Ford C Max, Prius killer?

More competition is good. I only wish I had a dollar for every 'Prius Killer' announced over the last ten years

 

john, looks like we are on the same page on this.although, there is a great guy in this area that does strictly full elelctric cars and scoots, i just dont feel that they have flexibility of freedom to go anywhere yet. it wont be tooooo much longer though.

 

One thing that I find interesting is according to the specs it will be able to operate on EV mode all the way up to 62mph. Hypermilers should be able to have some fun with that!

2013 Ford C-MAX | View Full Engine Specifications | Ford.com

 

Sounds Interesting. I'm going to take a close look at their Energi plug-in Hybrid. The $3750 tax credit and the equiv of about 100 MPG certainly hold my attention. Additionally, my City is offering 6 months of plug in charging for $25! If it looks and drives like an Focus, I think I will pass. If it is more like the new Escape, fits well and drives well I may be hooked.

Oh Yeah..... Regardless of which car is better or which car any of us choose, a bit of healthy competition should drive costs down and improve pricing for all of us!

 

It has the "wildest, highest, rating" for AWD vehicles and still does today.

EPA ratings based on science, physics and are consistently accurate. Careful drivers getting a bit more, careless drivers getting a bit less. EPA provides a reliable guide for car's mpg.

 

I may be wrong but the term "Prius Killer" gets thrown around by pundits writing articles rather than Ford itself.

 

I believe the Ford salesman told me the Focus, C-Max and Escape all are based on the same Focus frame. Perhaps I didn't hear this correctly -- or understand it -- but it seems to me there would be certain similarities in handling based on this shared frame.

I don't have an axe to grind on this, but I am curious whether there has been any study showing the correlation between EPA's mileage estimates and real-life results.

What I have heard are accusations that various (perhaps all) car manufacturers are building cars to the EPA test in order to get the highest test number possible, regardless of the effect on real life use.

 

Have you ever taken a test where you knew exactly what questions were being asked on the test? Did that test truly confirm your knowledge in that subject or did it just confirm that you knew the answers to those on that test? That's my point. The EPA tests are short, 11 mile tests run on a treadmill where all the conditions are a known. Those numbers are then run through a battery of corrections.

You don't think that some automakers choose to adjust a/f, transmission shift points, torque converter lockup, or even add gear ratios that are only used on the flattest of land with the most minimum throttle input (or even when a car chooses to use battery versus the gas engine related to charge level) in order to game those short, hill-less tests? You don't think those decisions have an impact when you are driving in conditions that don't match the test conditions? I feel there are certain automakers that are only studying the test questions and falling back on "your mileage may vary" when the conditions are outside the test standards. It is great for marketing, but not so good for the consumer.

If you don't think some automakers are gaming the test at the detriment of non-tested driving conditions, then you are naive. Marketing sells cars and EPA numbers are heavily used in marketing.

One of these days I'm going to compile the data on a few different brands of cars comparing HP, number of forward gears, curb weight, acceleration, EPA fuel economy, Consumer Reports fuel economy and do some data analysis.

 

Think of it more like a sporting event. The old epa just has a 800 and a 5000 race. Everybody does better on the 800 in the race than they do in real life - easy city test. Most people exceed their highway mileage. The epa has corrected and added cold, hot, and fast to make these things more real life. They aren't testing off road, or snow, or rain. That is up to the car magazines. A 5K is a rough race in real life, if you don't train specifically for it, and you are going to run a 400 or a marathon the next day. But everyone knows the tests, and some have an idea of real world. You get cars like the geo metro and prius c that are built for the city test - low powered engine and light with skinny tires. You also get highway cruzers, so yes they gear to the tests, but its not cheating. The prius seems to get much worse in short mileage conditions. We simply need to make it a decatholon, instead of a 2 race competition.

Those 6+ speed transissions with quick lock up definitely improve the real world mileage of cars. The problem is without the high speed test they are set to gear ratios too low. YMMV Its about driving the car for mileage. Many would get much better mpg on the highway if they simply set the cruze control, but they accelerate and decelerate more than the tests. It looks like the new ford hybrids are geared to the hypermiler. The c-max has more hp than a prius (c, liftback, v) which means you can drive it to worse mileage. I suppose they could drop the hp in software to make sure you got good mileage, but YMMV.

Consumer reports has some of the worst tests. They don't compare cars head to head, so they have huge variance of weather and traffic. Many of the car mags don't hyper mile, but they will at least take out a prius and a insight on the same day in the same conditions for the test. Ecomodder may be a good place to check for hypermiling mpg. Car and Driver and Road and Track are much better than consumer reports for just drive it mpg.

 

Mileage Moment of Truth - We Put 40 Mpg Claims to the Test - Popular Mechanics

The cars were a 2012 Elantra and Focus SFE. In addition to needing AC, they were using E10, likely winter blend. The EPA uses their own non road use test blend. It's straight gas, and they might use premium octane in all vehicles. The alcohol can take 3% off what PM would have gotten with the EPA's gas.

It's possible for manufacturers to design for the fuel test, just like it's possible for them to design for safety tests. Doesn't matter if they did or didn't if people are going to drive like the gas is cheap. Fuel economy takes a dive with hard acceleration and high speed with everything. Take is easy and obey speed limits, you will beat the new EPA. Even when going with the flow of the idiots, you should be close.

EPA testing is scientific. It controls for variables that allow for comparisons between models. CR tries, but still has many uncontrolled variables. The big one is that it is outside. Differences in temperature and wind will affect the results. They at least don't test in the rain or snow. Another is that they use fuel from a gas station. In Connecticut, they will have different blends for summer and winter. The winter mix returns lower economy, and can still be at the pump into spring. Depending on when their tests were ran, the temperature and fuel difference can explain why the previous Camry and Fusion hybrid returned the same numbers for CR when the EPA is different.

CR's third test is conducted on open roads with traffic. PM above noted they tested in the middle of the day when traffic would be lighter. In their test description CR doesn't mention how or if they try to control for traffic. Heavy traffic on my commute can lower my economy by 5mpg.

CR does try, but their reviewers are lead footed like nearly every other auto reviewer out there. Likely heavier than most people on the road. If a forum member got what they got in a Prius(30's city), they'd be posting asking what was wrong.

 

The mark was fairly consistent on the non-hypermiler's tests. The fusion hybrid beat the camry hybrid but not by as much as the epa test would indicate.
2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid vs. Camry Hybrid, Altima Hybrid, and Malibu Hybrid Comparison Tests - Page 5 - Car and Driver

The earlier fusion hybrid did suffer in highway mileage for the normal drivers compared to the others, and that seems to be where the new hybrid system may improve. At least in epa the new ford hybrids get 6 more city, 11 more highway. If the new fusion hybrid and c-max hybrid fall just the same percentage in testing, that is still 41mpg for those that drive like car and driver. For hypermilers that do 55 for long distances, I would expect it to greatly exceed 47 mpg.

Without retesting in same temperatures/wind/gas or doing head to head I don't think CR tries very hard. The prius c and volt are good examples of their test giving unrealistic results. They could have at least taken a prius liftback along on the tests to show how much it dropped under those conditions.

 

I say CR tries because they make an effort by running at least two test loops with different drivers and having two of the tests on a closed course. I'm not saying the testing is good though.

 

OK, maybe they deserve a D- instead of an F. IMHO because of their large defects in repeatability of conditions, CR mileage estimates are much worse than EPA for comparison between cars. We do have better information in the car mags when it comes to mpg. This is from car and driver on the prius c's mileage, and I do expect they will eventually do a head to head test. If CR does its test in September the c-max will likely do much better in its testing than if they do it in December.

Clear acknologement that they don't drive like hybrid drivers, and that you can exceed the numbers. They also don't like the car compared to other small ice cars or the prius liftback, but the data is there. They don't do a hatchet job like CR.

The Toyota Prius C isn't a good car, and here's why

 

Eyup. EPA rating of my Ford Escape was 28 mpg and I tested it and I got 30 mpg.

About the same 10% better than EPA in my Prius, 50 vs. 55. Others not as careful as myself get the EPA rating or even lower. The EPA ratings are accurate.

 

Actually it's only 7.1% difference on the Ford Escape and 10% on the Prius, which is almost a 40% difference between the two. But, who's calculating? Me

 

Nope...it's as stated "about a 10% difference" between EPA ratings and what careful or careless drivers will get from a car.

The EPA numbers are reliable MPG base.

 

Seems like this is getting a bit pissy here. With such vague numbers, I can see how you are saying "about a 10% difference."

Without knowing anything about your driving activities or history, it is a little hard to know whether your numbers are more or less reliable than those provided by EPA. For your Escape, are you comparing City, Highway or Combined, and does your driving approximate the EPA testing activities for that number? Obviously, you are not going to mimic what EPA does, and I'm not asking you to go to that detail -- I'm just wondering whether you are mainly city or highway or approaching EPA's combined style. Also, are your numbers based on the car's MFD/MID display or on fill-up calculations?

For your Prius, it may be a bit too early to say anything other than you are doing better than the EPA estimates and YMMV.

From my signature, I think you can tell I've gathered enough info to compare my car's performance to the EPA numbers. Because I've consistantly posted City, Highway and Combined and track these through the car's trip odometers, the numbers are based on the MFD/MID displays. In terms of fill-up numbers, I have a thread started recently to report those numbers: 125 Fill-Ups; 58,000 miles; ~50 MPG.

For the purposes of this thread, the info on your Escape may have a bit more validity, as it is a Ford product, and we all are trying to make guesses at to whether the EPA's numbers for the C-Max are going to be borne out in real-life driving situations. As always: YMMV.

 

I was just calculating off of your 28 mpg vs 30 mpg, which is where I got the 7.1% difference, which to me isn't even close to 10%. But that's just me!

 

In education we refer to "teaching to the test" while in auto manufacturing it's "building for the EPA...test"

 

The dealers in my area still have not received any C-Max although the Ford web site shows the window stickers for the cars that they are allocated. Estimates on arrival vary from no guesses to one month. I would like these to show up around here so at least I could sit in one and evaluate the cargo space.

Has anyone out there seen these cars in person? Taken test drives?