The letter seems a little old but it highlights something I've felt both hybrid companies and Ford are failing at. They have failed to document and provide the instrumentation needed to achieve hyper-mileage as part of the standard package and in the owner's manual.

We know that:

• efficient braking requires instrumentation to learn - but there is no tactile or visual indication of the transition point between regenerative and mechanical braking. We have to add OBC scanners to get that data. All it takes is a LED bar that show how much braking is going on with green lines for regenerative and another color for mechanical (not RED!)
• pulse and glide requires teaching and instrumentation - but there is no documentation, much less supporting instrumentation so any driver could learn to drive efficiently. What is needed is an acceleration LED bar with green for the most efficient mode and another color for inefficient rates.
• optional auto-glide - with instrumentation, we can feather the throttle for a momentum neutral coast. This should be a built-in option for the car, even if it has to be turned on each time. But today, we buy an OBC scanner and train ourselves on how to do it.
• variable air inlet - in cold weather and under low cooling demands, air drag and heating losses can be reduced by vanes to limit air inflow. This is not rocket science and pressure from the coolant system would be more than enough to open up the vane(s). But this trivial modification does not exist in our vehicles.
• warm-up, cruse, and cool-down navigation - inspite of the navigation systems, it won't map a warm-up section, cruise section and cool-down route. This means the driver gets just a 'fastest route' and no optional 'greenest route'.
• MPG vs miles per hour chart - we have to make our own because the vendors don't put one in the Owner's Manual. Every small airplane has such a chart. It is time consuming to make but the vendors continue to fail this basic engineering task.

The hybrid car manufacturers know not only these techniques but probably a couple more we've not discovered. The key to ending this hybrid complaint, not getting EPA numbers, is to stop being secretive about what hypermilers have already discovered. Make hypermileage documentation and instrumentation standard so EPA numbers are the worst a driver or owner gets, not some puzzle that a few of us clever individuals, the hypermilers, have to figure out.

What we need is a letter, like this note, sent and signed by individual drivers and owners to our respective hybrid makers listing these problems. Fix the cars so they support hyper-mileage and Consumer Reports and the other automotive press will sing a different tune. That is what is missing.


Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
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