hybridbear

Just finished our road trip from MN to CA and back home. Got 44.2 MPG for the entire trip. Along the way I made some observations: gas mileage is noticeably higher in warmer weather - the instant fuel economy display would show around 35-40 MPG for the ICE when not charging the battery on flat ground at 25 degrees, at 65 degrees under the same conditions it would show an instant fuel economy closer to 45-50 MPG gas mileage seems to be better on hills than flat ground - cruising at 60 MPH on flat ground the ICE stays on the entire time and the car doesn't run in EV mode, however when going over rolling hills the car will shift into EV mode while going downhill and use the ICE going uphill, this seems to yield higher MPG, much like pulse & glide I do not believe 47 MPG to be attainable on the highway in the city in California we were averaging around 50 MPG, 47 MPG city seems very realistic in warm weather, 40 MPG during the cold MN winters And, I think I know how Ford achieved 47 MPG in their testing and why they're offering to work with the EPA to create new testing procedures for hybrids, but I'll save that for another post

I've had the same issue. Not at every gas station but at probably about half of the different gas stations I've visited. I'm trying to remember the ones where this issue happens so that I can avoid those stations in the future. I have not noticed any trend in what brand of gas station has this issue or type of pump to know what to watch for.

We were getting only in the high 30s in Minnesota with winter but while in California on vacation right now where the temperatures are in 60s or 70s and our mileage is now 47+ with many city trips approaching 60 when starting with a warm engine and 50+ when starting with a cold engine. Highway trips are now 40+ depending on hills and speed. When we keep the speed at 62 MPH or less our highway MPG is 50 on flat roads and around 45 MPG on hills. Going 55 MPH seems to add about 1-2 MPG in comparison with 60 MPH. It appears that the warmer weather coupled with the break in period will increase your MPG. After we hit about 1200 miles we noticed a marked increase in fuel economy. Compared to when we took delivery at 12 miles on the odometer the break-in period was probably worth 3-4 MPG. I hope your MPG goes up soon!!

Even driving up and down the mountains in California we're averaging over 40 MPG combined up and down. Going up we'll get around 20 MPG even with constant climbing, and then get almost pure EV mode on the way down. That's much better than I expected with serious mountain driving.

I've found that temperature make a huge difference. Back home in Minneapolis in temperatures between 0 & 20 degrees we were getting around 40 MPG max in the city and on the highway. Right now on vacation in California where the temperatures are around 70 degrees our gas mileage has consistently been around or above 50 MPG both in the city and on the highway. A couple of examples can be seen below. I'm very impressed with the fuel economy of the Fusion Hybrid! I'm now confident that once the temperature increases back home we will easily achieve 47 MPG and even more.

I'm having an issue with the hill descent control in my 2013 FFH as well. We're on a road trip and coming down out of the mountains toward Phoenix the car was using the hill descent control and then revving the ICE when needed to maintain our speed. However, once we would finish our descent the max regen braking would stick on. The Hill Descent Control was turned off and the computer did not show any error messages. The car would then labor just to maintain speed on flat ground and if I let my foot off the gas it would start slowing down as if I were stepping on the brake to the point of max regen before the friction brakes kick in. We tried stopping and restarting the vehicle which worked the first few times this happened, but then the last time it happened, right as we were nearing Phoenix, even shutting off the car multiple times did not fix the issue. What finally fixed it was going down another steep hill where the hill descent control would have normally kicked in by itself, once we reached the bottom of the hill it disengaged and drove normally. What's even stranger is that in all this time we did not see any extra charging of the battery. It's as if the car was going into max regen mode but not sending that power to the battery...very odd.

I agree with the comment about minimizing HVAC usage when cold. It is very cold in Minnesota, but we try to just use heated seats at least the first few minutes and only turn on the HVAC once the windows start to fog up. That helps us get around 40 MPG avg even with daytime highs only around 15 and lows around 0 each day. Most of our trips are less than 10 miles and then the ICE never even warms up

When it comes to the EPA tests I fully believe that Ford was "gaming" the system to get this 47 MPG result. Remember how before the car was produced Ford was estimating 47 city, 44 highway for the Fusion? And then they made a big deal when the car "exceeded" expectations and achieved 47/47/47. All the manufacturers have known for years how the EPA test cycle works being that they are the ones who do the testing, not the EPA itself. I believe that Ford programmed the computers in the C-Max and Fusion Hybrids to maximize their fuel economy in the specific scenarios used in the EPA test cycle. Now I wonder if they're regretting that decision... It's also of note that in response to the outcry about fuel economy in the new Ford hybrids, Ford is saying that the EPA needs to come up with a different test cycle for hybrids. I think that the real solution to this is to do what Ford is suggesting. The EPA should create a different test cycle for hybrids and plug-in hybrids because the current test cycle doesn't yield realistic results for hybrids. Consumer Reports also found that the Prius got way lower MPG in their tests than the EPA mileage, but many Prius owners exceed the EPA mileage. With time I'm sure that FFH owners will find the same. And I fully agree with Ford that because the new Ford hybrids aren't underpowered like the Prius it's easy to drive them more agressively and waste fuel. My wife drives our new Fusion Hybrid way more agressively than I do and thus she gets about 5 MPG less on average than I do on the same routes. With time she'll hopefully learn to better maximize fuel economy, but for now the more fun nature of the vehicle leads to more agressive driving and lower gas mileage.

We picked up our 2013 just over a week ago. In about 400 miles so far all city driving we're averaging right around 40 MPG. It's been cold in Minneapolis, the warmest day this past week was in the low 20s with most mornings being down close to 0 degrees. Most of our trips are short, and from watching the coolant temp display in MyView we're almost never seeing the engine reach full operating temperature because of the demands of the heater pulling warmth from the coolant and the fact that when running EV mode the engine cools down very quickly. Based on other comments on the forum I'm fully expecting that our mileage will exceed 47 MPG in the summertime based on a 50 degree rise in temperature being worth about 10 MPGs. We notice that the ICE runs a lot right now because of the cold. In a typical 6.3 mile drive from home to work with these cold temperatures the ICE is running most of the time and that is hurting our mileage. I try to shut the heat off when stopped so that the ICE will shut off and then I turn the heat back on when moving to help improve the mileage. But so far the fuel economy has been acceptable. The best single trip we've seen in this cold weather was somewhere just north of 50 MPG and that was a 10-15 mile trip starting with the engine already somewhat warm.