How you can achieve better MPG than Eco cruise

[Rosskk80]

This is my opinion only, lets say you have Eco cruise set at 60miles and you approach a hill, Eco cruise will try its best at maintaining 60miles by turning the engine on and accelerating as efficiently as possible. Now lets say Eco cruise is off, you start driving on the hill and your speed drops to 50miles... Rather than speeding up to 60, I say ride the hill at 50 and accelerate on the downhill or just do 50 or whatever speed it drops to...(not always possible) and the effects of fuel mileage savings (if any) are probably minimal... If anyone understands what I'm trying to say... I know if its a steep hill my theory is not a good idea...

[djminfll]

This might work to achieve higher mpg, although I'm not sure how much of an improvement would be realized. But I would worry more about the person driving behind me. There is another thread on here regarding road rage, and I think this might incite more incidents.

[corncobs]

When ECC is enable it will allow the speed to drop as well and when it does and the hill is recognized it will try to maintain speed but not by all means necessary. It will also engage the electric motor to help with the demand depending on the SOC it will be less or more.

 

I did drive thru the Rockies with the ECC set to speed limit (55 60 whatever ) and let the computers do their job and let me tell you they do it very well.

 

I don't think it's worth the anger of other drivers especially trucks to go up the hill slower just to save a drop of gas. There many more and better ways to save fuel in our FFHs than on a hill climb.

In most cases where it goes up it goes down as well and that's where you won't be using any fuel and that should be reward enough, at least it was for me driving thru the mountains.

[rjent]

I operate ours in mountainous terrain every day. I will attest that the eco cruise knows what it is doing. Can you do better manually, probably, but not enough to offset the effort. I have driven both ways, and I will take eco cruise any time over trying to milk every mpg out of it. Let the computer do it's thing, it never ceases to amaze me in these mountains ....

 

JMHO

Edited July 14, 2013 by rjent

[aaronj1159]

I operate ours in mountainous terrain every day. I will attest that the eco cruise knows what it is doing. Can you do better manually, probably, but not enough to offset the effort. I have driven both ways, and I will take eco cruise any time over trying to milk every mpg out of it. Let the computer do it's thing, it never ceases to amaze me in these mountains ....

 

JMHO

My thoughts exactly. I always use it above the EV threshold and often below it as well. Greater minds than mine designed eco-cruise for this vehicle and I defer to them. haha.

[acdii]

What you can do that Eco C can't is to speed up prior to climbing the hill. Then bleed off that excess speed as you go up. It take less energy to accelerate on a flat than to maintain speed up hill. This is what has been helping mine get better MPG.

 

On the interstate though, the Cruise does the best.

[Rupert]

Is driving at 60mph with Eco Cruise more efficient than trying to drive in EV at 60mph? I have a hard time letting the ICE drive the car that whole time when I know I can drive some of the distance in EV.

[keithsm2]

even with ECO cruise set.....you could still step on the gas a little on the down hill to speed up for the up coming hill.... Still a lot of work and worry for probably not much MPG

[hybridbear]

I agree with all the other comments. Eco Cruise does a very good job. I'll sometimes try to assist it by using the + or - buttons to adjust my speed but for the most part the car doesn't respond to those adjustments until it gets back to flat ground. It seems that the Eco Cruise tolerance is about 2.5 MPH on most of the hills around MN. That's a lot more than most other cars and is a very good balance between saving gas and irritating other drivers IMHO.

[acdii]

What Eco Cruise does the best at is acceleration, If you can learn how to accelerate like it does in Cruise, then you can do far better driving it than with the cruise. What the cruise does that can defeat the advantage is decelerating while going down hill, where if you were in control, you could take advantage of the downhill to gain some extra speed if a hill comes up, or if there is a nice flat stretch that you can glide for a while with little to no EV pulling of the pack. When going downhill it tends to regen, where I would use gravity to accelerate so the next stretch uses less energy from the ICE or batteries. I have a couple stretches that are like this that I find I can go several miles on EV with only a half charge.

 

What would enhance the Ecocruise is tying it into GPS with elevation, so it can anticipate upcoming hills and gather up some speed to be able to climb it with reduced power, while also taking advantage of downhill. It would have to anticipate a hill over the next hill for it to really take advantage of it like we can by looking ahead as we drive.