Hybrids definitely are more sensitive to terrain and how you drive moreso than non-hybrids. How many miles do you have on your FFH now? When I first had my FFH, my commute to work only topped out at 37.3 mpg no matter how hard I tried/what I did and still stayed SAFE driving on Michigan highways (where people will pass you even if you're already doing 85). I hang out on the far right lane at 69 mph (110 km/h). But if I take the surface streets instead of the highway and I can hold betwen like 45-50 mph (70-80 km/h), I can hit 47 mpg (as long as I time the lights properly). But in hot or cold weather (A/C uses more power/electricity, and heater needs the engine to run to generate heat), the fuel economy gets worse. You see a bit of a bump in the after 3000 miles. And then it progressively gets better past 5000 miles. And then it starts getting really good after about the first 10,000 miles. And my car (2013 Ford Fusion Titanium Hybrid) after 33,000 miles is still averaging 39.0 mpg (over it's entire lifetime), with 90% of the distance is highway driving at ~70 mph. But if you accelerate out of a red light reasonably hard (i.e. if you go to the "Engage" screen on your left-hand-side on your instrument cluster) and you're using more than 50% power, or if you're braking late where your braking score isn't like 95%+, then that might help to explain why you're seeing what you're seeing.

Yeah, I missed my annual estimate of 40,000 miles/year by about 10,000 miles. (Currently at around 30,000 miles/year).

"Ford first found an anomaly in testing last October, but did not know if the issue was with the test or the vehicle, Nair said. Ford confirmed the problem in March and notified the EPA." Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20140612/BUSINESS0102/306120185/Ford-mileage-Fusion-hybrid-C-Max-Lincoln-MKZ-Fiesta-EPA-fuel-economy AFAIK, it was March 2014. And as stated in the Detroit Free Press article, the error was first detected in October 2013, and it takes quite a bit of time to trace/track down the ultimate root cause (because you want to be very careful and systematic in your approach to rule out other potential causes first so that you don't end up with the wrong conclusion by trying to do things too quickly, in a non-systematic way.) it's like any kind of diagnostic test right? You go through your list of possiblities and you start testing to see if they are those possibilities as you work your way through by process of elimination - know what I mean? And in my experience pretty much everywhere I've worked - if there's a process issue, sometimes that's harder to diagnose/detect because a lot of times, people (in general) tend to be "results driven" so you know how when you're doing something - based on a prescribed process, and you're getting numbers, and people are always trying to figure out what is it with the answer, until some one goes "well...what about the process? has anybody checked that?" (I mean, it was the same thing in all my jobs, even when I was in undergraduate research). The other thing that I will say though since I joined Ford last year is that they're quite an extremely data-centric company/culture. And I LOVE that about Ford. It's how I roll. It's how they roll. And it's great when the personal philosophy is aligned with the philosophy of the company. (And having worked in the supplier-base before joining Ford, I can tell you that the same cannot necessarily be said for other manufacturers - or not nearly to the same extent anyways.) And it appears that the latest victim to Consumer's Reports re: fuel economy not meeting EPA estimates is the Honda Accord Hybrid, so it appears that no one is immune to it.

That is a very interesting question and I will be honest - I actually didn't notice it. I only looked at the FFH numbers because, like many members here, I have a FFH myself. But I will try and ask and find out and see if I can get an answer that I can share with you guys. Thank you for all your support and positive comments. I think that this is interesting to me not only because I work here and the guys in the next aisle over are the fuel economy folks, but also because of HOW our management and senior management and executive leadership handled this issue. The fact that we that we found the issue, and then reported it up through the chain and escalated it - I mean - in the current business world/environment - where we can actually come out and say "we made a mistake and we are doing this as one of the fixes (in addition to other action items on the corrective action plan)" - I mean that's HUGE. Not very many people do that. Not very many companies do that nowadays. And we did it in a relatively short period of three months. (Some of those fuel economy guys had some VERY long nights.) We know that fuel economy is important to our customers across the board. And as far as I can see, we're the only one out of the Detroit three that's making it a top priority, which sometimes carries risk for being a leader (or at least we're working hard and fighting for it). I STILL have customs agents that would periodically ask me "Is that the new Fusion hybrid?" or "nice car" as I am crossing the border every day to get to and from work. I like that it surprises people when people see that I've got a Fusion hybrid and how it is NOT what they imagine hybrids to look like (meaning you can have a good looking car AND something that's economy - you don't have to trade style for fuel economy.) There are TOO many companies out there that when something goes bad or wrong, the first thing their senior leadership and executive management would say is "oh we didn't know anything about it." And it is my personal belief that in your role as senior leadership and executive management, it is your job to find out. And people will speculate on a lot of things that happened. And they can speculate on whatever they want. (I LOVE that quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson!) Fuel economy is not as easy as I think a lot of people think it is. And if people ever want to know more about how fuel economy ACTUALLY works, they can always read 76 FR 39477 (esp. the equations/formulas starting on p. 39539 in §600.114-12(a)(1) or 77 FR 62623, esp. starting on p. 63182. You can find all of the details about how fuel economy ACTUALLY works from those two documents. The first is a short 111 page read. The second is slightly longer at 578 pages. They're good reads if you want to know how it REALLY works. And they're FRs, so they're actually readable (other than the columnar format). 77 FR 6262376 FR 3947776 FR 39477

If I could I would triple like this post! Well, people are going to think what they're going to think pretty much regardless. There's nothing I or we can do about that. "You get to say the world is flat because we live in a country that guarantees your free speech, but it's not a country that guarantees that everything you say is correct." - Neil deGrasse Tyson And for those that had written that an apology from the CEO would have sufficed, he did: “Ford is absolutely committed to delivering top fuel economy and accurate information,” said Alan Mulally, Ford president and CEO. “We apologize to our customers and will provide goodwill payments to affected owners. We also are taking steps to improve our processes and prevent issues like this from happening again.” From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140612/AUTO0102/306120104#ixzz34WO3B6zI

Well....so....thisi s how I usually explain the fuel economy tests to people. These are tests that were originally developed in I think it was the 70s and it was to try and encapsulate people driving in like I think it's Fort Lauderdale (or something) all the way up to the high mountains in Colorado, from New York City to Iowa, from Alaska to Arizona. So...when you think about the immensely diverse range of experiences that people (customers) go/drive through, now if I were to ask you - "okay...make two test that can tell me how your vehicle is going to perform EMISSION-wise" (since fuel economy tests don't actually measure fuel economy, they measure emissions, and then fuel economy is back-calculated through analytical chemistry (it's an oversimplification, but that's the jist of how fuel economy tests work) - anybody that spends more than two sconds thinking about what a daunting task THAT is, will very quickly realize the size of the elephant-of-a-problem they've got in their room. Now, the one thing that the US does differently (compared to - for example the EU), is that they actually DO try to make it so that the numbers are representative of real world. It might not be real world for EVERYBODY, but if you figure "okay....x percent of the population live in a major urban center, and they tend to drive like this" and then you plot that on a normal distribution bell curve, and then you say, "ok, I'm going to devise a tests that will work for 67% of the people", and then another test for the other 33% - I mean that's kinda how you're doing it. (Sort of. It isn't quite exactly like that, but to get the point across, I'm grossly oversimplifying it.) And as several people have mentioned, interestingly enough, it's not that far off. I mean, you look at the averages on sites like Fuelly for example, and it's pretty close. So....interesting how it all works out in the end, eh? Go science/math!

So, I'm going to answer both of these posts, to the best of my ability at the same time because they're related. So, first off, I'm going to let you in on a little secret about how you develop/engineer a vehicle. Remember that you're looking at this from the perspective of June 2014, so like about 20 months I think (or so) after the 2013MY Fusions launched. Now I'm going to try and put things in a little different perspective for you and hopefully you can follow along and then at the end you might come away with understanding how things like this happen. Rewind back to about 18 months BEFORE the launch. So, now, you're in about the April, 2011-ish timeframe. (DISCLAIMER: The timelines given here are used as an example of how cars are developed in general, and pretty much ALL automakers are like this. The specific details vary a little bit, but having worked in the supply base before joining Ford, they're all very similar, so the timing here is just a number I'm pulling out of thin air, and does NOT represent the ACTUAL vehicle timing (cuz I wasn't working for Ford back then, so I have no clue what the timing was).) But anyways, think about it this way, 18 months before launch, EVER single component on that car is still being developed at the same time. The engine, the hybrid powertrain, the body, EVERYTHING. So, you ovbiously can't wait until you start your main production to submit your paperwork for certification, so how can you tell what your fuel economy is going to be when you don't even have a car that runs? And as the vehicle development and engineering matures, you start putting in the "real" parts instead of using your prototype parts. Now, hypothetically speaking, what if someone told you that it's going to take 18 months for you to get your certification approval? Now your homework is due, and you've never even seen a car. (And pretty much ALL automakers go through this.) What do you do? My point is that it isn't about what you know now. My point is what did you know back then, almost like three YEARS AGO, when you might not have had a car? And I see this a fair bit on internet car forums. Lots of people can talk about parts and engines that EXIST for example. But if I were to ask those same guys "make me an engine that gets 500 HP and gets 99 g CO2/100 km, I'd be willing to bet that the VAST majority of them wouldn't know where or how to begin.

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Seriously? Hmmm....lemme check on that. You're talking about how when you start the car, and then turn it off again, how it would give you the trip details and then also the vehicle lifetime summary details, correct?

Apparently, the 100 km long traffic jam WAS real though....(even if the picture isn't). I was trying to find a decent view and a decently sized picture to share on here.

Sorry for hijacking your thread there @wmpwi... (hehe...whoops) No...you have to worry about hitting zombies instead. (And this is not the kind that you SHOULD be double-tapping either. ;o)) (haha....God bless the internets. And Al Gore, for inventing it. ;)) Yeah, I was warned by a Livingston County cop that caught me doing 88 on the Michigan backroads back when I was still a co-op student in my old '98 Cavalier. He was like "do you KNOW what happens if you hit a deer at 88?" "No," "You die." "Oh." So yeah...I'm a lot more careful down driving through the back roads and even parts of I-75 and I've had deer walk out onto the road, but I wasn't going fast (like 40-ish) cuz I saw SOMETHING off the side of the road, so he ran back to where he came from and I just gradually slowed down to like 20 or so. But yeah, I've seen the crazy damage that deers can cause. Not fun. And I've also seen people who would reinforce the front of their cars and/or trucks so yeahhh... Yeah, they're definitely not the brightest. Although, I've never really learned what to do if a deer IS out on the road (to be honest - cuz I did my driver's ed in Windsor) but I do like that I can at least fully turn OFF my headlights in the Fusion now, so flashing it on and off seems to help make them move/get out of the way. But you would think that they would eventually learn that roads = bad - but nope! It's interesting reading all these stories about how bad drivers seem to be quite universal. I've seen pictures and heard rumors about how bad drivers are in China and in India. Course, when this is what you deal with: ..it doesn't exactly surprise me.

Toronto's getting pretty bad too... :o))) Red Bull nearly killed me.

Michigan has some of the WORST DRIVERS EVERRRR!!!! After having driven in Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Indiana, Illnois/Chicago, Ontario, Quebec/Montreal - a lot of those places will always say that theirs are the worst, but noo....Michigan drivers are like CONSISTENTLY worse. And apparently, at like an annual average of 922 motor vehicle deaths, I am not surprised by that number. And the worst thing about that is you honk at them or stuff and they look at you like YOU'RE the crazy one, YOU'RE the one that's doing something wrong. And like you have the people that will only look at the car ahead of them (instead of look at the car ahead of them AND as far as their eyes can see) so they're just constantly tailgating people. And then the fact that you've actually READ the Michigan Vehicle Code and then when you're telling them what they're doing wrong, they're like "so you're a <<insert_thing_they're_doing_wrong>> cop now? is that it?" Well, I wouldn't HAVE to be if you drove properly!!! They need to start nailing people for moving violations. They should like adopt a bit of the European/German fine structure. (e.g. I think that it's like a 195 Euro fine (~$275) for passing on the right.) Make it so that people are ALWAYS complaining about that it's a "money grab" (it's wouldn't be if you drove PROPERLY!). And considering how they teach driver's ed in Michigan and stuff - it doesn't surprise me that accidents are so prevalent. I'm actually surprised that they're not even MORE prevalent than they already are. I try to avoid driving in Michigan during or after the first big snow storm of the season (if I can). It doesn't??? Hmmm....that's weird/interesting. I haven't played with the 2014 FFH otherwise I'd try and find out for you and give you a list (at least as far as I can tell what's different about it). Yeah...I'm not crazy about the vast majority of Michigan drivers. It's like all the traffic rules are merely "suggestions". I actually have pictures of people driving on the wrong side of the road!!! (And no, it wasn't due to some other activity (like pulling a bank job or something like that). No, this was just plain inattentiveness/plain bad driving. It's also why I couldn't buy the Prius because of the way I sit and how I sit in a car that the break-over for the rear hatch went right across the rear view mirror, blocking 80% of it, and since I drive a lot in Michigan, I would LIKE to see if I am getting rear-ended or not thank you very much. So yeah...

Yeah...the 45 second thing is new to me too.

I'm so glad that they got the car to you. I'm still going to check on the backend here to figure what happened when it fell off the tracker cuz uhhhh....yeah....I don't think THAT was supposed to have happened. So, I want to report that back up the pipes so as to find the root cause of that and hopefully fix it at the source to prevent or minimize it from happening again. And mislock should also be under settings -> vehicle (I think) (on your left hand cluster), so I dunno. I don't think that I've ever actually used or tried that, so we shall see. haha...I'm not even sure how that works! :D But at least you have your car now. and that's what matters! yay!

I'm so glad for you. I'm think that I'm still going to try and find out what happened in those 10 days cuz yeah...I don't think THAT was supposed to happen. And I think that it's important for us to always try to do and be better - all the time. So if there's a problem like this, I think that we should really work of finding the root cause of it and fixing it at the source where we can. But yay! And thank you - for buying Ford again! :o)

Welcome! I looked at the VW Jetta Hybrid as well, but their regenerative system - I didn't feel safe with it. Once you dropped below 5 mph, their regenerative braking system would like "let go" (no longer slowing you down at the same rate compared to when it's on) and the car salesman was with me when I went on the test drive and he was like "so...what do you think?" and I told him about that and he gave like some BS answer and in the back of my mind (this was before I joined Ford), I was thinking "I'm an engineer. You can't BS me like this." So...and I told him that it's a safety issue too because if you're < 5 mph, you're right about to stop at the intersection, but because they decided to develop the system in such a way that it stops giving you braking power, you end up shooting forward, quite possibly into the intersection right at the last minute, which means that you have to now suddenly slam on the brakes (at < 5 mph) to prevent yourself from entering into the intersection. Yeah...I did NOT like that at all. It's a safety thing. (This was when I was working at a Tier 1 supplier on crash safety simulations and engineering). With my 2013 Ford Fusion Titanium Hybrid, I don't have that problem/issue. So glad about that. And both my dad and one of my friends said that it's absolutely FREAKY how quiet it is when you start up and drive off. And there'd be times where I'd turn off the radio/music just to enjoy how quiet the car is.

Well...Domino's doesn't so much track the pizza as it tracks the car that has your pizza. It isn't like putting a lo-jack on the pizza. And you'd have to turn on your car to turn on the GPS signal to track it. And like it's been said, the rail company is separate from Ford as is (often) the truck company that has the car carrier (stinger) - and even then, they might just get a list of the cars that they need to load onto the truck, and the driver of said truck may or may not know what the cars are (kind of like sending a messenger boy - "take this message to this person." And they don't know what the message says (or at least not necessarily so).) The dealer would know, so if there was a mix-up when they loaded the cars onto the trucks, they might only find out about it when the truck arrives at the dealership and has the wrong one on there. PM me your VIN and let me see if I can find out where it is for you. Chances are, I'm using the same system that the dealership is using, but yeah... If it makes you feel any better, employee purchases sometimes and be delayed delayed delayed. It could be 8 months or more before we get our cars. I pretty much stopped worrying about when the exact delivery date is and so long as I have some set of wheels (if your dealership will provide you with a loaner until your new car arrives, for example) - then my mantra is "it'll get here when it gets here." Think of it like a bit of "Zen" to it. But it's also a bit of "no use stressing about something that you have little control over". But definitely PM me your VIN and I'll look it up for you.

Actually, there's been a number of projects that's working on that. Google's of course, got their autonomous vehicles (which, BTW, HASN'T been without it's problems). My college housemate was telling me about a guy that he knew that was working on his Ph.D. dissertation for one of the underlying technologies for autonomous vehicles and back then, because the Intel processors couldn't do out-of-order execution, so the test car saw that there was another car ahead, issued the brake command, but because it wouldn't do OOE (based on priority of the task/process assigned) it slamed into the back of the other car, which turned out to be a CHP police cruiser. And because he was sitting in the passenger seat, they didn't really know what to do/how to handle it. (This was ca. 2004.) I just watched a bunch of videos about how GM has retrofitted a Cadillac SRX with auto-lane keeping techology where once you get it into a lane that you want to stay in, you can basically set like a slightly more advanced version of the adaptive cruise control to tell it to stay in that lane. Also watched another bunch of videos coming out of Carnegie Mellon University where it was an entirely autonomous Cadillac SRX (driving to/from the Pittsburg Airport). That was pretty cool! And it seems like their implementation is more advanced than Google's way of doing things, (but Google might actually be more robust). So, it's happening. During my Ford corporate new hire orientation, some actually asked Alan Mulally (our CEO) about autonomous vehicles and he made a comment which I think is important to keep it mind with these vehicles is that the idea is that in the event of an emergency, the driver should be able to take over again. But he then also said that if you've been detached from the driving process itself, so you're no longer situationally aware of what's going on around you or to the vehicle for that matter, you can sound all the alarms and buzz the chair you want (to wake the driver up), but now, they might end up in a bit of a panicked mode where they don't know WHAT's going on and you're aksing them now to take over??? Yeah...like that's going to be a smooth transition. So...and I think that's a fair point that it raises with all of these autonomous vehicle technologies. In fact, I think that it was either the GM video (which was filmed at the Milford Proving Grounds 5 mile circle) or it might have been the CMU video where one of the engineers actually commented that one of the challenges is going to be keeping the driver engaged in the autonomous driving aspect of it; pretty much specifically for that reason. And given how inattentive drivers are nowadays (already) when they're RESPONSIBLE for being in control behind the wheel, that's going to be an even greater challenge I think. But it's happening. There are a few projects going on. I don't think that he was talking about the physical bolt/nut. lol... Not always. Highway hynopsis is a real thing and people falling asleep behind the wheel might actually contribute a fair portion to that. One of my friends was telling me about one of her friends who got into an accident at like 4 AM (like...5 HOURS after she had already switched from alcohol to water) that had a really bad, terrible accident. She's fine. She survived. But the cops said that she must have fallen asleep behind the wheel and she was like MINUTES from her house too. So...yeah...it happens. And it's horrible when it does, because of liek the whole time dilation thing that happens when you go to sleep (what feels like a second, could be minutes). I've gently and accidentally tapped someone before and that's when I made it a point that if I EVER START feeling tired, start looking for an exit (like the earliest moment I start FEELING it) and prepare to get off the road and sleep it off if I have to. (Which I've done before). A couple of times. Luckily, by the time I COGNITIVELY woke up again, I was able to slam on the brakes enough so that it minimized the speed differential between me and the other car so that there was no damage, but BOY...THAT was a scary experience I tell ya. So yeah... Unless it's PURE ethanol (a.k.a. rocket fuel). Leave it to the US corn lobby/subsidizes. I'm so glad that the EPA finally decided to delay the E15 mandate. I think that a diesel-electric plug-in hybrid like the Volvo V60 that's available in the UK, France, and Belgium is really the way to go for the near-term future, because a decently engineered system should be able to hit 100 mpg-US highway EASY. Yes, the diesel emissions regulations in the US is more restrictive, so the vehicle itself would cost quite a lot more, but it's like that with EVERY NEW technology that comes on the market. Heck, at one point, the horseless carriage was more than a horse. So...it'll ALWAYS be like that. So don't plan on what the price is going to be TODAY - plan on what the price is going to be TWENTY YEARS from now (or something like that).

What's your current mileage now (or mileage since the reprogramming)? I know that before the PCM update, my Titanium Hybrid settled in on 37.3 lifetime average mpg at about 10,000 miles on the odo. Since the update (I'm at like 15,500 maybe?), my lifetime average has actually gone UP to 38.1 mpg (went up from 38.0 to 38.1 today actually) and my regular Detroit<->Flint run now gets between 40-44 mpg. (It seems to be learning the routes faster). But I'm still sorta waiting to see what would happen at the 20k miles mark, but by then, it would be in the dead of winter, so there will be other adverse factors that will drag the fuel economy down, that I know for sure. Pre-PCM update, my Detroit<->Flint run would top out at 37.3 mpg. Today, on my way up, I got 44 and change. Come back down, I think that I ended up with like high 39s or might have been 38s. I forget. And the same thing for my commute to work. Pre-PCM update, 37 was about all I can get out of it. Since the update, I've been 41s show up. So give your car a bit of time and let's see where it settles out at.

So sad to see all these beautiful new cars getting hit. People don't know how to drive or don't pay enough attention. The worst is in Michigan where you're HONKING at the person, and they STILL continue doing what they're doing (instead of, ya know....STOPPING.) Grrrr......

I think that the hardest part about it being cold isn't the car. It's ME! lol.... brrrrr. It's hard to drive when it around 1 or 2 C (34-36 F) in the mornings. Between the windows fogging up and my freezing my butt/hands off...it's like I need the heater on, which of courses, takes the fuel economy down. And it'll be a different story once I put the winter tires on too (because the factory stock tires on the 18" aluminum wheels start off with only 10/32" tread depth, which isn't a lot at all), and I don't want to take the unnecesary risk of trying to drive with that in the winter even though they're supposed to be rated all seasons (M+S). But it doesn't appear that my fuel economy numbers are dropping down as low as 35 mpg average.

So you know how so many people gripe about the government being involved in our lives? This is DEFINITELY one of the areas that I really like and can appreciate the government stepping in. Has it made your car heavier? Yes. Has it made your car more expensive? Realistically and very probably, yes. But the end result of it is that with a 30-35 mph side impact like that (which is kinda like the IIHS side impact (the NHTSA one is actually tested at an angle)), you get to live to tell the story. And also like I said before, because I worked in crash safety engineering before, I DEFINITELY don't see cars the way normal people see them. I could care less (somewhat) how a car looks as long as when it gets involved in a crash like this, I might get a bit of a stiff neck or a sore wrist (from holding the steering wheel at the time of impact) but the airbags, the seat airbags, all of the crash and safety structure do EXACTLY what they're supposed to do - which is protect the occupant. It's actually like REALLY REALLY hard. There's only a handful of engineers in the world that do it at every OEM and only a select number of suppliers can do it as well; but boy...when it works - it works like a freakin' charm. We simulate the crap out of it so that we only have to do the real test once, maybe twice if we REALLY have to. And those simulations, for full vehicles, can run for WEEKS on massive computers. You should share your story with your dealership with the pictures and everything, and if you write a letter (if you want - that's entirely up to you) - thanking Ford, you can actually send it in to our CEO Alan Mulally. (We've seen a few of them come through.) Some of us keep the stories and the letters and the pictures in our cubes because it reminds us why we do the thing we do and how absolutely critical and important it is. (There are some folks at Ford that really take their crash safety engineering job very seriously. And even though it's not my current role at Ford, but because I've done it in the past (for other OEMs mind you), I will never forget what it means. It makes everything that I've done up to now worthwhile - all the schooling, all the long nights, projects, exams, everything.) Hope everything works out for ya.