I’m not overly familiar with hybrids but I believe most types of batteries degrade in the winter so I expect optimal performance in the warmer months. Thoughts?

Also, from reading some of the initial reviews at the demo drives it appears the PB starts off in electric then switches to gas as speed picks up. If this is the case(?), it seems that it would take awhile before the cab would warm up in the winter.

 

We had a hybrid for 8 years, then a PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) for 2 years and counting.

Yes, battery life varies with temperature. The hybrid had no mileage estimates for the battery that displayed, and didn't go very far without the gas engine kicking on. 1.x miles as I recall, but that was 2009 technology.

Our 2018 Fusion Energi displays a 21 mile range after charging in optimal conditions. In the coldest temps, it displays 13... What it actually gets would require a great deal of careful watching, because you get regeneration every time you come off the gas as well as hit the brakes. Huge hit in winter.

In winter, the hybrid turned on the gas engine immediately and ran until the engine was warm. The PHEV runs in electric mode until the battery is depleted or you turn on a system/function that requires the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine). The computers are designed to calculate the most efficient way to deliver the heat or AC if you are in battery mode, and decides when to turn on the ICE. I'm sure a 2021 hybrid would be very sophisticated in the calcuation.

If you are in electric mode with the PHEV, and turn on the heat, it simply rapidly depleted the battery.

In a hybrid, when you step in the pedal normally, it would run in electric mode (assuming battery has capacity), then kick in the ICE when you hit the top battery speed. Our 2010 kicked in ICE at 47 mpg. It was a game to drive locally and see how far you could go without the ICE kicking on. Forget it if the road sloped up. However, if you STOMP on the pedal, hybrids quickly kick in the gas motor and the electric motor, so both combine to hurtle you forward. And the engine is very, very loud in that mode. Think merging on a highway, where you have to cross two lanes in a very short distance because your on ramp is right where the highway splits left and right, and you need to go left. My wife drove that daily before the pandemic.

The 2018 has a max electric speed of 85 mph. However, if you don't lock out the battery mode, at highway speeds the battery is quickly depleted. There is an Auto mode that would depleted it, but a savvy driver would domthe following on a cold winter day:

Turn on the prewarm feature while the vehicle is plugged in.
Run on electric only with the heat off and seat warmer and steering wheel heater on if necessary locally.
Lock out battery when getting on highway, and turn on heat.
Switch to electric mode when you get off highway. Turn off heater if you can.

Our 2010 got 35 or 37 mpg lifetime, cannot recall exactly. Local driving is better mpg than highway. In the winter it was closer to 29-31 mpg. In reviewing the mpg history, we had tanks where we got up to 38mpg (hand calculated), and tanks where we got 28 mpg (winter). Most of the summer driving got 35 or 36 mpg, the winter got 29-30.

Our Fusion Energi, charged every night, has a lifetime mpg of 62.1. Of course every mile derived from being plugged in uses no gas, but the vehicle's mpg shows miles driven divided by gallons of gas, so it is not accurate for an efficiency measure. It has used approximately 928 kWh, but that doesn't account for electricity loss from the outlet to the vehicle of roughly 20 percent. And is irrelevant to discussion of a hybrid.

With the electric battery depleted, and only using the hybrid battery (they are partitioned off), we can get around 42 mpg on the highway, but often get in the high 30s. City is harder to track because we are mostly in battery mode. My wife is the primary driver, and she pays scant attention to the numbers.

In the summer of 2019 we drove to South Carolina, so that trip was a long highway drive. MPGs are per calculated by hand, not vehicle which reads a bit higher. The first tank fill in Lexington, KY yielded 38.7mpg, which was all highway because we filled the tank just over the Ohio line on our way down. The next tank was in South Carolina, yielded 42.2 mpg. As I recall, this included the last bit of the trip coasting downhill in the mountains, generating enough electricity to recharge the PHEV side of the battery which never happened before. The next tank was 47.4, but that's not accurate because we plugged in at the hotel in South Carolina each night, and did a bunch of local driving. So you can see that highway yields around 40mpg in warm weather in hybrid mode at 70mph. If you slow to 55, mpg will climb of course.

 

thank you for the detailed response. Very informative.

 

No problem. Big fan of hybrid / PHEV. Happy to spread the knowledge / acceptance. That said, I do a breakeven analysis before buying.

Our 2010 Fusion Hybrid may not financial sense except for Cash for Clunkers coupled with rebates and tax credit, and then I think I figured a 5 year breakeven given high gas prices.

Our 2018 Fusion Energi (PHEV) was actually THOUSANDS cheaper than a comparable ICE model. Note the word "comparable". I won't buy the base engine configuration of most car models, they lack power. I like power. The Energi combines the electric motor with the ICE engine, surpassing the based ICE engine. Base engine was a 175hp 2.5 liter. The Energi comes with a 2.0 liter plus the electric motor. Drives more like a 3.0 to me. Nothing like the Fusion Sport with a 2.7 Ecoboost of course, but I'm not the primary driver, my wife is. I have my 5 liter F-150 when I want power. Our 2018 Fusion Energi had over $11,000 in rebates...

We also are very environmentally conscious. Have a time of day electric plan, keeping controllable usage out of the peak hours as much as possible. You don't really save much if anything in driving hybrid vehicles, as compared to ICE models, unless the incentives and government rebates are enough. A PHEV really only works with short drives to work (especially with Ford's very low ranges) and an employer providing free charges. My wife drives 12 miles to/from work (pre-pandemic), no charging at work, and she runs out of charge in the warmer weather a few miles from home. In the winter, she barely makes it out of work before the charge is gone. I'm of the opinion (haven't run numbers) that with gas under $2.00 I'm basically a wash on costs vs. electric.

And the trunk is absurdly small as compared to the gas model - which is why the F-150 is storing the batteries underneath. That's an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper and a regular sized box of tissues in the trunk...

 

Don't forget the lower emissions on a hybrid engine vs an ICE car. That's what's drawing me to the PowerBoost in the new F 150.

 

Will the 2021 F150 Hybrid be eligible for the $7500 Federal Tax Credit?

 

If it has plug-in capability, yes, but depends on size of plug-in battery.

To clarify, there is no more hybrid rebate. There are rebates for vehicles that have electric capacity (and also fuel cells). They look at the size of the battery that provides the electric-only driving. For example, my 2018 Fusion Energi is a PHEV. Part of the battery provides hybrid operation, part of the battery provides electric operation. The part of the battery that provides the electric operation is counted to determine the size of the rebate. And there is a limit on the number of vehicles per model that get the credit.

It won't be the range of the PHEV F-150 that matters, i.e. it may only get 10 miles. But the size of the battery to provide that range will matter, so Ford will seek to make that as large as is feasible.

 

Does the block heater count? Lol

 

The F150 is not a PHEV. So there is no tax credit.

 

I had a Honda Civic hybrid which uses a gas engine all the time, and then used the electric engine to give extra power. So it was a little different than a lot of other hybrids.

Biggest issue I had during the winter was stop/start and the defroster. If the engine had not warmed up yet, then the defroster sucked and I'd have to turn off stop/start until it did warm up. I didn't spend as much time in harsher winters though since I live in FL. I would go up to NC a couple times a year for a couple weeks at a time.

My MPG's went down 10ish MPG's during the summer though if I was in traffic. I would always turn off the stop/start since the AC sucked when the engine was off. It was get better MPG's, or boil to death in the Florida heat. I tried to avoid traffic by leaving a specific times instead.

Edit: Just an FYI. I hated my hybrid. It did get good mileage, but you do not save any money. I could have gotten a standard Honda Civic for a lot less money, and the difference in mileage wasn't that much. You need to own most hybrids 10+ years to recoup the extra cost of the hybrid. I sold the hybrid and got my truck.