Powerboost Driving Observations

[imnuts]

Now that I've had my PB for a month (and 2 days), with ~1,800 miles on the odometer, I felt as though I would share some of my observations in that time. I'll try to come back and update this as time passes, but no promises. Hopefully, this can also help others with their PB trucks.

For some background, I have currently made 2 "long" highway trips, one was ~3.5 hrs each way (7 hrs total) and the other was ~2.5 hrs each way (5 hrs total), and the rest of my driving has been mostly around town and to/from work. My average daily work commute is 30-45 mph, small hills, and about 27 mi round trip. I also have a 502A Lariat SCrew, 5.5' bed, 4x4 for reference. I am on the stock 18" wheels/tires and have not leveled my truck, it is fully stock for suspension. I do have a tonneau cover, but that probably isn't doing much for me for what I'm posting here. My first tank of fuel I'm assuming was 87 octane from the dealer, but I have been using 93 octane since then (Costco Gas FTW).

I'll start off with Eco Mode driving. I've seen many here post about driving in Eco Mode, and IMO, it is not the best driving mode for around town/city driving. I am going to do some more driving like this in the coming weeks, but in the few times I have done it, Eco Mode seems to upshift to soon, downshift to late, and switch to battery too early in the charge cycle. It seems to want to keep the RPMs as low as possible, typically below 1.5k. What this ends up doing is actually lowering your average MPG. When it gets to the higher gears earlier and avoids downshifting, you may get into boost so it can make power. Watching the instantaneous MPG bar on the highway once, I was going uphill and the electric motor was assisting. In 10th gear with the electric motor helping, there was no boost and I was somewhere between 10-15 MPG. The battery charge got too low and the engine had to take on additional load, and in doing so, it started adding boost. The MPGs dropped to ~5 MPG on the display. I locked out 10th (and even 9th one time) so that the truck downshifted. This got it out of boost, and the MPGs, despite the higher RPM went back up to the 10-15 MPG range on the display. For around town, it depletes the battery faster as it wants to switch over to full electric all the time. This can prevent you from having the battery/motor assist on hills, and can also cause the engine to run to charge the battery more frequently when driving. In the few times I did drive non-highway in ECO, it was ~5-10% lower fuel economy, so not major, but still noticeable. However, I think Eco Mode is great for highway driving, especially with adaptive cruise and lane centering. I find that as soon as it starts slowing down more than a few MPH, it will go to electric only and coast more than it would in Normal Mode. You should still enable the boost display and watch it for hills to maximize MPGs, but it has been great for highway driving.

Next, Sport Mode does what it says, it is very sporty. I don't think a vehicle as large as the F-150 is should be as fast as it is, and that is very noticeable in Sport Mode. It will destroy your MPGs, but it is a lot of fun. From what I've seen, Sport Mode will operate at 2k RPMs and higher, and will keep them there as much as possible. It is also much easier to get through the entire RPM range in Sport Mode compared to Normal. The big downside to Sport, and why you loose a lot of fuel economy is that the engine is always on. You have no option for electric only mode, even in Park AFAIK. So, use it for fun times, but switch out if you need to sit and idle anywhere. Sport also will not skip any gears while shifting. I don't mind the gear skips that I've seen, but there is slightly smoother shifting at times in Sport compared to other modes just because of this.

Lastly here, I'll cover Normal Mode, which is probably what most are driving around in day-to-day. Normal seems to be the best for around town driving. It will upshift to keep RPMs low when power demand is low, and downshift to get you into the power band when needed. From my experience, it tends to sit between 1.5k-2k RPMs unless there is low or high demand. There are times that I wish Normal Mode would switch over to full electric when it doesn't though. This could be due to battery charge level, but it is hard to tell since Ford didn't give us a good way to find out what the current state of charge is. I've found though that for my normal commute and most short trips, this is the best mode to be in for fuel economy though.

If you haven't already, turn on EV Coach in MyView and watch it, as well as monitoring the Power Flow screen. The only way I've found to get an idea of battery charge level is in EV Coach. I have a few downhill stretches on my way to work where I can actually get the battery fully charged with regenerative braking. I know this because the green band will begin to shrink, and eventually get down to nothing. If the text is green, you're in regenerative braking only. If it switches to white, you are using regenerative + hydraulic braking. On the opposite end, I also have a few stretches where I can watch the battery deplete when running fully electric. The light blue bar will slowly shrink as you deplete the battery. Then the engine will kick on and start to charge and provide drive power. I have found that it is possible to get going in fully EV mode, but you better be headed downhill and have no one behind you to do so. I have made it from 0-35 MPH under full electric, but it is difficult. If you can get the truck to shift out of 1st without the engine coming on, you have a shot. This means you need to get up to about 10 MPH gently. I think if Normal mode wouldn't skip 2nd gear, this would be easier for people, and also less harsh in shifting. I've found that the roughest shifts tend to be when the engine kicks on right as it is shifting to 3rd and the gear engages right as the engine kicks in. Fortunately, my truck/transmission has learned my habits well and it isn't nearly as bad as it was at first. If you're having rough shifts, watching EV coach can help as you'll see right when the engine is about to come on.

With respect to braking and regenerative charging, I have one complaint. I have found that how well it slows/stops your truck is related to what gear it is in. If you want to maximize your charging, try to get the truck to downshift to a lower gear to brake. It will slow you down a little more effectively and charge the battery faster. Unfortunately, it is hard to get it to do this in practice. I wish there were a more linear feel to regenerative braking too. It is very quick to stop in gears 1-3, ok in 4-6, and barely does anything in 7-10. I've also found that just coasting does little to provide charge to the battery. I could coast for ¼ mi and that would provide less charge than braking for 100-200 ft (@ 100% energy return). It helps, but it is minimal.

I've also found, just recently with the hurricane/tropical storm passing through, that running in 4A affects full electric and regenerative braking. I expected the full electric change, but not the regenerative braking. What I found is that when braking with 4A enabled (and presumably 4H & 4L), the truck will engage the hydraulic brakes for several seconds first. If you continue braking, it will then switch over to regenerative braking and act normally until you let off the brakes and apply them again. I have seen that people reported no regenerative braking in the Slippery drive mode, and I would guess that this may actually be the behavior that they are seeing. I am assuming they do this because if you are not in 2H mode, there is a chance for poor traction. In order to avoid potential wheel lockup, it starts by applying the hydraulic brakes first, and if it sees wheel slip, it can then use ABS. After a brief period, it will then switch over to regenerative braking.

What I think the sweet spot is for driving is 35-40 MPH. It seems to be easiest to get into full electric mode at these speeds and stay there for long periods. Between 40-45 MPH, it will still switch over, but is much less willing to do so, and it is also harder to maintain those speeds if you are in full electric. Obviously, slower is better as far as operating time, but I feel like I'm crawling when I'm going 30 MPH or less. Over 45 MPH, I really only see fully electric when slowing down or braking, and then the coasting time before speeding up again. It is very hard to speed up faster if you're already at 45 MPH or higher and trying to stay in electric mode. Your only hope is a downhill grade.

With regards to the temperature gauges, since I have seen it mentioned a few times that you get better fuel economy at full operating temperatures, I have determined when the gauges thinks it is "normal". For the engine coolant temperature, it will get to the middle of the sweep at 180°F, and it seems from what I have seen that normal operating temperature is somewhere between 190-195°F. For the transmission though, it will reach the center of the gauge at 150°F, but it has roughly the same operating temperature from what I have seen, maybe a few degrees warmer at most. This means that your transmission can have huge temperature swings with no change in the gauge. If you haven't enabled the actual temperature readings below the gauges in Forscan, it is a great option. I have not tried to see when the temperature goes over the center and starts rising again, and I honestly hope I never do, but if I do see it, I'll add that info later.

Now, for my fuel economy based on the drives I have made. The long highway trips I have averaged ~24 MPG even based on the display, and full electric miles have been minimal (<10% of total miles). For my normal drive, I am getting anywhere from 29-31 MPG on my way too work as I have fewer red lights, traffic, and more downhill travel, and I am getting anywhere from 40-50% fully electric miles there. That is 5-6 fully electric miles for a 13 mile trip. Coming home is a slightly longer route to avoid one steep hill by my house that I use to my advantage on my way to work. It is a 14 mile trip, I tend to get 4-5 fully electric miles, and my average MPG is anywhere from 20-24 MPG, usually between 22-23 MPG. It all depends on traffic, red lights, and how fast/slow the people in front of me are going. As annoying as it is, there are times now I don't mind being stuck behind slow traffic just for the MPG gains. I have only had long distance fill ups so far, but my average MPG was off by <5% for the long highway trips when calculated by hand, which is pretty good IMO. I haven't had a fill up yet with just my normal work commute, but I would imagine it would be similarly accurate. My overall average since I got my truck has been hovering right around 24 MPG, which is the EPA combined rating.

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[Sentinel1201]

Very good observations and thoughtful recollection. Nice job, welcome on board.

 

[Toadkillerdog]

Thanks for that drive report. Really useful!

 

[Margaret]

Wow thanks for putting in so much time into this!! I will refer to this often asn I learn to drive this think lol.

 

[imnuts]

I'm now up to ~3500 miles and the weather is slowly getting cooler around here. I have some additional information to add.

It seems that electric only mode is reserved for when the engine temperature is at least 120F. The engine will continue running until it is up to that temp, though it will stay in electric only mode if the temperature drops below. One thing that I've found that I don't like is how much longer it takes to get up to operating temperature in cooler weather. In warmer temps, it would be roughly 5-10 minutes to get up to 190F, and it would pretty much stay there. With the cooler temps, the coolest day (mid-40s), my truck was still barely at 190F when I got to work after a 25 min drive. Granted, the fuel economy barely suffered, and some of that was due to electric driving that the temperature was cooling off, but still somewhat concerns me that the truck could see large temperature swings in cold weather.

With temperatures, I've found that I tend to get the best fuel economy between 70-80F, especially if it is not completely sunny outside. I'm not too surprised at that, as the other vehicles that I've driving see the same thing. Warmer doesn't affect things significantly, maybe 5%. So far, it hasn't been consistently colder to see how it does. As mentioned, I haven't seen a huge drop off in my fuel economy going to work on cooler mornings, I am still seeing 28-31 MPG as I was before. A few of those mornings included using the seat heaters and the heated steering wheel.

For regenerative braking, I have found that the regenerative braking will not engage if the engine is powering the drivetrain. At least, it does seem that way based on a few recent experiences. I had a few instances where the engine was sending power to the wheels and I went to brake quickly. Regenerative braking did not start until the engine had shut down. I feel like under normal situations, it isn't noticeable, but if you have to stop quickly, it's easier to notice on the EV Coach display.

I haven't really noticed a big change in fuel economy as time and miles pass either. It is slightly better, but nothing that I would say is significant. I feel like environmental factors and minor changes in how I drive are more to explain on it versus the truck getting more efficient. That said, I'm still impressed by the fuel economy.

 

[Oxford_Powerboost]

For regenerative braking, I have found that the regenerative braking will not engage if the engine is powering the drivetrain. At least, it does seem that way based on a few recent experiences. I had a few instances where the engine was sending power to the wheels and I went to brake quickly. Regenerative braking did not start until the engine had shut down. I feel like under normal situations, it isn't noticeable, but if you have to stop quickly, it's easier to notice on the EV Coach display.

I was watching a video on I think an escape hybrid, and those actually show you kW from the electric motor (pos or neg for regen). Every time he would brake normally you’d see some negative kW at the electric motor. Once in video, he did a “brake test” and slammed on them. It read 0kW the whole time. I’m wondering if under hard braking the vehicle is just prioritizing getting you stopped instead of messing with regen, blending brakes, cutting the engine on and off, etc. It could also be leaving the engine on in case you need to make another quick maneuver? Anyways - thanks for the update. I always like to read these and watch videos as a stop-gap to being able to drive my own lol. Hopefully soon, due at dealer any day now

 

[imnuts]

I meant to have this in the previous post I made but forgot about it when typing it up.

There are several posts, mostly in the towing sub-forum, about locking out 8-9-10 gears to stay out of boost. There were a few highway trips that I made where I had the opportunity to test this out to see what was best for fuel economy. I did this based on the instantaneous gauge and watching the boost gauge. I can't get specific boost readings since the cluster boost gauge doesn't give it, so the boost listed is just an estimate.

So, from my driving, if you are in boost in 8-9-10, it can be advantageous to downshift, but not always. I did mention this briefly in the original post but didn't have specifics. So, if you see the truck starting to build boost, wait until boost levels off. If you are getting ~1-2 PSI, down shifting to the lower gear is not going to save you anything. This is when boost is just registering on the gauge. I'm estimating that 1-2 PSI based on 20 PSI being full scale. If you start getting higher boost, you'll notice the instantaneous fuel economy gauge drop further and if you go down a gear, it should help you out. The 3-4 PSI range it is still almost a wash with getting better fuel economy from the lower gear, but 5+ PSI you should definitely see an improvement.

This will likely hold true for the standard 3.5 EcoBoost as well, but I don't have one of them to confirm. I also can't promise that this will work in towing situations as I have only done this while cruising on a long highway trip with mostly no cargo. I would think though that the same will hold true for towing, and you may see some additional benefit at the lower boost pressures in those instances given the higher power demands.

 

[don.mullins]

I meant to have this in the previous post I made but forgot about it when typing it up.

There are several posts, mostly in the towing sub-forum, about locking out 8-9-10 gears to stay out of boost. There were a few highway trips that I made where I had the opportunity to test this out to see what was best for fuel economy. I did this based on the instantaneous gauge and watching the boost gauge. I can't get specific boost readings since the cluster boost gauge doesn't give it, so the boost listed is just an estimate.

So, from my driving, if you are in boost in 8-9-10, it can be advantageous to downshift, but not always. I did mention this briefly in the original post but didn't have specifics. So, if you see the truck starting to build boost, wait until boost levels off. If you are getting ~1-2 PSI, down shifting to the lower gear is not going to save you anything. This is when boost is just registering on the gauge. I'm estimating that 1-2 PSI based on 20 PSI being full scale. If you start getting higher boost, you'll notice the instantaneous fuel economy gauge drop further and if you go down a gear, it should help you out. The 3-4 PSI range it is still almost a wash with getting better fuel economy from the lower gear, but 5+ PSI you should definitely see an improvement.

This will likely hold true for the standard 3.5 EcoBoost as well, but I don't have one of them to confirm. I also can't promise that this will work in towing situations as I have only done this while cruising on a long highway trip with mostly no cargo. I would think though that the same will hold true for towing, and you may see some additional benefit at the lower boost pressures in those instances given the higher power demands.

I have never heard about locking out 8th - I believe that is the 1:1 ratio gear. I lock out 9-10 and let it top out in 8th while towing myself.

 

[JerseyGlock]

I'm now up to ~3500 miles and the weather is slowly getting cooler around here. I have some additional information to add.

It seems that electric only mode is reserved for when the engine temperature is at least 120F. The engine will continue running until it is up to that temp, though it will stay in electric only mode if the temperature drops below. One thing that I've found that I don't like is how much longer it takes to get up to operating temperature in cooler weather. In warmer temps, it would be roughly 5-10 minutes to get up to 190F, and it would pretty much stay there. With the cooler temps, the coolest day (mid-40s), my truck was still barely at 190F when I got to work after a 25 min drive. Granted, the fuel economy barely suffered, and some of that was due to electric driving that the temperature was cooling off, but still somewhat concerns me that the truck could see large temperature swings in cold weather.

With temperatures, I've found that I tend to get the best fuel economy between 70-80F, especially if it is not completely sunny outside. I'm not too surprised at that, as the other vehicles that I've driving see the same thing. Warmer doesn't affect things significantly, maybe 5%. So far, it hasn't been consistently colder to see how it does. As mentioned, I haven't seen a huge drop off in my fuel economy going to work on cooler mornings, I am still seeing 28-31 MPG as I was before. A few of those mornings included using the seat heaters and the heated steering wheel.

For regenerative braking, I have found that the regenerative braking will not engage if the engine is powering the drivetrain. At least, it does seem that way based on a few recent experiences. I had a few instances where the engine was sending power to the wheels and I went to brake quickly. Regenerative braking did not start until the engine had shut down. I feel like under normal situations, it isn't noticeable, but if you have to stop quickly, it's easier to notice on the EV Coach display.

I haven't really noticed a big change in fuel economy as time and miles pass either. It is slightly better, but nothing that I would say is significant. I feel like environmental factors and minor changes in how I drive are more to explain on it versus the truck getting more efficient. That said, I'm still impressed by the fuel economy.

It is well known if you want heat and or defrost, engine will need to be running to generate heat. Unless they have some kind of heating element to heat up air or coolant. Coming from Lexus and Toyota hybrids, I do miss electric ac compressor. No drive belts.

 

[Oxford_Powerboost]

It is well known if you want heat and or defrost, engine will need to be running to generate heat. Unless they have some kind of heating element to heat up air or coolant. Coming from Lexus and Toyota hybrids, I do miss electric ac compressor. No drive belts.

I’m almost positive our A/C compressor is electric? I know it works in the summer when the engine is off

 

[daemonic3]

I have never heard about locking out 8th - I believe that is the 1:1 ratio gear. I lock out 9-10 and let it top out in 8th while towing myself.

7th gear is 1:1 and 8-10 are overdrive. But I'm one of the ones that reported back about locking out 8th if you are getting consistent boost. It does a fantastic job of optimizing mpg towing!

I did a lot of california central valley flat freeways (sacramento to malibu over thanksgiving) and had a lot of fun managing my gears and using Normal mode to occasionally get electric miles. Sometimes on flats going 60-61 8th would be boost and sometimes it wasn't. I think just the slightest winds can tip the scales on whether locking out 8th helps. I was having fun constantly managing over/underpasses and also rolling hills through LA, letting it enter 9th and 10th even on slight downhills and getting most of my climbing inefficiencies back. All my legs were between 10.3 and 11.2mpg's.

The lifetime on this trailer is 10.6mpg's so far. Trailer is an Imagine 2500RL (GVWR 7995#). Makes a big difference knowing I can stretch to 300 miles on one fillup, since 300 is generally about our daily limit we can tolerate. With the 36gal tank it wasn't as important.

 

[JerseyGlock]

I’m almost positive our A/C compressor is electric? I know it works in the summer when the engine is off

You are correct, one belt for water pump and one belt for starter motor.

 

[imnuts]

With winter here, and the ability to monitor battery data via OBDII, I've been trying to figure out the charging parameters for the hybrid system a little more. So far, it seems that regenerative braking is unavailable until the transmission temperature is >60F. The batteries can still charge, but it is via the engine running only. The truck also will not go into full electric mode until the transmission is >60F and the engine coolant temp is >110F. Sometimes, coolant needs to be >120F, but I have not been able to determine what makes it warm up the engine more on one day to go to full electric versus others. Battery coolant temperature does not seem to play a factor in the ability to charge or go into full electric mode from what I have seen.

The only thing that I think is limited is charge/discharge rate until the hybrid battery warms up some. The maximum amperage the system seems to be capable of is ~110-120A, either charging or discharging. It is very hard to get max charging without using traditional braking, and also hard to get max discharge without the system kicking over from full electric to hybrid mode. In colder temperatures, charging/discharging does seem to be limited to a lower amperage. First start when the truck is cold seems to be maybe 20-40A at most until things start to warm up. I haven't had a chance to fully review the logs I have yet to see what parameters limit this, but if I do find it, I'll add it in a future update.

Speaking of charging, I monitored my truck when in 4A and Normal drive mode as well to see what the difference was there. The truck seems to limit regenerative braking when in 4A, regardless of drive mode. It isn't limited to just the Slippery drive mode setting. I'm not sure why, but the system only allows for limited regen charging. It also seems to limit the battery charge percentage when in 4A, unless you are in Sport mode. In the drive's I've monitored things, 4A seems to kill almost all charging at a 50% SOC on the hybrid battery. You can get it higher, but barely. The truck seemed to only allow regen braking <50% SOC, and would only continue to charge >50% if you were coasting in full electric mode. I'm not sure why it limits things in this manner, and I doubt we'd ever get something from Ford either.

I also had a very brief moment of tracking stats while in Sport drive mode. Despite 4A limiting charging for the rest of my drive to ~50%, as soon as I switched over to Sport mode, the engine kicked on and started charging the battery pack. It also seemed to keep charging even under some light load when driving. I didn't see where it ultimately stopped charging as I wasn't in Sport long enough, but I went from 50% SOC to 65% SOC in about half a mile of driving, with some power being used to accelerate since I was going uphill for a portion of it. It would seem that Sport mode will try to keep the battery towards the top of the charge range unless you need the added torque.

 

[HammaMan]

Sport mode will try to keep the battery towards the top of the charge range unless you need the added torque.

You should find that sport mode turns the truck's logic into that of an auto start/stop engine combined with more aggressive downshifts to keep the powerband at hand. It will only shut off the ICE when stopped.

 

[Aron]

7th gear is 1:1 and 8-10 are overdrive. But I'm one of the ones that reported back about locking out 8th if you are getting consistent boost. It does a fantastic job of optimizing mpg towing!

I did a lot of california central valley flat freeways (sacramento to malibu over thanksgiving) and had a lot of fun managing my gears and using Normal mode to occasionally get electric miles. Sometimes on flats going 60-61 8th would be boost and sometimes it wasn't. I think just the slightest winds can tip the scales on whether locking out 8th helps. I was having fun constantly managing over/underpasses and also rolling hills through LA, letting it enter 9th and 10th even on slight downhills and getting most of my climbing inefficiencies back. All my legs were between 10.3 and 11.2mpg's.

The lifetime on this trailer is 10.6mpg's so far. Trailer is an Imagine 2500RL (GVWR 7995#). Makes a big difference knowing I can stretch to 300 miles on one fillup, since 300 is generally about our daily limit we can tolerate. With the 36gal tank it wasn't as important.

I hooked up my 6500 lb trailer for the first time this weekend, for a total of about ~200 miles of towing, mostly in the 45-60 mph range over flat or low rolling terrain. I spent most of that time in Tow/Haul mode (roughly 11mpg), but tried towing in Normal mode a bit to see how that would improve mpg in the flat stretches. Surprisingly, mpg seemed to go down a bit using Normal mode (averaging down from 11.3 to 10.8, and then the same thing the next day before I stopped the experiment). Both modes were locking out gears 8-10. Has this been anybody else's experience? It seems counter-intuitive that always leaving the ICE on but waiting longer to shift would actually be more fuel efficient.

I need to do more testing before I'm confident that this is the case, but in my VERY limited sample, it seemed to play out both times.

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