nitrogen which, because of its dry nature and other properties, doesn't expand like air that's typically full of moisture. It has larger molecules which tend not to leak out of the tire like air, so pressures don't decline, either, in cold weather or due to time like air. For an example, in a kart tire, you can start with 10-11psi of air and come off track with 17-20psi. Use nitrogen and you'll come off the track with maybe 14psi with tire temps of 180 degrees. You will never get those kinds of temps with street tires. How much pressure increase are you expecting?

So is your comment based on experience or just, "OH, this could be dangerous!" I've not even exceeded the manufacturer's own specificiation for the tire: I'm still 4psi below it. Are you more enlightened than the engineers that made the tire and assigned the max recommended cold tire pressure (on air)?

Thanks for your concern.

Bob

 

I never said I was an expert, if I was I doubt I'd be wasting my time here talking to you. What I said could most likely happen. Also you did NOT state anything in your post about using nitrogen in your tires and besides the all the experts don't feel the same way about nitrogen in tires either. I have owned and belonged to several motorhome clubs and have owned for almost 30 years and seen first hand what over filling a motorhome tire has done on the hot desert highways when they explode because they carry sometimes over 100lbs. of air in them. I was just trying to help and maybe save your life but from now on go for it I will keep your forum name in mind and not bother posting with you if possible. Also working for Firsstone in my memory wouldn't be something to brag about. Aren't they the ones with the tires that were blowing out right and left a few years back.