As I was driving today CalCars crossed my mind. That's the company that came out with a retrofit for the Prius a couple years ago. Basically they make a super battery that you add to the Prius turning it into a plug-in hybrid. I checked the web to see how much one of the kits costs and one source stated they were about $12,000. So, they don't make alot (or any) economic sense but if you want to get like 100 mpg then here is a way to do it. If you have a Prius that is. Nothing available for the Fusion yet.
So I got to thinking, wouldn't it be cool to have a bigger battery. As we know, you can get about a mile out of the FusionH in the flat just on juice. About a mile and that's all she wrote. How about if we had something like what CalCars makes for the aforementioned Prius. A plug-in Fusion. Then I got to thinking what would be the minimum drivable-under-electric-distance that I would settle for. I figured if I could get 5 miles just on a super battery that would do pretty well. That would take me far enough for most of my trips which are errands in nature. I could run down to the store, go out to lunch, all on electric. Come back and plug it up for the next trip. When I needed a longer then 5 mile run, it would go right back to being the wonderful Fusion Hybrid which is pretty terrific.
So, how many miles would you want for a minimum plug-in and what would you pay for it?
Any Ford engineers out there?
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I'd say 10 miles would by dynamite.
ReplyDeleteHow much would I pay? Hmmm.....not more than a $1,000 more for the larger battery. Maybe they should just make the larger battery standard.
I think it would be hard to shell out a lot more to improve things due to the law of dimishing returns. Gonig from 45MPG to 60MPG type thing isn't as massive a savings as going 20 to 45MPG is for example. I would like the plug in option down the road as an upgrade but for now I'm content trying to eek out what I can from it. Great blog by the way, keep it up. I'm only 2 weeks into my FFH and I'm loving it so far. Not getting above 40MPG so far on most trips but I am hopeful that after a couple thousand miles efficiency will improve.
ReplyDeleteicebreaka,
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about a plug-in down the road. You know how you can lightly accelerate and stay on the battery power? I like to imagine what it will be like with some real battery power in there, like a lithium-ion, where you can accelerate normally just under battery. That would be really slick.
You should be able to get more then 40 pretty easily. Now, my mileage seems to have dropped off in the last couple of weeks. The car does not switch over as easily or readily to just battery and my MPG has dropped. This may possibly be due to a drop in temperature because it's fall and now I've got the heater running. Still, I ran into Boston a couple days ago and got 47 MPG round trip. That's about 40 miles total. Interestingly, I was behind schedule on the way in and really was rushing, not conserving fuel in the slightest bit, in fact, really felt like I was pushing the Fusion. On the way back I focused on mileage, but I was in alot of traffic so there was only so much I could do, had to keep up with the flow obviously. So not bad at 47 MPG.
Are you using any techniques when you drive to try and improve your mileage and maximize your use of the motor? Let me know what you are doing to try and increase your mileage.