Quote:
Originally Posted by ncp10
Hi All  ,
I have enjoyed reading the various posts on this car here and also reviewing the mileage stats. We just got ours a week ago, and our initial mpg came in at 24.3. We live in a mountainous area in Northern California at about 2,000 feet elevation, and about 3/4 of the average on this first tank came from highway driving, the rest around our community.
I gather from a FAQ on the Escape Hybrid that there is apparently some improvement that occurs as a break-in period closes. My wife will be using the car to commute to work, which is a very short hop across town--about 2 miles or a little less one way. My guess is that for these short trips the car will probably be lucky to get 22 mpg, but the real average will increase as she also will do trips to nearby towns and so forth, with 20-30 minute trips, and lots of short hops around the flatland town nearby (Chico).
Anyway, we are enjoying the EV/ICE switching, having a nice quiet car when you are moving slow in traffic, and of course when stopping.
How many mpg do you get when the care way brand spanking new? Our car only has about 300m on it.
Noel |
Hi Noel
I waited a few years for the FEH to become available and held out buying the standard model for that reason. After reading articles and spending time on
http://www.hybridcars.com/forums/ , I thought I'd get between 28-30mpg in the FWD model FEH. My thinking was you never can get EPA estimates, so I didn't expect much better.
My FEH arrived in FEB. '05 in about the best weather you could ask for here. There was no mention of hypermiling in the FEH as it was a new vehicle, and very few knew anything about the techniques we use today. From the first tank, I learned that EV was the best way to save gas, so I traveled the slow beach roads here. From the start, I was exceeding EPA estimates of 36mpg, and breaking into the low 40mpg. Things started to head south as it got warm in June, and the A/C became a must for the Wife and Kids. I manage to hold between 31-36mpg and up to a 38mpg every once in awhile as the FEH got broke-in and we all started to learn the technique to improve MPG.
Most of the break-in involved rolling resistance and higher EV speeds because of it. "The Low Gear Advantage" was put togeather by myself, Ray Martin (nitramjr), Rich (Pravas Prime) and others and open the door for many FEH/MMH hypermilers. The best hypermiler who came up with that term joined in our thread, this was Wayne Gerdes (xcel). Wayne brought coasting in "N" to the table and off we went.
GaryG