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Rickkel, Thanks for the A/C insights. Here's another one. When you hit just the A/C button, it doesn't automatically put in in the recirculation mode which is significantly more efficient and comfortable than the regular mode which is constantly trying to cool and dry incoming air from outside. Push the button right below the AC button with the picture showing an arrow going in a circular pattern. I used to work in climate control at Ford, and we confirmed this fact with data many times in the windtunnel. Also thanks to others on the tip for getting last trip data restored, I'll try that when my Wife returns with the car. And also the tip that you can reset the long term average fuel economy. So that makes 4 average mpg's that I am aware of now: the long term, the easily resetable trip mpg, the last engine on mpg, and the vertical bar graph that updates every 2 minutes for the last 20 minutes. On the bar graph you can change the period of time, and the bar is always one tenth of the period, 20 minutes was just the preset default. I find the 2 minute update useful on trips for trying different driving techniques for 2 minutes at a time. I assume that since most of us on this forum are data driven, we are not still using the tree leaves.

What does that gaugie thing look like?

Lee, Thanks for you report. What is your overall mpg so far at 4400 miles? I don't have the light steering wheel vibration, I wonder if it's a tire. I don't think anyone has hassled me yet or even noticed I'm driving a hybrid. I don't look at it as a political statement, I just consider it to be a very smart drivetrain, that will get you diesel mpg, on clean burning regular gas. Does it annoy you too, that if you forget to look at the last engine-on driving summmary, you lose it permanently when you open the door?

At some point I will figure out how to access the filter, either by removing the battery, or coming in through the wheel housing and removing the plastic wheel liner cover. I did that on my 00 Mustang when I moved the battery to the trunk 2 years ago. If you think of your engine as a giant vacuum cleaner sucking in everything airborn along the highway including dust, moisture, etc. I agree it needs to be replaced or at least cleaned regularly. I like your idea of the gauge. For service, it would be easy to put a capped nipple just past the air filter, and have a specified inches of water vacuum at an rpm in neutral, to determine if you need a new air filter.

The bad news is I can't even see it under the hood, much less replace it. The good news is the owners manual says the filter will last the lifetime of the car. Not that I would ever consider it, but drafting a truck in the rain is hard on air filters....

By that logic, fire insurance on your house is gambling.

Here is my data on my FFH since it was new, as an attached file below (click to enlarge): The average fuel cost per 100 miles has been $5.71. The last 4 entries have been expressway driving with the AC on, where it is harder to keep the mileage at 40. I observe that hills are harder on the mileage than AC, since we went from Knoxville to Austin the southern route, (entries 3 & 4 through Montgomery, Al), whereas we returned through a more hilly route (entries 5 & 6 through Memphis, Tn.) . The readings of the Fusion computer were very close to the calculated numbers. Our typical highway speed was 65-70 mph. I assume that the mpg's would have been slightly better if we were burning pure gasoline versus the 10% ethanol that you get almost everywhere, but of course, there is not much you can do about that.

I hear that and agree. The cash for clunker vehicle I turned in for my Fusion HEV was a 2000 Ford Explorer 4WD Eddie Baurer ($4650 clunker value including the scrap value), with 186,000 miles on it, that I'd had for 10 years. In that time the only expensive repair I had was a fuel pump went out on the road at 175,000 miles, which cost me one extra day in Roswell, NM and $500 at the Roswell Ford dealer. Being an engineer, I did all the maintance myself including brakes, and nothing was ever over $100. And of course no one warranties a car at that mileage anyway. But that was a conventional technology vehicle. This HEV is a little scary with it's brand new high technology stuff.

Kirby, What you are saying is that you are being your own insurance company, by tracking all the times you didn't buy the warranty, and putting the money in a virtual fund. That plan definitely has common sense merit, I do that with TV's and appliances, everything but laptop computers for my daughter when she was in college, because we came out way ahead with the extended plans on those. However, I have a friend who had a 04 Toyota 4 runner SUV, where he didn't get the warranty. He takes good care of his vehicles, always maintained and in a garage. At 76,000 miles his navigation system got finicky, unreliable, and he was unable to control his radio and climate control with it. The Toyota dealer where he bought it wanted $6000 for a new one. He complained that he had only paid $2000 extra for the feature initially, and told them to take it out and give him a conventional climate control and radio. They said that would cost even more, because they would have to take the entire main electrical harness out of the car. He was very upset about the situation, and over a period of maybe 6 months, and working with a different more sympathetic dealer, he got a special one time deal from Toyota to replace it for $1800, which he gladly took them up on. His next vehicle was a Ford product, which he is very happy with, but he did get the extended warranty. I guess my point is that these electrical devices have no easy fix when they go, and they are expensive. Now I have a question for all: How good are these non-dealer warranties? Does your vehicle still get fixed at the dealer? Does anyone have experience with an actual claim? I didn't get one yet, but our FFH is less than a month old so I might yet get one, and these lower priced ones sound like a good deal.....but I wonder how they are implemented.

That number will continue to get better as you put on more miles. I had the same situation, it took me awhile to get that long term average over 40, but it is now at 800 miles, a quarter tank down on my second tank of gas. You are probably aware that you can reset the average MPG that is displayed on the upper right of the IP using the reset function. It's just the long term that shows up in the one trip summary that has a bad start to it, probably from running the engine for some time at the plant accomplishing zero miles. I am not sure if there is a way to reset that number. If anyone knows, let me know. (disconnect the ICE 12 VDC battery?) While I am pleased with the mileage I have to admit I am really curious how those professional drivers got 80 mpg in a production FFH. I don't see any easy way to get even 50 mpg on a tank, other than going only on a 45 mph flat road, where you can keep it in electric mode for maybe half the time. It will be interesting to see if with time and development, they can move the 47 mph threshold for shifting out of electric mode up to like 65, so you could get outstanding MPG on the highway without causing a traffic jam. Any time you can shut off that ICE that's only working at 30% efficiency, it's a big plus for mileage.

Jon, I should have clarified that the 8 and 15 hp were the numbers we dialed into a windtunnel AC test as to how much drag to put into the drive wheel rolls. So it would be just the HP used to hold 40 and 60 mph, not including the engine HP used to drive the waterpump, alternator, powersteering pump, and the AC compressor. Also not including the driveline loss between the engine and the wheels. And of course not including the 70% of the engine energy that goes to heat, most of which is dumped to the air through the radiator. One advantage the FFH has it it's electric power steering. Almost all hydraulic steering systems have belt driven pumps that run at a minimum of 60 to 100 psi, even when no steering manuevers are occuring. The torque on the pumps to maintain this pressure is a total waste, a true parasitic loss. It didn't used to be that high in the 70's with the old linkage PS systems. It's a bad way to get the stiff on center feel that everyone wants with a rack and pinion PS system.

My experience working at Ford as an engineer in accessory drive, air conditioning and engine tells me that you can be using 6 hp of power at the compressor, running your air conditioner on a day as you describe, 110F. Since it only takes about 8 hp to keep a Taurus running without AC at 40 mph on a flat road, and 15 hp at 60 mph, it is easy to see that a car air conditioner load will be in the same magnitude range as keeping the car moving. Now you add the inefficiency of running the air conditioner compressor with an electric motor instead of directly off the engine, and you have some serious parasitic loss. I'd say be grateful for the cold air and the 29 mpg, and hope for cooler weather.

We just got our Fusion Hybrid August 20. Only data so far is 526 miles, 12.29 gallons, 42.9 mpg. Impressions: The gas engine comes on when it's gonna come on, I don't seem to have much control of it. A light throttle foot correlates with good mileage, based on resetting the mpg gauge a few times in that 526 miles, despite speed, hills, traffic or other variables that can ruin your mpg on a regular car. When I say despite hills, I mean assuming your whole trip is not up-hill. You can't' fight physics. It has ample power for our purposes, basic transportation. I am surprised at how little I can see of any part of the electric motor under the hood. There are covers on everything, they obviously don't want you messing with this powertrain. Even though I'm a engineer, and installed a supercharger on our Mustang, our second car, I have no plans to tamper with this car, ever. There is like a fan that comes on before the engine comes on, I'm guessing its the AC condenser fan, and it seems to be really loud. I may have to have that looked at. So far we like the car a lot. My Wife is really into trying to get the mileage as high as possible on every trip. Once we get used to this kind of mileage, it will be hard to go back to a 20 mpg vehicle. We have a 2000 mile plus trip coming up in a week, we should have more impressions and data after that.