Nothing special

Odometer: 20897.1
Tank Mileage: 612.2
Gallons Added: 15.784
Long-Term Average: 40.9
Short-Term Average: 39.7
Calculated Average: 38.7

Nothing special on this tank. I had a couple days where I was running late for something and pushed for time and not mileage. One thing I see from looking at my notes: the displayed mileage is a touch (~1 mpg) optimistic versus the calculated mileage for the tank. This is only the fourth tank since I started resetting the displayed MPG with each fill, so the data are still a bit slim.

High winds

Odometer: 20284.8
Tank Mileage: 601.5
Gallons Added: 15.596
Long-Term Average: 41.3
Short-Term Average: 39.8
Calculated Average: 38.5

I drove all week after the marathon before I needed to fill. The last 150 miles were into a fierce headwind which dropped my mileage significantly. The 6-minute average dropped to the 30 mpg range. I am quite happy with the handling of the car in these conditions, even when I had that wind from the side. I expect I may start seeing somewhat reduced mileages as the weather cools as it takes time for the car to completely warm up in the morning.

Another milestone on this fill was the 20,000-mile service point. I went back to the same dealer as the 10,000-mile point. I scheduled this through the Ford Owner website. Also, the service tech I talked with when I dropped the car off seemed to better understand what was needed for this service point. The only confusion was an item not noted which is part of the scheduled maintenance for a related vehicle. It turned out that this car is designed slightly differently and that item doesn't apply. The work was handled well and I was out of there fairly quickly.

I forgot to mention the Fuel Economy graph resets that I am still encountering. At least I haven't had a recurrence of display resets I had earlier.

Not what they seem

Odometer: 16970.9
Tank Mileage: 646.8
Gallons Added: 16.146
Long-Term Average: 40.7
Short-Term Average: 40.7
Calculated Average: 40.0

My wife was looking at the numbers I've recorded for the various average mileage and was confused as they weren't moving as she would expect them to. For example, the previous fill had an improvement in Long-Term average of .8 mpg over the fill before. This was supposed to be a "lifetime" average, but it had reset with the display about 9,000 miles ago. For this to make sense, the tank average would have to have exceeded the long-term average by about 10 mpg. Also, the short-term average should have moved further in response to the same input as it is supposed to show the average over the last 2000 miles. Instead, the two averages seem to run pretty close to each other. In fact, calculating backwards from the calculated tank mileage, the long-term and short-term mileages seem to have a weight equal to about 1600 miles. Allowing for the possible differences in fills and 2000 miles is in the ball park.

This is all minor, but, with both car-generated averages running so close, I'll probably start resetting the displayed average more often (possibly for each tank).

[Posted 2010-08-10]

Still catching up

Odometer: 12903.8
Tank Mileage: 452.7
Gallons Added: 12.441
Long-Term Average: 39.9
Short-Term Average: 40.1
Calculated Average: 36.3

This is the fill-up after the weekend trip to Chicago.

One thing I noted during this period is the AC power point operation. If I have the laptop and radio battery charger both connected at once, this is too much and the point shuts down. If I have allowed one of the other to complete charging, I can connect the second device without overloading the connection. Also, I have noted no additional noise from the AC power point above the noise provided by the car itself.

[Posted 2010-07-05 0008]

RTFM

Odometer: 10134.5
Tank Mileage: 556.7
Gallons Added: 14.667
Long-Term Average: 39.5
Short-Term Average: 39.5
Calculated Average: 37.9

At 10,000 miles, the "oil service soon" message became "oil service required". (I have this scheduled for Thursday after I get home.) While recording my numbers, I discovered something useful. The Reset button on the steering wheel will acknowledge the message. For the oil messages, they go away. For the low-fuel messages, an icon is added next to the temperature gage. I never thought to look in the book to see about how to get back to the normal display of temperature, but I'm sure it is in there. This works well enough for me and removes the annoyance factor related to the announcements.

This tank was pure Interstate except for getting to the hotel, food, and gas. The wind was significant and almost a 90 degree crosswind for most of the tank. Running with cruise control in hilly terrain between 70 and 75 mph didn't help.

Mountain Surprise

Odometer: 9577.8
Tank Mileage: 515.5
Gallons Added: 13.365
Long-Term Average: 39.7
Short-Term Average: 39.4
Calculated Average: 38.5

The previous tank was filled with 85 octane fuel containing up to 10% ethanol. Most of the tank was used above 5000 feet. As usual for the elevation, I didn't notice any issues with the non-spec rating even with the acceleration up the mountain. (The manual calls for 87 octane as a minimum.)

All of the activity yesterday was on this tank. The tank has a net loss of elevation, but it also includes yesterday's activity which was a net zero with a min-to-max variation of over 3000 feet. Today's run was mostly downwind which I'm sure helped offset the use of cruise control.

Finally, at 9500 miles on the odometer, the "oil service soon" announcement came on. This showed in the area on the left of the display that normally shows the temperature and the transmission selection that is used for all such announcements. These announcements replace the normal display. I don't like not being able to see the temperature gage. [more on this tomorrow]

Bolder Boulder Road Trip - Day 4

Miles Driven: 139.0
Average MPG: 42.5

After getting my race package, I went for a short drive to get a couple of small counties and one off the beaten path. This was successful.

During my drive, I used the "low gear" position for the transmission. The book says that this keeps the engine running to provide enhanced braking. In addition to keeping the engine on, the transmission also sets for a low "gear". This is important as the dynamic braking provided by the motor-generators goes away when the battery is full. Of course, "L" tends to enhance energy collection, so the State-of-Charge tends to the maximum anyway. I'm not sure of the trade-offs, but I would like to see more aggressive use of the electric motor and less charge collection when in "L". I would expect braking to use the regenerative mode first (like normal) before engaging the brake pads. I would also like to see some indication of when the physical system engages so I know when I am adding heat to the physical system.

On the way back down Boulder Canyon, I used the camera on my phone for the first time.

Bolder Boulder Road Trip - Day 3

Miles Driven: 448.3
Average MPG: 38.8

Today's goal was to arrive in Boulder, CO. Along the way, 11 counties were run in 3 states. It was a good day, but I was getting tired by the time I got to the Interstate in Limon, CO.

I was very surprised that the Tomtom GPS did not have the hotel I was staying at in its database. I had it set for Boulder, CO. After filling in Limon, I used the SYNC Services option to get directions to the hotel. This worked very well. I spent part of the run into Boulder talking with my father using SYNC. Directions were announced with a tone and shown in the display in the center of the dashboard. Normally, this would be announced by voice in addition to the tone and display.

I prefer map-based guidance, but the SYNC directions are very usable and have been perfectly reliable. On this trip, there were two failures of the recently updated Tomtom with the currently available map data.

New Best Tank

Odometer: 6938.0
Tank Mileage: 572.8
Gallons Added: 14.516
Long-Term Average: 39.1
Short-Term Average: 38.6
Calculated Average: 39.4

The Calculated MPG for this tank is the best yet.

This tank included a round-trip to the Dayton, OH area for a funeral. This was 400 miles of Interstate driving without an advantageous wind. The rest was mostly commute to work.

I also discovered that there is not enough metal on the roof to reliably hold a magnetic mount antenna at even low (~55) highway speeds. Luckily, there wasn't any significant damage caused when I discovered this. I will likely be adding a permanent mount in the near future.

New bests

Odometer: 4672.3
Tank Mileage: 634.5
Gallons Added: 16.157
Long-Term Average: 39.4
Short-Term Average: 39.4
Calculated Average: 39.3

I miscalculated my route to the Green Grand Prix and ended up driving beyond "E". I now know that there is an audio warning at zero in addition to the already discovered warnings at 50, 25, and 10 "miles to E".

I set new records in miles driven on a tank, gallons added during a fill-up, and calculated MPG for the tank.

I reset the Short-Term Average as part of the Green Grand Prix Fuel Economy Run. More on this later, but I did get 46.6 mpg for best in my class (and there was at least one other car, a Camry Hybrid, in my class).

First Month

Odometer: 4037.7
Tank Mileage: 598.9
Gallons Added: 15.924
Long-Term Average: 38.9
Short-Term Average: 38.9
Calculated Average: 37.6

The nearly 16 gallons added to this tank represents the largest amount of fuel added in a fill-up. As I had only 4 "miles to E", this agrees with the suggestion that "E" is reached with about 1.5 gallons in the tank. I don't plan to deliberately test that theory (or find out how much of that I can actually use), but it is good that there is some consistency between theory and practice.

I am filling with "miles to E" left having driven more than 50 miles since the 50 mile warning. I'm real happy that this is case and I hope this stays reliable. I will likely do some work on getting a feel for the "real" distance to E at 100 "miles to E".

So far the first estimate after a fill-up seems to be a bit high versus the calculated range (miles driven plus final "miles to E"). I've not determined what value the car is using to calculate "miles to E". I need more data and the reset earlier may have added an additional unknown into the system.

Finally, I drove just over 4000 miles in the first month. At 3 weeks, I was still over 1000 miles a week. Last weekend was the first without significant driving. I actually went eight days before I had to fill the tank. I really like being able to easily cover over 500 miles between gas station visits.