Ford to lower fuel economy rating on C-Max hybrid!

Personally I think we need to separate the CAFE tests from the consumer, window sticker. The right answer is:

1. mph vs MPG standard day chart - a simple, one page chart showing the expected MPG from 10 mph to 100 mph in 5 mph increments. Put the full size chart as page in the Owners manual and a reduced version on the window sticker.
2. fuel burned chart at 33% and 100% throttle from 0 to 10..100 mph - fully loaded car, standard day. At the 60 mph point on the two graphs, annotate the seconds and distance.

These two charts tell me everything I need to know about a car to make an informed decision.

As for the existing number, I already know the EPA test protocols so I can 'reverse engineer' how to achieve those numbers. It is just the outlier data points, speeds above 50 mph, that I still have to make my own charts.

Bob Wilson

 

Yes!

I no more want AG's 85 mph result, than he wants my 65 mph result.

 

Perhaps you are thinking of this but with mpg instead of miles per tank

Although nice to have the car buying public doesn't actually drive long distances at a single speed except on long trips. That is a small minority of the miles.

My surprise came at how much fuel economy is decreased on short trips, especially at temperatures over 100 degrees (yes in 2011 that seemed to be 20% of my trips). Pulling out the 5 cycles and publishing them on fueleconomy.gov would help. High speed test would let people have a better idea that the c-max does much worse than the prius on the highway, but.... according to this information, ford never even ran the test on the fusion hybrid before giving the c-max hybrid a 47 mpg rating.

Consumer reports appears to publish 65mph tests, but I don't subscribe, and you may need a subscription to get them all. Car and Driver has 75mph tests that they publish. Higher speed tests are hard to come by.

Most people just want one number to compare them. Unfortunately car companies like to advertise just their highest number. Yes this is even toyota putting the camry hybrid's city mpg on a big billboard. A lot of the confusion would be settled if epa published all 5 test results in fueleconomy.gov (which would have specified 3 were missing on the ford hybrids) and advertising had to use combined mileage if only one number was given.

YMMV. I don't expect everyone to have hills and heat, but epa could force the manufacturers to disclose more information easily, before they fix the test.

I think if you wait long enough, for the cars you like ecomoder seems to do a good job up to 70 mph. Then you just need to go to car and driver for 75mph, and experiment for higher speeds.

 

But you have to cost two other factors. First, what is the average first owner time? Because the second or third owner isn't being harmed. Second, the time value of money. Third, most people can't do math and keep track of numbers.

Mike

 

I agree with USB, that ford is not paying for the full value of missing gas but lets look at this from the business as usual point of view of the auto industry.

These class action lawsuits have no possible way of winning in court. Your mileage will vary. The sticker on your car is not a guaranty. The reason kia/hyundai are spending $100M on gas is they broke the law and cheated on the test. This is not the case with ford. They followed the law. They were unethical in using the fusion hybrid 2 cycle instead of c-max 5 cycle, but that was clearly within the rules.

Bad on the EPA for having these rules that encourage unethical behavior. Bad on Ford for using the rules. That should erode goodwill, but judging by hyundai kia sales, the public has a short memory.

Still ford is doing the right thing, and it makes good business sense to compensate customers for the misleading but legal advertising. There are about 37,000 people that bought c-maxes, most of them after it was clear that they would not get epa sticker mileage in the real world. Ford is much better off giving them a payment and making them feel better, than having these people as angry customers. Better yet would be for ford to act ethically in the future. I doubt that will happen though. The traditional auto model is to cheat. Maybe we need a new model.

 

a. I agree what Ford did was wrong (even though legal) and they aren't required to pay anything...the sticker does say YMMV.
b. But I think the amount they are providing is close to fair since most owners won't keep these 150K miles...if they sell the car at 100K miles should they be required to give 1/3 of the settlement to the next owner. No. So the payment goes to the first owner only and the miles driven by first owners will be less than the total miles. On average.
c. Time value of money is worth something.
d. I said there were two reasons. And the third one was that people can't do math. It was a joke. But people really can't do math and have short attention spans when it comes to numbers. Of course, not Prius Chat members.

I applaud Ford for doing anything on this. Now will they change their commercials that compares their mpg to a Prius v and say "your mpg may be almost as good as a Prius?" Doutful.

Mike

 

Is the Fusion even getting anywhere close to 47mpg to not change it?

This looks like a marketing/legal ploy for EPA to not go after them.

 

Someone in Ford marketing/engineering needs a new job. Chrysler may be hiring.

Bob Wilson

 

Mike, the first owners can reasonably argue that the value of the car has been diminished by the fuel economy revision when they sell the car, so the amount of money Ford is offering is too low.

Alternatively, they can argue that the diminished 'green value' is much more than the price at the pump. That would be the 'hybrid premium.' Irony. IMO the real diminished value is the difference in market value between the 47 and 43 mpg labeled cars.

Ford may or may not be legal, but I doubt that will prevent the lawsuits from continuing. I expect Ford to end up paying a lot more than $500 per car sold. This has class action written all over it. Ford may not have to pay multiples of ill-gotten gains as a penalty if it is found they acted 'lawfully', but there is going to be a loud (and justified) cry they acted unethically. The Ford action of voluntarily lowering the MPG and offering a refund is all but a smoking gun for the lawyers.

Hell, the lawyers can argue that Ford did not live up to implied merchantability and the demand made that consumers be allowed to return the cars. Following the EPA (if they did) is not an automatic get out of jail card. If it can be proved that Ford had fore knowledge that publishing a 2-part test of a substantially different 'twin' was inaccurate, and they made no attempt to inform the consumer of the actual performance of the car, Ford has not acted reasonably. Ford cannot argue that the EPA *forced* them to publish that result; after all, they had a choice to publish a test of the c-max directly in a 5 part test. Their choice, their responsibility. IMO. IANAL

As an aside: Many of us were under the impression that a manufacturer MUST post the EPA result. Guess not. Lastly, I am quite sick of manufacturers gaming the test, exploiting loopholes that are not in the spirit of the test; and then when caught, whining that the test is the problem.

 

You are missing a lot of complexity here.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0816/Ford-C-Max-Hybrid-gas-mileage-revised.-EPA-to-update-rules-industrywide.

In other words the EPA believes ford tested the fusion hybrid correctly (although its likely they used the 2 cycle test). Ford legally could keep the 47 mpg stickers on the c-max, because they followed the epa rules. They could legally also continue to advertise it that way. The epa only can legally change the c-max mpg on its website. Ford is changing the stickers because its awful pr to continue using 47 mpg on the c-max.

In order to compel ford to change the numbers they need to change the rules. Continuing on

This is hard, but the epa at a minimum could change rules quickly to disallow using same weight and drive train as a reason to not test.
IMHO ford should quickly test the fusion in the 5 cycle test. Take the hit and change the label. I don't think they will do that. The epa "could" drive a fusion hybrid 4000 miles then test it in 5 cycles but by then ford would be ready to ship the 2014. Its likely there is an agreement that ford tests the next one to all 5 cycles.

They could also try to go with say the consumer reports number. But that would be wrong. For the prius c and prius liftback consumer reports is much lower than the epa and fuelly and fueleconomy.gov reporting. EPA needs to change the test, but that will take time. Even with a better test YMMV. Look at the fuelly numbers for my 2010my gen III prius
2010 Toyota Prius MPG Reports | Fuelly
They are much closer in average to the epa 50 mpg than the consumer reports 44 mpg, but there is a large variance. They go from 38mpg-61mpg averaging 47.7 mpg. You aren't going to capture that wide variation of routes, distances, speeds, temperatures in a single test.

 

Or the Wayne Gerdes number although I noticed a few recent postings of mph vs MPG charts . . . something I throughly support.

For emissions testing, I have no problem with the EPA test protocols. For consumer information, it is a poor substitute for a simple mph vs MPG graph.

Bob Wilson

 

As I said earlier I completely agree with this idea, although it would be naive to think the car manufacturers would not try to game the report. In practice, only a few speeds could be tested, and those at steady speeds. I'd expect the cars to match their gearing to the test. At least in the current test speed transitions and load variance are included.

 

I like how Ford is able to hide smaller lies among all of this. Who honestly believes that Ford did not test the C-MAX? Of course they tested it, found that the 42/40mpg was lower than the Prius V and decided to go for the EPA loophole.

The interviews with the Ford executives are full of low aiming jabs at Toyota such as (translated from PR speech) "Ford is much more sporty and we would not stomp to Toyota levels to give such a sucky driving experience", "I know many people who in real life achieve the 47mpg, so people who don't achieve this are either focused on spirited driving or plain idiots", etc.

You are confused!? Try this. The reviewer Mr. Dykes over at "thetruthaboutcars" claims that the C-MAX hybrid looks notably more premium than the Lexus CT 200h. It sounds like he has an axe to grind with Toyota, but with the CT being a very significant upgrade compared to the Prius interior wise, I got the feeling that the C-MAX must be right up there with the latest Bentley!

Fact is. Ford sold a whole lot of cars with the bogus 47mpg claims. Toyota will now suffer from "all hybrid manufactures cheat" and this is on top of all the lost sales due to the most important stat (for many buyers) being manipulated by the main competitor.

 

It is too bad because Ford has a good hybrid system using cells from a great battery supplier. Their marketing screwed it up.

 

did you watch the video? Wow ... quite a difference apparently between EPA and Japanese test cycles - apparently. The article quotes Mitsu's Ev range 25 mpg whereas the video quotes Ev range at 67km ... isn't that around 37 miles? How do you reconcile a difference of 50%. They must have used the C-max formula.

Video looked like it was charging at one point with a Chademo!!!
With or without - this thing could really be a game changer. And 4wd? And ... It sure looks to have a ton more room then the C-max ... and not much smaller than our awd Lexus hybrid SUV. Ok, where do I sign up

.

 

That is an interesting perspective, and it really is too bad that the engineers are hung up with the dirty laundry.

I am less generous, because Ford the company are liars, and the people who bought the car are suckers who decided to believe that too-good-to-be-true is true.

A performance hybrid is not going to be in the ballpark of Prius fuel economy. Ford does not have magic mojo to leapfrog Toyota HSD engineering.

 

That is really doubtful. You should read the car and driver piece. Ford likely knew that the fusion was more aerodynamic so it would get better mileage. Why test, when you know the result will be worse. The kicker is the 5 cycle test versus the 2 cycle test, and again ford likely knew that the math would be better on 2cycles for a hybrid than running the 5 cycles in real life. Why spend money on the test when the result can only hurt you? Now knowing these things that have come out, ford acted unethically, but the epa can fix the rules. If we think ford did 4 tests (2cycle, 5 cycle) c-max, (2 cycle, 5 cycle) fusion then picked, that is even more reason to madate the tests. This is unlikely though.

This is reminiscent of toyota and honda on their hybrids pre-2008 when the epa changed their tests. IMHO Ford probably thought toyota got away with it (the 60mpg city estimate on the old label for the prius), and it helped them get established. I don't think it was a good thing then or now.

That is the consumer reports line. IMHO most of those cars were sold after the news was out they wouldn't hit there epa rating. It does taint all hybrids though and that is a shame.

 

Because you don't drop into a loophole like that without knowing what the consequences of getting caught will amount to. It would be ludicrous of Ford not to test the c-max as this would prevent Ford knowing which kind of "readjustments" it would face. Of course Ford claims that it never tested the c-max, but to believe that is bordering naïve.

I find there to be a huge difference from the EPA changes back. The old test gave hybrids an advantage, but the advantage was caused by the test being short or at low speed. When the discrepancy became clear, the test was changed, all cars were re-evaluated and we saw results that were much more in line of real life results. The 2. gen. Prius was one of the largest MPG losers of those changes, but to say that Toyota was playing foul would be a stretch.

Ford still promoted those 47mpg like there was no tomorrow. Dealers were legally obliged to advertise the 47mpg and why would you even consider a V when a more powerful, less aerodynamic, and worse rolling-resistance-riddled car would out-perform it in fuel economy?

Nothing good will come out of this. I'm angry at Ford for being so blatant and with EPA for having such obvious and idiotic loopholes.[/quote]