The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

How does F-150 trucks get same mileage in city, highway driving?

Car Talk


Dear Car Talk:

My newspaper featured an ad for the 2021 Ford F-150 pickup. The ad said it has an Environmental Protection Agency fuel economy estimate of “24 mpg city/24 highway/24 combined.”

That sounds crazy to me. How can you get the same mileage making all the starts and stops in city driving that you can just flowing down the highway? — Matt

With a hybrid powertrain, Matt.

Those figures are exactly right. Well, they’re exactly what the EPA reports for the hybrid F-150 four-wheel drive under ideal conditions. The two-wheel drive did even better. Your own mileage may vary, as they say. And it almost always varies for the worse. But I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the real world, city mileage in that truck turned out to be better than highway mileage.

Here’s why. The F-150 has a 3.5-liter V6 gasoline engine that’s tuned to work with a 47 hp electric motor.

Around town, the truck makes good use of that battery-powered electric motor, using it for lots of the typical stop-and-go driving that ruins gasoline engine fuel economy.

When you need more power, like when you want to accelerate quickly or if you’re pulling a heavy load, the gasoline engine kicks in, too. But in stop-and-go traffic, the electric motor does a lot of the heavy lifting.

On the highway, things are reversed. You’re primarily using the gasoline engine, with a boost from the electric motor when needed, like when you’re carrying a horse trailer full of in-laws to a family reunion.

If you want to get a general sense of where the hybrid powertrain helps the most, just compare the hybrid F-150 to the regular F-150. A non-hybrid four-wheel drive F-150 with a similar 3.5L V6 gets 18 mpg city (vs. 24 city for the hybrid) and gets 23 mpg highway (vs. 24 highway for the hybrid). So the hybrid improves the highway mileage by about 4% but boosts city mileage by 33%.

The other cool thing about the hybrid F-150 is that it also comes with an AC inverter that lets you use the hybrid battery as a source of electricity when you’re working at a job site. Or if you live in Texas. With the standard 2.4kW inverter that comes with the truck, you can plug in your air compressor, your power washer or your tool chargers. And with the larger, optional 7.2kW inverter, you can plug in your 80-inch OLED TV, your LG French door refrigerator-freezer and your heated hot tub.

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Got a question about cars? Write to Ray in care of King Features, 628 Virginia Drive, Orlando, FL 32803, or email by visiting the Car Talk website at www.cartalk.com.

(c) 2021 by Ray Magliozzi
and Doug Berman
Distributed by King Features
Syndicate, Inc.

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