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Real world mpg


rtshinn
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We are NEM also. If you own a PHEV and have solar it can be very valuable. Under our program we pay .30 per kw from noon to 6pm and .09 per kwh from 6pm till noon. We consume more than we produce for only the six darkest weeks of the year and massively over produce about 24 of the brightest weeks of the year. We are brake even the other 22 weeks give or take. For us going from a truck and sedan as commuter vehicles to two C Max Energi and solar for the house we save $800 a month at current gas/electricity prices.

 

Ford should consider getting in the solar business and sell a package deal. When I think about the possibilities in California with the long commutes, high electricity prices, high gas prices and car pool lanes, it seems like a no brainer.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I was messing around in Excel looking at the MPG numbers and costs and came up with this comparison of driving the 52 miles to work and back 20 days a month.  For the Fusion I used 40 MPG but I almost always get above that unless doing a high speed blast with some throttle involved.  For the truck I used 17 MPG which is also about what I get in the Boss 302 if I drive it to work.  These numbers are not what I'm currently achieving, since I'm driving to a supplier site that involves driving an extra 90 miles per day.  But I have driven the car almost 6000 miles now after 2 months and know I can usually get the 20 miles on EV if I use them wisely and not on the interstate.

 

FuelCostComparisonPerMonth_zps4bcb7be9.j

 

 

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I was messing around in Excel looking at the MPG numbers and costs and came up with this comparison of driving the 52 miles to work and back 20 days a month.  For the Fusion I used 40 MPG but I almost always get above that unless doing a high speed blast with some throttle involved.  For the truck I used 17 MPG which is also about what I get in the Boss 302 if I drive it to work.  These numbers are not what I'm currently achieving, since I'm driving to a supplier site that involves driving an extra 90 miles per day.  But I have driven the car almost 6000 miles now after 2 months and know I can usually get the 20 miles on EV if I use them wisely and not on the interstate.

 

FuelCostComparisonPerMonth_zps4bcb7be9.j

Nice!!  To me, you've got it right.  What matters is cost deltas.  MPGe and MPG are both misleading.  For those people living in areas that charge $.30-.50/Kwh the Energi may not be the car for them from a cost standpoint.  Of course, part of the reason I enjoy the Energi is the lack of vibration and quietness.

 

Chuck

Edited by ChuckJ
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Fat Fusion, I see that you now have a Fuelly banner.  It looks like you are only tracking gasoline consumption at Fuelly.  

 

I keep track of both gasoline and electricity consumption in Fuelly, converting kWh of electricity to equivalent gallons of gasoline using the formula equivalent gallons of gasoline = kWh of electricity / 33.705.   I have a separately metered circuit for the charger, so I can easily keep track of the amount of electricity used.  The meter records all electricity used by the car including energy used for preconditioning (which has been quite significant now with the recent cold weather), charging, and the standby power consumed by the charger. 

 

I have to manually track any additional electricity consumed when I charge somewhere other than at home.  However, that electricity is generally free.  So I don't include that in the total cost.  But I do include it in the total kWh/equivalent gasoline consumed. 

 

I'm not sure how you are measuring the kWh of electricity you are consuming in the calculations above, but if you are using what the car reports, note that it is significantly under reporting the amount of energy consumed from the wall outlet. 

Edited by larryh
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Real World Mileage:

 

I just got back from a road trip: 467 miles, 11.2 gallons, 41.74 mpg.

 

Left home with only 1/4 battery charge.  The first 40 miles were in stop-and-go rush hour traffic and probably excellent mpg.  The rest was highway driving just above the speed limit, 64 - 74 mph and some "blue highway" driving at 59 mph.  Temperature was cool, so heat was on most of the time and occasionally the AC to clear the windshield.  I was able to get in two full charges overnight, which boosted the average some.

 

Before the trip average around town mpg was 67. The most frequent trip is a 54 mile round trip commute.  If my wife is able to work out charging at work, I expect that the average mpg will increase substantially.

 

42 mpg on the highway isn't as good as around town mpg, but it is a lot better than the 23-25 mpg I was getting in the car it replaced.  Performance on the road was good.  It's not a sports car, but it is able to pick up and go when needed.

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We have averaged 60.1 MPGe with our general driving, but it all depends on how much over 25 mile driving you are doing between charges and long distance trips.  The interesting thing that I find is that most of us treat MPGe like it's MPG.  I think it's better than that.  Think of it, if it costs $.10 / KWH to charge your car it would cost about $.75 to go 21 miles.  At a gas cost of $3.00 / gal it would cost you about $1.50 to go the same 21 miles at 42 MPG.  So really, we going twice as many miles for the same cost (41 miles for $1.50 instead of $3.00).  So the MPGe seems really conservative to me.  Am I missing something?

 

ChuckJ

I agree.

 

My daily commute is 19 one way where I can get a charge. It's slightly uphill to work so with any A/C or defogger usage I don't quite make it to work on the battery. It's really rare I don't make it home on battery. The car is lifetime around 94 mpge with my high being 96.2 before a couple of moderate gas trip ruined it. In hybrid mode I'm getting around 50, but any aggression or A/C usage and it smack on the 43 rating.

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That would be me in San Diego,  Under the SDG&E tiered program in San Diego, I was paying $0.37 per kWh in tier 4.  Not worth it.  However, owning an EV allowed me to switch the house over to the EV-TOU2 rate.  Between midnight and 5:00 am I now pay $0.16.  Moving the pool pump to that time also helped.  I now pay less in electricity with the EV charging nightly than I payed without it and the original tiered billing.  Even on-peak (noon - 6:00 pm), my max is $0.29.  All other times are at $0.19.  I think there is a gallery photo of mine that showed the tier levels...

 

Ouch. Austin Energy is VERY green, lots of wind from west Texas (blowing in from NM?) and natural gas (all those dinosaurs and cow poop).

 

They also make it a joke to not have an EV with two programs: 1) 50% of the cost + install a L2 charger in your home. 2) $25 for 6 months of unlimited charger on any of there 160 ports on 110 poles county wide. Don't be jealous. CA does give a huge rebate that they are only talking about for Texas.

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  • 4 weeks later...

In the left information display select settings, then display, then units, and for fuel economy, select fuel only.

 

Hmm, I tried this in my 2014 and don't appear to have a "Fuel Economy" unit!  Just "Distance" and "Temperature".  This is supported by the "Fuel Economy" unit being listed as an option in the 2013 Owner's Manual, but not in the 2014.  Seems like a strange option to remove between model years.  I haven't found a similar setting on any other screens.  I'd really prefer to see MPGe instead of the default MPG.

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  • 3 months later...

Hello Ford Fusion Energi Owners. I have a question for all of you. I have a 64 mile one way 128 mile round trip commute. I am in southern california so its not really cold a lot of the time but does get hot in the summer. I am curious what kind of gas mileage I can expect in the real world. I CAN charge at work. I hit no traffic on the way in and am in stop and go for about 30 minutes on the way home. Any of your knowledge and comments would be greatly appreciated. Don't want to spend 40k on a vehicle if its not somewhat practical. I drive a Honda Accord, get around 23-25 mpg now and spend 30 bucks of gas everyday I go to work. Thinking that the savings in gas mileage could, for the most part, make my payment. I spend AT LEAST 450 a month on gas in the Accord and drive to work 15 times a month at least. 

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Scott, I have a 78 mile round trip I make that is 90% highway @70-75 MPH, on one charge only, and I get between 50-55 mpg. So I would say you can get close to that if you charge on both ends. Save your battery miles for when you get off the highway. In general, the hybrid battery will get you through the stop and go traffic.

 

I am going to guess you will get 39 or 40 mpg with the hybrid on that commute.

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I just did a 150 mile trip one way and return home a few days later ... I got 55 mpg at 65 mph.  I reserved battery miles for stop and go city driving once I got there.  I have a 600 mile trip coming up this weekend and I am excited to see what kind of mileage I get.  Most of the driving will be up I77 from the Carolina's and into WV (mountains)

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It's regenerative breaking (regen).  It's a system that returns energy to the battery when coasting and breaking.  It's a way of charging the battery while driving and most effective when breaking. Rather than wasting energy, it returns it to the battery.  There are threads here that really go into it.  Going downhill is very good for the Energi and stopping is good for the Energi, but "go" like any other vehicle is not so good because it takes much more energy to get the car moving from a standstill.

 

I'll give you an example, when I leave for work in the morning I start with 26 estimated miles in the battery.  My commute is 6 miles, but when I get to work I have 22 estimated miles remaining.  I regenerated 1.8 miles from descending, breaking and coasting.  When you "stop" the car, you get your stats displayed in the left window.

 

Steve

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Banged out an entire trip to work today on EV.  26.1 miles.  My route consisted of a few miles at 55 a few more at 65 then "stop 'n go / slow cruising" until the last 3 at about 65.  Also no heated seat, but with headlights on.  Headlights are always on with my gray car for safety.  Need to find out from Vette where to get the DRL's turned on.  Looked like I had a small tailwind for a while as well and I suppose I dropped a net 150 feet as well on a mostly flat trip.

 

Got the batt's nice and low since my car goes EV+ when I get close to work.  But, I parked in the hybrid parking up front instead of the charging stations in the parking garage so when I went back to put it on the charger in the afternoon the ICE fired right up upon starting the car.  No biggie.

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Sure stretched the HVB on this trip, my normal commute is in the 60s in cold weather, 80s normally, sometimes 90s when it is good, and over 100 when everything clicks (weather/temp, traffic, terrain, etc)... the below is from last Friday, tried to match it today but was 6/10 less but still great.

 

MPG_105_7_20140502_zps2b905a0e.jpg

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Sure stretched the HVB on this trip, my normal commute is in the 60s in cold weather, 80s normally, sometimes 90s when it is good, and over 100 when everything clicks (weather/temp, traffic, terrain, etc)... the below is from last Friday, tried to match it today but was 6/10 less but still great.

 

MPG_105_7_20140502_zps2b905a0e.jpg

 

 

 

I LIKE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!  THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO GET ONE BUT APPARENTLY MY 630 CREDIT SCORE ISNT WORTHY OF ANYTHING LESS THAN 17.9

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DID YOU CHARGE HALFWAY?? HOW DO YOU GET 44 EV MILES?

 

Nope, that is leaving work and next stop home, which is 58-60 miles (depending on the route) later.  I do as much regen where I can, and this is a case where bad traffic helps (DC area is good for that) so when you're going 50-60mph and you see the brake lights starting ¼ mile or so down the road, riding gently on the brake pedal to regen the HVB sure does add up.

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For the first year that I have now owned the car, I drove 11,400 miles and spent a total of $627 on electricity and fuel.  That includes the electricity to precondition the car during the many days it was below zero.  The average MPGe over that time was 55, which also includes the electricity to precondition the car.   I did not pay anything to have the car serviced. 

Edited by larryh
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  • 2 weeks later...

Nope, that is leaving work and next stop home, which is 58-60 miles (depending on the route) later.  I do as much regen where I can, and this is a case where bad traffic helps (DC area is good for that) so when you're going 50-60mph and you see the brake lights starting ¼ mile or so down the road, riding gently on the brake pedal to regen the HVB sure does add up.

 

SWEET!  Beat the above number with a perfect commute, really stretching that HVB where possible...

MPG_116_20140521_zps315e9cbc.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...
Amazing, that is the only word I can use for this car.  Today I had my first real long drive.  Drove on I-81 from around mile marker 209 (where I took gas) all the way to Harrisburg, PA.

I kept my battery charge for on the way home later today and just wanted to see what was possible in regular hybrid mode.  I kept myself to the max speed limit (65 mph) unless it was 55, then I stayed at 60.

Now the good part.  I'm pleased to announce that according to my car my MPGc for this trip was: 47.2.  I never thought to get this result because I had to go through the mountains but this is much better then Ford announces.

My car has only 600 miles at this time so I'm sure I can do better in the future, after a couple of 1000 miles, but only time will tell.

 

First Long trip

Edited by WouterP
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  • 4 weeks later...

I am surprised that a lot more of these cars are not out there? I have never seen an ad on one?

Our fuel mileage is 2.3 L/100km in the 1500kms since we have had it and still dropping. (liters per 100km you want to use less)(around 100 U.S. miles per gallon)

 

The car is awesome! Our Chev Uplaner is 12L/100km. So around 80% less? Our other car is a BMW 325ci and before that a Mercedes 124 body style 300e which was a very nice car.

 

The handling in this car is not as good as the 325ci sport package or quite the feel of the Mercedes but this is a VERY nice car!

 

There is just something about this car? My wife loves it, I love it. So far I would say the favorite car we have owned! Something very serene and relaxing of course especially when in electric.

 

Ford has done a great job on this one!

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