Just curious as I am considering a hybrid if Ford keeps the closed block engine on it. At highway speed which engine will be the primary driver? My understanding is that the combustion engine will take over depending on speed. That and new engine breakin may explain?

 

At highway speeds you are using the gas engine most of the time, except going down hills. Sometimes both when pulling a long grade.

 

EPA numbers are an estimate. What was your average speed and what part of the country you driving in? Towing anything? What Octane fuel you use?

Tons of factors/variables affect MPG. Weather is one as you have acknowledged. Denser (cold) air requires more fuel.

 

The trip was Idaho to Kentucky and return. Most all interstate, 70 - 80 mph. Best mileage was between Laramie, WY and Limon, CO 37 mpg. Worst was Laramie to Ogden, UT with a strong cross wind, 28 mpg. Most of the trip was above freezing, except for the last day as it was -6 departing Laramie. We did a similar trip last April in the C-max and made 36.

Hopefully things will improve.

 

I forgot to answer the fuel question. All 87 octane.

 

With mine, I've found I get 38mpg with mixed highway/city driving. I don't drive slow, but I hypermile it when I can in the city. When it gets below freezing my milage noticeably drops. Likely due to the heat needed for the cabin causing the engine to run more. I got 31mpg on my 23 mile mostly highway commute this morning in 15ºF weather where I normally get 38-42mpg on the same commute when above freezing. I ran my first tank on 87 dealer fill, on my second tank which is 93 now.

C&D's review said they averaged 30mpg total in theirs. I'm not sure how it was that low, but their 75mph highway test yielded 32mpg. I would expect between 30-32mpg at 80mph all highway.

One feature I'm really annoyed this car doesn't have is Eco Cruise. In the Focus/Cmax hybrid's and energi's it would limit the acceleration when cruise control is active. With adaptive cruise this was nice if you got over to pass someone after the car had slowed down some. The Escape will nearly floor itself to get back up to speed where Eco Cruise on my Fusion would gradually come back up to speed in a normal way I would do it. Sometimes I'll cancel cruise to accelerate slower myself.

 

I hear you on the Eco Cruise. It was a little annoying how it would accelerate so fast when after adaptive cruise slowed you down. I found that I had to get into the passing lane earlier than I was use to in order to keep the adaptive cruise from jerking the acceleration around. I also would kill the cruise at times waiting to pass.

On the C-max you could select "Eco" drive mode, and it would stay in Eco mode until you manually shut it off on the button on the dash. On the Escape, when you select Eco mode, it will go back to normal after the car has been shut down and you restart. There doesn't seem to be way to keep it in Eco mode. I am not sure how much of a difference the Eco mode makes..

All-in-all, we really enjoyed the car on this trip. Comfortable, roomy enough, and drove vey nice.

 

I hear you on the Eco Cruise. It was a little annoying how it would accelerate so fast when after adaptive cruise slowed you down. I found that I had to get into the passing lane earlier than I was use to in order to keep the adaptive cruise from jerking the acceleration around. I also would kill the cruise at times waiting to pass.

Yeah I do the same thing and just get over early. However if for some reason you can't do that the eco cruise was nice where it didn't just slam on the gas to get back up to speed. Been driving with adaptive cruise for a few years, I think I have the best practices that work for me down.

 

I'm just guessing based on looks but the C-Max has a better aero coefficient of drag and smaller cross-sectional area and so would get better hwy mileage.

We're both trips at comparable speed?

 

An interstate/ highway journey is probably the worst case scenario for displaying any fuel economy advantage of a hybrid. They work better in city/ suburban driving where you get a lot of energy return from decelerating and braking.

 

Yes, both trips at comparable speeds. It seems that the Escape exhibited more power getting up the long grades than the C-max. Agreed that a cross country interstate trip is not the hybrid's sweet spot.

 

You're also lugging all that extra hybrid electrical gear on your highway trip. What's the weight comparison like between the two vehicles?

 

The C-max had a cub weight of 3,640 lbs. and the Escape hybrid 3,706 lbs. That is surprising to me that only 66 lbs difference for a bigger vehicle, I would have thought it would have been more.

 

Ours is too new to say anything about long distance mileage, but my expectations aren't high. This is a wider, taller car than C-Max, so I expect to lose 10% off the top on the highway. That's about what you saw.

Frank

 

70-80 mph isn't a good MPG range for a FEH, next time raise your tire pressure to 44PSI and go 65-70 mph and see what you get. Drafting will add 2-4 mpg also. Once I get my FEHPlugin and do some testing I will be able to give more accurate suggestions.

Paul

 

Above 65 mph the wind drag really starts to build up.

 

We had a couple warmer days here and I've been really impressed with my fuel economy. If I stay at about 65mph I get roughly 43MPG on my drive to and from work which is 80% highway. If I do all city I can easily get 50mpg on some routes, but never under 40. If I go 70mph I'm down to 36/37mpg usually. 80mph is closer to 32mpg. When I'm off the highway I purposely drive in an efficiently way, trying to stay in electric or use the gas to get up to speed then make electric only kick in to maintain. I also sometimes watch the SoC of the battery on my phone. It usually allows 15kW up until about 36% SoC then it starts to lower the threshold to kick the engine in.

 

My mileage is similar.

 

We're waiting for our new Titanium Hybrid to be built but we have had a C-Max Hybrid for 5.5 years and my experience is the same on speed. It does well (38-40 mpg) at 65mph, but that drops to 34-35 at 75mph. The C-Max is somewhat more aerodynamic than the 2020 Escape so a slightly lower mpg for highway driving makes sense.

 

Just test drove a 2020 Escape Titanium Hybrid and only went 3.3 miles, but got 56 mpg. Hard to get use to the brakes being to touchy. The EV acceleration is very good and regen charges quickly.
Needed to do a test drive to get a $50 gift card from FORD that I registered to get at the Atlanta Car Show.
Paul

 

First couple trips for myself were in the low 50's. We'll see what my wife gets as she's more of a lead foot.

 

I'm waiting for warm weather; the C-Max always reacted by gliding farther. At the same time, speed kills mileage. Now over 1000 miles on the car, we recently did a 650-mile round trip, near 100% highway with Eco-cruise set to 72 MPH. We had headwinds to start (low of 31.7 MPG), but it was the return trip that's currently the lowest mileage report for a 2020 Escape Hybrid on Fuelly. The fill-up before the trip is in the tall, 41 MPG peak of the Fuelly histogram.

The round trip average was 33.6 with less than 9% EV on either leg at 35F. For the same highway trip at 25F in January, the C-Max gave 34.9 MPG with 21.5% EV, consistent with a mix of highway and surface street trips with frequent cold starts. That's not bad for a larger cross-section vehicle with higher Cd.

Stay well,
Frank

 

What WT did you get up too and how long did it take to get there on your trip?

Paul

 

Now that it’s been a couple of months....what is your overall mpg? Overall happy or unhappy with your mpg? I’ve not been on a long road trip....so I have no comparison data....but overall I’m at 42.5 mpg (actual not indicated).

 

I'm getting slightly better than the EPA ratings with my hybrid Titanium with mostly stop and go driving. But I bet many of us are now getting over 4 weeks per gallon--sorry to say.

 

I use time and distance from the trip odos to calculate average speed for each tank of fuel. As of the seventh tank, I see an interesting pattern, after dropping the first two due to cold weather and brand new car. I have two tanks which were a there-and-back trip on the interstate with eco-cruise set to 72 mph and >10% EV. I have three tanks that are a mix of urban, rural and highway with %EV in the normal 40-60% range.

This says that going 5 mph faster in the 40-70 mph speed range will cost 2 MPG.

What do the rest of you see?
Frank

 

View attachment 77050

This says that going 5 mph faster in the 40-70 mph speed range will cost 2 MPG.

What do the rest of you see?
Frank

that is exactly what i would have expected to see. thanks for bringing some good data to the board.

 

That seems about right to me. I hope aeromods will add atleast 4 mpg when ever I get my FEHPlugin. Wheel Covers and wheel well cover should get 2 mpg and Grill Covers another 2 mpg atleast.

Paul

 

Can the gas version run grill covers? Is it all year round? Can we buy them?

The biggest thing is to make sure your tires are properly inflated. I even overinflate mine to 40 PSI for added MPG.

I run 48. Tires rated at 50 but had too much noise. 48 is the sweet spot. Just passed 4300 miles and showing 60.5MPG on dash.

 

I find cruise control in NORMAL mode very jarring; it uses too much accelerator when you pull out from behind slower traffic. In ECO mode, the behavior is much milder, and it allows cruising speed to vary a few MPH above and below the set point in a manner similar to the C-Max "eco-cruise."
Frank

 

Is that true? Just got a Titanium AWD and only gets on very short city trip (stop and go) something like 26 MPG ? Car has about 450 miles. Fuel economy screen indicates I'm on electric driving about 40% to 50% of the the time (roughly). I drive in Normal mode. Estimate distance to empty is 415 miles after full tank refueling.

 

I am averaging about 41.5mpg with mixed city and freeway. Mostly city, and I have an FWD Titanium Hybrid