"But crossovers get basically the same mileage as cars!"

"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr) 07/02/2018 at 15:38 • Filed to: Ford, ecosport, Focus, ecoboost, Crossovers

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38

Eat my ass.

CobraJoe > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 15:43

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Not only are crossovers worse in gas mileage, you can often get a much more powerful engine in the sedan/hatchback version than in the crossover, and still get better gas mileage. 

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 15:43

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Plus the focus is better in every single way .

gettingoldercarguy > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 15:45

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And I quote

“Hackett announced that he would transform Ford, according to The Economist , “from a boring old car maker” into a “consumer-products and services company”. [19] He stated he would work to help Ford surpass GM in US market share, and would also try to make Ford less reliant on car sales.”

Smart...

Except I’m quoting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Nasser  and only changed Nasser with Hackett and pickup truck with cars.

Urambo Tauro > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 15:45

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wut is this i don’t even

When did we start calculating MPG in “GP100M”?

nerd_racing > CobraJoe 07/02/2018 at 15:47

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Unless it’s a Mazda.  Then the crossover gets a more powerful engine, but worse mileage still. 

Tekamul > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 15:48

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For us ‘muricans, that’s ~ 31mpg versus 28mpg.

But they get the same range!

BigBlock440 > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 15:53

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$750 over 5 years, $150/year, $12.50/month.  Yeah, that’s a rounding error.  

Ash78, voting early and often > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 15:53

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Frontal area is a bitch to try to overcome with Cx. Especially when crossovers have fairly upright rear ends, which act like low-pressure parachutes.

Maybe the key is drafting!

gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee > Urambo Tauro 07/02/2018 at 15:59

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It looks like a way to make it seem like the fuel economy is roughly equivalent. 3.2 and 3.6 are only 0.4 apart, but 32 and 28 are ten times that in separation!

BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 16:02

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Soooo....they’re basically the same. Which is the point. 31mpg vs. 28mpg is negligible. 

bhtooefr > Urambo Tauro 07/02/2018 at 16:03

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It shows the relative differences in efficiency more accurately than MPG.

I mean, I could've set it to liters per 100 km, too, which is the norm in Europe.

Milky > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 16:03

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More appropriate would be ecosport to Fiesta and then the gap would would widen.

* Or Focus/Escape

punkgoose17 > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 16:04

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The Focus also has more cargo area with the rear seats up.

duurtlang > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. 07/02/2018 at 16:06

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Larger too.

bhtooefr > Tekamul 07/02/2018 at 16:07

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Note that that’s combined, not highway.

Highway is where shit gets ugly for the EcoSport. In the inferior MPG units, it's 38 vs. 29.

duurtlang > Milky 07/02/2018 at 16:07

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Exactly!

bhtooefr > BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind 07/02/2018 at 16:07

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Well, it all comes from a difference in highway efficiency, 38 vs. 29.

Tekamul > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 16:09

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woof. That’s rough.

bhtooefr > Milky 07/02/2018 at 16:09

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A lot of the Fiesta’s gains are from having a manual transmission, though - it’s barely more efficient than a manual 1.0T Focus.

And, the EcoSport is priced similarly (a bit higher, actually) to a Focus, so if you look at it from the direction of “people will pay this much for this piece of shit, and look what they could’ve gotten instead”...

CobraJoe > BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind 07/02/2018 at 16:11

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3mpg is about 10.7% improvement over 28mpg. So a total gas bill is going to be 10.7% more for the Ecosport than the Fiesta.

It’s not a huge difference, but an extra $140 a year isn’t nothing. 

duurtlang > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 16:12

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...and almost everywhere else if I’m not mistaken. Being based on the metric system, which had been adopted by 95+% of countries.

duurtlang > BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind 07/02/2018 at 16:13

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Not when you consider that the ecosport is a much smaller car than the focus.

bhtooefr > duurtlang 07/02/2018 at 16:24

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Many (most?) Asian countries use km/l instead - still metric, but wrong for the same reason that mpg is wrong (magnifies small improvements in efficiency in already efficient vehicles, minimizes large improvements in efficiency in inefficient vehicles).

HondoyotaE38: A Japanese and German Collab...wait a minute > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 16:37

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K

duurtlang > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 16:40

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Fair enough. I should add that I’m quite used to km/l, we tend to use that in the Netherlands as well. It's easier to visualize (how far will a liter take me?), but like you noted it makes a fair comparison harder.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > duurtlang 07/02/2018 at 16:42

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Most likely safer even.

CobraJoe > BigBlock440 07/02/2018 at 16:48

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Plus you get to pay extra up front! 

duurtlang > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. 07/02/2018 at 16:51

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Probably. The Focus is just  a superior car in about every way. Only when you’re looking at a higher driving position or something that will fit in a slightly shorter parking spot the Ecoturd is in the lead.

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 16:51

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That only matters in Europe, where gas is expensive, not in America, where gas will be cheap forever and ever amen.

jimz > gettingoldercarguy 07/02/2018 at 17:29

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not comparable.  Jac the Knife wanted to de-emphasize vehicle sales period, not simply one market segment. The Wingcast debacle was the biggest failure and is part of what got him tossed out. 

winterlegacy, here 'till the end > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 17:59

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How to make the Ecosport better:

A m anual option and way too much power for its own good.

You can do it, Ford. Stop being boring. Let us have a derp-grade small crossover that thinks that small rocks and skidder trails are stupid and it wants to crawl over giant slabs.

facw > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 18:18

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The Automatic Fiesta gets better mileage than the manual on the EPA tests:

Though the situation is reversed on the Focus (though the Ecoboost 1.0 still beats the NA 2.0):

gettingoldercarguy > jimz 07/02/2018 at 18:30

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No, he wanted to grow passenger car sales, maintaining pickup. He shifted development more towards passenger cars. By doing that, Ford would be less reliant on p ickup sales.

http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1998/06/22/244172/index.htm

And that is my point, where it is comparable. T hey’re both shifting away from something they shouldn’t, each for their own reason. I believe e ach is/was a mistake.

gettingoldercarguy > jimz 07/02/2018 at 18:33

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And a post to help drive the point home, not by me.

https://oppositelock.kinja.com/i-will-never-forget-the-twelfth-generation-ford-f150-1827300522

ranwhenparked > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 19:49

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I’ve never bought into that logic. I’ve got a 2017 FWD Escape SE for work, on which I’ve logged over 55,000 miles in the past year and a half, and have never averaged better than 25mpg on a tank with a mixture of city and highway driving (though, actually quite a big percentage of that is steady cruising).

I’ve also got a Lincoln Town Car that averages 23mpg consistently under basically the same conditions, with an engine twice the size, no auto start/stop, fewer gears, comfort touring tires instead of low rolling resistance, plus a bigger/heavier vehicle that seats one more person and actually has more cargo space with all seats occupied.

In terms of technology, the Escape is practically a space ship compared to the Lincoln, and all it can do is eke out a measly 2 extra mpg in daily use, despite being a vehicle  two sizes classes smaller, with a small turbo engine and all sorts of extra fuel saving features added in.

Dusty Ventures > bhtooefr 07/02/2018 at 20:03

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Arguably a better example, since they’re literally the same car:

bhtooefr > facw 07/03/2018 at 07:45

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Note that the automatic Fiesta is a DCT, whereas the automatic Focus 1.0T (and EcoSport) are 6-speed torque converter boxes (not even the new 8-speed).

bhtooefr > ranwhenparked 07/03/2018 at 07:46

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Mind you, small turbo engines tend to work well on tests (not as well on the US tests), poorly in the real world, precisely because they’re undersized and overstressed for real-world driving.

Seems like the EcoSport has so much drag that it doesn’t even work on the test, whereas the Focus with the same engine does.