There are several persons able to get 700 miles in a stock FEH/MMH.

Myself in Colorado.
Gary G in Florida.
I think Debbie K in Wisconsin?
Wayne G in Illinois.

There are probably more who don't post about it.
When I first got my FEH, I was pleased to get 36 MPG.
I thought 40 was impossible. Then 50 MPG was possible over and over.

Oh, you can go 1.3 gallons past when the car reads 0 MTE.
If you are getting 50 MPG, that means 65 more miles right there.
Good luck. You can get to 700 miles too. But not in every driving condition.
I had to purposely drive no more than about 42 MPH the entire tank, average more like about 25 MPH, and it was in favorable weather.
I don't get 700 miles often. ( I think 2 or 3 times ever in 116,000+ miles )
I don't get 600 miles often, because I do so much high speed driving.
But not getting 500 miles would be rare.

 

I believe GaryG stated/found out the 2009 and newer FEH have 0.8 gallons of fuel left when MTE reads zero. Minor point.

 

Well, it's 5 years later and there are no cool hacks.

I wonder what the state of battery prices are these days? Has it gotten any more feasible to throw in a bank of modern cheap batteries to the cargo bay of a FEH?

 

The asking prices for used FEH hybrid batteries on eBay range from about $500-$1000. This proves there's almost no demand for them.

Over the years there were a few attempts to develop plug-in Escape Hybrids, but none of them got beyond making 20 or so vehicles. Would be interesting to know where they ended up.

 

Huh. I wonder what would happen if I bought a $500 second battery and just wired it up in parallel? Would the gas engine come on less cause as far as it knows the battery is lasting twice as long?

 

Though this would be really neat to do and might seem easy, it would veer in to the difficult when it comes to dealing with the safety systems, battery hvac, sensors etc. And it would end up being virtually impossible at the level of modifying the computer software that controls all this stuff.

 

Although I'm not an engineer, I think you identified the issue as far as the system being able to correctly identify and use different HV batteries. Come to think of it, I haven't read much about having FEH battery packs rebuilt like they are for old Toyota and Honda hybrids. I'm sure the HV batteries are beginning to fail on some older FEHs which have been on the road 12 years now.

 

The thing is that the batteries degrade by slowly losing capacity. Given that the regenerative braking system is the only hybrid feature to get mileage gains by using the battery, and given that there are other such features (CVT, relatively small ICE, engine shut down, Atkinson cycle etc.), a loss of battery capacity would have to be fairly serious for most people to even notice. I haven't heard any stories of battery packs having to be replaced due to age, and it seems there's almost as many reports of the batteries maintaining full capacity as there are reports of minor loss of capacity.

FEH battery packs can be rebuilt. Seems to me there's even a YouTube video showing the process.

 

my 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid is lucky to get 20 mpg. I don't drive in any sort of hyper-miler mode, but I'm not a speed demon either. I do live in Los Angeles and it does have 172,000 miles on it. is my mileage low because the battery is wearing out?
thanks.

 

New guy here, not only to the site but to hybrids. Same issue as Tod, just in case anyone is still looking at this thread. I'm in Los Angeles with a 2006 Escape....and it it telling me I'm at 21 mpg. Calc'ing it out with the trip meter bears this out. Yet on my newly purchased Scanguage 2 it's telling me my mpg is 29-33.

Working on things one at a time, replaced rear battery air filter, new oil, but advice would be great. Trying to do as many tricks to extend it out but maybe getting it on the fwy just means it's what it is. Hard to get most places out here without the fwy. Honestly I'd be happy to just get the epa for hwy out of it.

Thanks
Matt