gpsman1 — In that case, I accept the results of your careful test, and congratulate you on producing data that convinces me that the 2005 FEH's fuel efficiency can indeed benefit from driver intervention, to maximize the amount of pure-EV-mode operation that occurs. This tells me that there's a lot of scope for improvement in Ford's control software. I wonder whether the 2008 FEH is significantly better in this regard? It would be interesting to have an owner of the new FEH repeat your experiment in his/her vehicle.

In the TCH, gliding in 'N' removes the small amount of regenerative braking that normally occurs when coasting with your foot off the accelerator in 'D'. Neither MG1 nor MG2 operates while in 'N'. What you have done sounds to me a bit more like "pulse-and-glide" driving, which we know can significantly improve FE compared with normal "in-gear" driving — use the ICE to get up to speed; shut off the ICE, put the vehicle in 'N', and glide down to a lower speed; then repeat. This eliminates all the ICE losses during the glide phase. In your case, the ICE was already "off" while gliding in EV-mode, and I guess I could have achieved the same effect as putting the vehicle in 'N' by carefully feathering the accelerator while leaving it in 'D'. This being the case, what you did is equivalent to optimizing EV-mode while driving in 'D'.

Now, if only some TCH owners would rise to the occasion and either repeat my test or do a good one of their own!

Stan