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Hello,

My wife and I recently got rid of our suburban (15mpg) and my 3/4 ton (10-12mpg) truck a couple of weeks ago and purchased a 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid 2wd with 78k miles and a 2002 Toyota Prius with 68k miles on it. Both vehicles were previously owned by government agencies. After purchasing the first thing I did was have the oil changed with 5W/20 full synthetic oil.

I am excited about the savings we will see with these new energy efficient vehicles. I have read through these forums in an effort to learn more about hypermiling. I'm afraid I'm not having much luck with the techniques.

My FEH is 2wd and does not have navigation. I only use the avg mpg and the instant economy bar as feedback. I recently added more PSI to the tires to move them from 35 to 44 psi. I try to pulse and glide, coast in neutral when possible, and use electric mode when it will kick in. However, I am only averaging exactly 34 mpg on my current tank at about 178 miles in. I have two main areas that I drive in.

First, my commute to work is approximately 9 miles each way. It begins out in the country on a road that has a 55 mph speed limit with a few gentile slopes for about 3 miles West. Then it curves North for another 3 miles and the speed limit drops to 45 mph. Again, a couple of gentle slopes, nothing major. Then, it turns onto the main road into town. First 1 1/2 mile is at 55 mph, but that is just where people are coming in from the highway and reducing speed from 75 mph. Then it drops to 45, 35, then 30 in town the rest of the way. The first 6 miles of the commute to work (and last 6 on the way home) is not very heavily traveled so I can experiment with different techniques.

Next, there is a larger town 30 miles from where we live that we usually go to for dinner, movies, shopping, ect.,. The first 2.5 miles is 55 mph and not very heavily traveled. Then, you turn South onto a 2 lane highway with a speed limit of 75 mph for about 20 miles. It is fairly heavily traveled during certain times of the day. Then you make another turn for about 5 miles on a 65 mph road and then the final road into town is 5 miles on a 55 mph road. Then, typical city driving. The 30 miles is mainly flat, but there are a few hills, well probably more like slopes than hills.

Any tips are greatly appreciated. The best I've done in the FEH is 34 mpg so far and 52.1 mpg in the Prius. I feel like I could do better if I had a clue what I was doing. :)

I have not raised the PSI in the tires on the Prius yet.

I expect to save anywhere from $400 to $600 a month from our normal monthly gas bill depending on miles driven and price of gas of course, but regardless there will be real savings realized with our two new vehicles. :Banane03::Banane03::Banane03:


John

Hi John and welcome to CMPG.

Have you read http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=350 ?

If you fill with E10, the '05 - '08 FEH becomes way under powered and takes a big hit in MPG. The '09 FEH I now own has a much more efficient 2.5L and broadband O2 sensors which adjust fuel mixtures much better with E10.

About the best tank averages I got in my '05 on E10 was 44mpg in mostly city driving. My '09 has a 53.8 LMPG at 30,000 miles using E10 and I'm getting 60mpg tanks now. I sold my '05 FEH for $11,000 2 months ago and bought a '12 Focus for my Son.

The summer is hard on the '05 FEH mpg because the A/C compressor runs to cool the HV battery. Running E10 and with A/C compressor running takes a bigger toll on mpg in the '05. If you fall into this situation, 34mpg is not bad with the amount of highway driving you have. Also, effective P&G is very hard under these conditions because of lack of power during the pulse and staying out of electrical assist is a trick.

GaryG

Hi John,

Welcome to CleanMPG!

One specific thing that could help is to work on going into an EV Glide as you are entering town. When the speed limit drops from 45 to 35 would be the best time. As you coast down to 41 mph, you could use the double tap on the brakes, or the LGA (see Gary's link for details). Once you are EV gliding and have shifted to Neutral, you should be able to glide for quite a while (as long as your tires are properly inflated). In similar situations, I am able to glide using nothing but momentum from 40 mph down to 25 mph and into town for more than a mile and a half.

On the higher speed portion of you trip, I agree with Gary, that 34 mpg is fairly good at those speeds.

I don't have the navigation package either, but I did buy a Scan Gauge II. It definitely helps to be able to read and understand more of the happenings inside the engine using one of these.

Good luck!

don't hesitate to use the cruise control as well, for consatnt speed on level ground seems to work well. 34
is not too bad

Thanks for the replies. I filled up with 277 miles on the tank and got 36 MPG . Right now I have about 50 miles on the current tank and I'm at 39 MPG . I'm learning, but still have a long way to go!

That's good to know about the effect of ethanol gas. I'll keep looking for a ethanol free gas station. According to one web site there should be one in Odessa which is 30 miles away. I do go there from time to time, so next trip I'll check out that station.

I am really looking forward to the Scangauge and the instant feedback it will provide. Two areas I am really struggling with is right after I start it and its cold, what is the quickest and most efficient way to get to a warmed up mode and better fuel economy.

Also, after I have been in EV mode for awhile and the ICE engine comes back on, what is the best way to get it back into an efficient mode.

I've read the articles will keep re-reading them.

Low gear fake shift at what RPM/speed?

Is there a thread that discussed the double tap on the brakes in more detail?

Do you stay in EV until the ICE kicks back on, or is it more efficient to go ahead and let the ICE kick back on before the SoC gets too low? I won't know the SoC until I get the Scangauge.

Thanks again,

John

Thanks for the replies. I filled up with 277 miles on the tank and got 36 MPG . Right now I have about 50 miles on the current tank and I'm at 39 MPG . I'm learning, but still have a long way to go!

That's good to know about the effect of ethanol gas. I'll keep looking for a ethanol free gas station. According to one web site there should be one in Odessa which is 30 miles away. I do go there from time to time, so next trip I'll check out that station.

I am really looking forward to the Scangauge and the instant feedback it will provide. Two areas I am really struggling with is right after I start it and its cold, what is the quickest and most efficient way to get to a warmed up mode and better fuel economy.

Also, after I have been in EV mode for awhile and the ICE engine comes back on, what is the best way to get it back into an efficient mode.

I've read the articles will keep re-reading them.

Low gear fake shift at what RPM/speed?

Is there a thread that discussed the double tap on the brakes in more detail?

Do you stay in EV until the ICE kicks back on, or is it more efficient to go ahead and let the ICE kick back on before the SoC gets too low? I won't know the SoC until I get the Scangauge.

Thanks again,

John

I can find 90 octane straight gas here in Florida, but the FEH will get better MPG on 87 octane which it is designed for.

The main reason for the fake shift is to lower runaway RPM's. Just let off the gas pedal and let RPM's drop, and slowly accelerate at a lower RPM.

Shifting to "L" and letting off the gas pedal at any speed above ~10mph up to 41mph is a method to go EV. The double brake tap below 40mph in "D" or "N" in the '05 - '08 FEH will also work to get you in EV mode.

When you get a SGII and program the SoC X gauge, then you will know at what point the engine will automatically restart the engine from EV. This is at 40% SoC. The most efficient way to save battery SoC is using the accelerator blip CarlD discovered. By tapping the accelerator while in EV to start the engine from EV mode, you will save at least 1 % SoC than a normal accelerator increase for more power or letting the engine start with a low battery automatically. If you start the engine with the tap, try not to let the battery SoC fall below 43%. I restart from EV at 43.9% to stay on the safe side to prevent an automatic restart from ever happening.

GaryG

Gary (and fellow FEH drivers),

I received my Scangauge the other day and installed it and added the SoC option. I filled up last night to begin the calibration process. I averaged 36.22 miles per gallon on last nights fill up at 214 miles. That is my best to date with this vehicle. A couple of things I've learned in the 3 days I've been using the scangauge.

First, letting the vehicle go into EV mode and then squeaking every bit of mileage I can out of EV mode seems to be counter productive to an extent because of the time it takes to get back to a good SoC rate and the poor gas mileage getting back to a good SoC rate seems to outweigh the gains during the EV mode.

Next, when I am in EV mode I used to coast in neutral as much as possible, but this morning I noticed that putting the vehicle back into drive actually increased the MPG rating at one point and slowed the discharge rate of the SoC and if I was going at a slight down hill it seemed to actually still proved a small charge to the SoC while in EV mode.

So I think I will pay more attention to when I am in neutral while in EV and in drive. I think long term I will be better off if I can figure out when it is better to coast in neutral and when to switch back to drive and coast.

I'm only a little more than 18 miles into the new tank and I'm at 44 mpg average. I got 46 mpg average last night on the 9 mile drive home after filling up, but of course the vehicle was already warmed up....so this morning I only managed to keep the average at 44 after arriving at work. But, the drive this morning is when I noticed the effect on the SoC after switching from neutral back into drive (that is slowed the SoC discharge rate and improved the MPG and sometimes even provided a charge boost).

I'm sure I will keep learning. As always, any advice is appreciated. My goal is to keep achieve over 40 mpg average on this tank. It is very hot here and I am only able to purchase 90/10 ethanol fuel.

John

I am at a loss as to how my fellow hypermilers achieve 50+, 60+ and even 70+ mpg averages in the FEH. The only time I see 60+ averages on the gauge is when I'm coasting or in neutral (or the 9999 in EV of course). :confused::confused::confused:

I am at a loss as to how my fellow hypermilers achieve 50+, 60+ and even 70+ mpg averages in the FEH. The only time I see 60+ averages on the gauge is when I'm coasting or in neutral (or the 9999 in EV of course). :confused::confused::confused:

Most of these higher averages happen in the model year 2009 and newer. In our older FEH's, I can do that if all the right conditions exist in my 14 mile morning commute (hence the 65 in my signature), but most of the time I get somewhere in the mid 50s. Unfortunately, my commute home is uphill from there and I can only get high 30s.

With this combination and other trips, in good weather I can get 40-43 pretty consistently and the occasional 44-45 on an entire tank. But with E10, I think that is as well as we can expect from our FEHs. Not that I don't try to break above this, but never seem to be able to.