Another Powerboost horrible mileage thread 12mpg

[Guntoter535]

this is just a example

Sponsored

 

[Orlando150]

How accurate is DTE though? A full tank results in a DTE of 360ish. I in no way expect 24mpg on Hwy or City, I'd be happy to get a real world 18mpg. I have done a tank where I just drive and that has resulted in 15mpg with 200 miles being hwy miles. I do mainly city driving.

I have gotten no where near realistic numbers, that is why I tried to see what I could get if I maximized my electric driving, and was light on the throttle when using the engine.

The DTE number is highly adaptive to your current driving. I've often seen it stay unchanged or even go up when I'm on a longer trip that gets me better milage than I had been getting driving around town. Similarly if you suddenly start driving aggressive or towing the number will drop much faster than the actual distance you drove.

Typically after I fill up I get a number in the 600-650 miles range. If I'm having an efficient week it will say 350-400 at half full.

 

[daemonic3]

The DTE number is highly adaptive to your current driving. I've often seen it stay unchanged or even go up when I'm on a longer trip that gets me better milage than I had been getting driving around town. Similarly if you suddenly start driving aggressive or towing the number will drop much faster than the actual distance you drove.

Typically after I fill up I get a number in the 600-650 miles range. If I'm having an efficient week it will say 350-400 at half full.

Have you figured out the algorithm? It is definitely some moving average of recent activity but I don't know what it is based on. Something like this (I'm making these up):

• Moving average over most recent 15 gallons
• Moving average over most recent 2 engine hours
• Moving average over most recent 200 miles

Haven't quite nailed the formula but I do know that if I have towed (roughly 10.5mpg) for about half a tank (~150 miles) I will get a DTE of roughly 150 miles. Then I drop off my trailer, and on the drive home (12 miles or so) my DTE will slowly creep up on the way home even though obviously I'm using gas.

The reason I tossed in the engine hours idea was because I noticed in the Fordpass app the DTE projection will slowly decrease while using propower while camping. So it definitely doesn't require any distance to force a recalc.

 

[Sadram]

I know it's another one, sorry in advanced.


I've had my Powerboost (all stock) for about 3000 miles now, this last tank I set out to see what I could get in eco mode only, with city driving. All driving was my normal day to day trips, remote start was used for at least 3 mornings per week for the 30 days on this tank, roughly 5 mins for those days. I did not floor it or drive aggressively also.

I did 146 total miles before filling up (going out of town)

Out of the 147 total miles 69 of them were electric only miles. 78 miles with the ICE. This last fill up I put in 11.43 gallons of fuel for a hand calculated 12.8mpg. The truck calculated 17.6mpg was way off, with the amount of electric only miles I figured I would have had some good results, this is just disappointing. When I think that I have only gone 78 miles on a gas engine using 11 gallons of fuel, it just disappoints me even more lol.

Anyone else on the same boat? I have not taken it in, and not sure if they can do anything if I did.

Best get it checked out. I’m in Canada, warm my truck up five days a week during winter and still pulling about 13-14 litres per hundred kilometres which translates to 17.4 miles per gallon

 

[Doggy-Dog]

Well, at least I am not the only one with bad MPG. I have a 2.7 and drive very carefully and have bad MPG. Dealer says, "Too Bad." They don't check trucks for a bad tune.

 

[F-150 Prius]

so interesting facts for me on this. One day I ran my truck dry and was able limp the truck 200 feet to a station (don’t ask, I have not done that since I was a teen), I filled 32 gallons, which I anticipated, a couple weeks later we were at our cabin and I forgot to fill in the way there and on our way out I did cut it a bit close, but had 20-30 miles left in the tank and oddly enough I filled 35 gallons, which was not possible. The pumps were surely calibrated differently. Also, I’ve noticed what others have pointed out, fuel quality is a thing, my check engine light has been on often, I have a lengthy list of notices on the app and they usually appear after it has been remote started. If I choose high quality, high octane, the frequency of check engine light notices diminishes a lot, to almost if not zero. Mileage also increases and is considerably higher than yours, 15-17 for the same type of driving and I like putting my foot in it.

I've experimented with running 91 consistently for over 5000 miles (now 18,000 miles total) and have no way of knowing for sure – no way to compare directly with 87 under the same driving conditions – but for those 5000 miles, there wasn't more than 1 mpg improvement. So about a 5% gain. Maybe. Conversely, 87 is $0.50 to $1.00 cheaper or about 10-20% cheaper. I'm not to meticulous about it, I just look at gasbuddy and pick the cheapest station and as prices went up, I quit the 91 "experiment" because it wasn't (apparently) doing anything for me or my truck or my wallet.

There's never been a check-engine light on or any engine error codes (reminds me I actually had one very early on, but it was a glitch in the software, not the engine. The dealer checked it in the driveway and knew what was going on.)

I've run down to 0 miles till empty twice (both times were not fun) and both times the truck took about 30 gallons, so there was still that 0.9 gallons in there. Actually running out isn't great for the fuel pumps, so I wouldn't recommend experimenting with finding the last drop. I was on a freeway and missed my exit. I had something like 26 miles in the tank on the instrument panel and the nav said something like 22 miles to the next station … some uphill and headwind and cold weather made me slow down to 50 miles per hour as the trip meter said 5 miles and the Nav said 7 miles … gulp … eventually I was going 50 mph and the dash said 2 miles and the nav said 2 miles. It was "anxious" for a minute, but a relief to find there was actually a gallon or about another 18 miles in reserve. Also, at 50 mph, the instantaneous fuel burn was better than 24 mpg. But I can't stand to drive at 50 instead of 80, so it's 18 mpg for me. : )

 

[Stealthytt]

Ditto (averaging between 19-20MPG)

Are you doing 50/50? On the tank in my OP it was all city milage, I did get 20mph from driving 216 miles on the freeway. I am hardly on the hwy though, my city is all flat, in the sense that I am not driving up and down hills.

 

[Stealthytt]

Well, at least I am not the only one with bad MPG. I have a 2.7 and drive very carefully and have bad MPG. Dealer says, "Too Bad." They don't check trucks for a bad tune.

That's unfortunate, hopefully the same doesn't happen to me if I end up taking it in.

 

[Stealthytt]

While I do love getting a lot of electric miles just for the personal satisfaction of it, it has to be noted that those miles aren't really "free", you paid for them with burning extra gas that an ecoboost otherwise wouldn't have. The only way to generate the electricity for the battery is by adding resistance to something spinning, either through the regenerative braking or through the big ass generator on the serpentine belt of the powerboost engine. If you are coasting at 1.3k rpm in an ecoboost that will have less resistance than 1.3k rpm in a powerboost when it is doing battery charging. The engine has to work harder (use more gas).

How much harder does it have to work? Well I'm not sure but it is glaringly obvious how much resistance the generator can add when using the regen braking in the region before applying friction braking. And obviously I do not work on the design of these hybrid engines but they must have an algorithm to gradually release that resistance once the battery is full so the drive belt resistance is about the same as an ecoboost (or else the hybrid would be a horrible design!).

Anyway, my point is that even though electric miles are fun and cool, they aren't free because you prepaid for the battery using gas. That's why you can have some trips with nearly identical MPG but very different % electric miles.

For fun here's an image of the ecoboost drive belts vs the powerboost. They are very different. Ecoboost has to have alternator, pump, A/C, generator, but the powerboost only has the huge generator and I think that 2nd belt is for the coolant pump. That generator has gotta add massive resistance (when charging) compared to the alternator on the ecoboost.

Thank you, I highly enjoyed the read. Although I never goggles to figure it out I did find myself wondering how the engine charged the battery lol.

 

[wayfarer556]

There's not enough mention of wind resistance, weight, and momentum in this thread.

There is definitely an optimal "zone" that the F-150 Hybrid operates in where it is most efficient.
In order to reach that zone, the engine first has to move your truck's fat ass from a stop.

The zone, in my observations, is on a flat road going between roughly 35 - 55 MPH, with little to no wind. Even better if temperatures are between 50 - 70. If you're in that zone, the truck will charge itself optimally, and I've seen it maintain 25 - 29 MPG. The longer you keep your truck in the zone, the better its lifetime mileage will be.

How to best get into that zone? I have found that instead of accelerating slowly and steadily, the truck is more efficient if I accelerate at a brisk pace to get it into the "zone" faster. The engine *is* still a 3.5 Ecoboost. It likes to rev. So let it...within reason (Don't spin the tires or anything silly). The extra burst of fuel burn seems to be offset by the truck being quickly put into its happy place, where it can do its thing. Basically, you're slingshotting it into a position where momentum can allow the electric motor operate where it can make the most difference.

If you live in a place with a lot of wind, your MPG is going to suffer. Headwind on this truck sucks.

If you live in a place with a lot of hills or twisty roads, MPG will suffer. The fuel spent pushing the truck's extra heavy ass uphill I don't think is made up for any downhill charging. The electric drive simply makes little difference vs the weight of the truck going uphill and upwind.

Normal highway speeds, this truck is a 3.5L Ecoboost with a bit of payload (which is fine). Pretty easy to keep it at 20 - 22 if you're doing 65 - 75 MPH. Wind resistance at these speeds I think overcomes most of the benefits of having a hybrid. I think small gains here could help. Lifting and/or leveling the truck, and having bigger, heavier wheels will definitely fuck up highway MPG, maybe more than usual because it's by default heavier.

For future revisions, I would love to see a larger battery combined with a beefier electric motor. If they could do that without adding even more weight, we'd probably see this truck really shine in the efficiency department. Whatever wind resistance optimizations that they figure out with the Lightning would also be useful, even small gains would yield decent benefits. I would also love to see them pair the hybrid design with the 2.7L EB engine. I feel that they did it first with the 3.5L EB because they wanted the powerboost to be seen as a manly, powerful thing to the average truck buyer. Not many people would want the "hybrid" logo with the green leaf on their truck here in Texas, lol.

 

[Dan M.]

so interesting facts for me on this. One day I ran my truck dry and was able limp the truck 200 feet to a station (don’t ask, I have not done that since I was a teen), I filled 32 gallons, which I anticipated, a couple weeks later we were at our cabin and I forgot to fill in the way there and on our way out I did cut it a bit close, but had 20-30 miles left in the tank and oddly enough I filled 35 gallons, which was not possible. The pumps were surely calibrated differently. Also, I’ve noticed what others have pointed out, fuel quality is a thing, my check engine light has been on often, I have a lengthy list of notices on the app and they usually appear after it has been remote started. If I choose high quality, high octane, the frequency of check engine light notices diminishes a lot, to almost if not zero. Mileage also increases and is considerably higher than yours, 15-17 for the same type of driving and I like putting my foot in it.

How could you put 32 gallons in a tank that holds 30.6 gallons and then you claimEd that you put in 35 gallons another time.

 

[Valleyrider]

Thanks for the offer, I'm in central cal, would be a trip lol.

Like I said in 147 miles I managed almost half that in electric only, that's why I was so thrown off by the amount of fuel I used, I babied the crap out of it to see what I could get. I never thought I'd get the EPA rating calculated by hand, but 17-19 would be nice haha

I’m in central cal as well and I usually average around 17-18 mpg but I just drive normal I don’t care about mpg or drive conservatively.
I recently took a 1600 mile trip and only averaged 17.6 for the whole trip so I’m nowhere near the claimed mileage and I had it on cruise control the time.

 

[DPTURBO29]

I’ve only had my 22 Platinum PB for a day, but I’ve basically been on the road ever since I picked it up. Probably 85% highway at 75. The dash is giving me 19.1 mpg so far. I’ve been playing when in town and trying to stay in EV as much as possible, but I believe I’m going to take the advice of one of the earlier posts and just accelerate normally and get into that glide zone sooner. It is a theory I’ve had before with regular ICE engines and after experiencing how little the EV mode is actually capable of it makes sense.

 

[F-150 Prius]

Well, at least I am not the only one with bad MPG. I have a 2.7 and drive very carefully and have bad MPG. Dealer says, "Too Bad." They don't check trucks for a bad tune.

I'd suggest "escalating" that to the dealer management. Or find another dealer.

I had a "reduced power" message in the history of info messages on the FordPass app (there was no current message, no lights on the dash) and the dealer treated it seriously, hooked up the OBD in the service driveway, ran whatever diagnostics, checked everything, did a quick visual for anything obvious under the hood or underneath. Treated it seriously.

Seems to me whether it's the 2.7 or the Hybrid, the whole point of the engine choice is fuel efficiency (operating cost) and that's the whole value proposition of the sales and marketing of the F-150. For "Service" to say "too bad" … someone needs "remedial education" or a new career path. That kind of brush off should be resolved by the dealer management (or Ford, if need be.) Ford dealers are not all equal, but I don't think the franchise owners want their customers to be told "oh, you bought our product? too bad for you."

 

[JBinFla]

Keep in mind if you leave your generator on, even with vehicle off the engine will run periodically. Something to keep an eye on (I did this when I first got it not realizing). Also it's easy to leave on because it's so quiet. Not saying you did any of this, but those MPG are incredibly low as in I get better than that beating on it, by a long shot. Hopefully it's something simple like this.

Sponsored