My old Saturn does it much worse than my Prius does - though I rarely drive this way. Cracking the front windows reduces the sound quite a bit.
I have a 2010 and I love it. No GPS since I bought it at a time of great anxiety at work, but would get one now. Not that I need it - I can find my way to work without it and my Android Google Maps GPS works fine.
I drive in dreadful traffic, but get 37 - 40 mpg standard. Much higher when I do highway driving. I got about 50 from Mendocino to the Bay area which includes climbing up some steep hills. It is sure nice to cut down on gas use.
The only negative is that some people appear to think Prius owners are wimps. However the acceleration is great (at the cost of mileage) and it has an excellent turning radius, which I found to my surprise on the test drive.
And I love the charts also. It does train you to save gas.
Was reading something the other day that stated that while Ford has a slightly worse than industry average on car problems and reliability, most of it centers around the MyFordTouch system. So if you’re not heavy into that, it should be less of an issue.
I’ve gotten more detail about the CU report now.
The poor score was based on the question of people who reported problems. The MyFordTouch system glitches had a lot of people reporting problems. No problems with anything else. That’s been CU’s ding on Ford for a while now. I’d report my plug cover freezing over once too but I’d hardly think that it marks the car as unreliable.
Other scores: Owner Satisfaction i.e. how people answered “Considering all factors (price, performance, reliability, comfort, enjoyment, etc.), would you get this car if you had to do it all over again?” 1-2-3 of the hybrids and EVs were the Tesla, the Volt, and the C-Max Energi.
Did the test drive today on the c-max energi. I kinda liked it. I do like the Sync stuff even if all the bugs are worked out yet. The Nav system is much more advanced than the much higher end Audi and Benz vehicles we have checked out (my wife is also getting a new ride).
The braking was a little weird but sure I’ll get used to it. I was hitting 90-100 on the efficient braking score.
One thing I wasn’t clear on was when the monitor said “EV”, “EV+” and blank? Blank probably meant hybrid mode, EV means battery only, and EV+? Any feedback you have on this would be good.
Also, is it true that the energi depletes the storage battery first, then goes into EV mode with the EV battery? The regenerative breaking recharges the hybrid mode battery (and not the EV battery).
Blank is the ICE running. EV is the EV running exclusively without the ICE contributing. In hybrid mode it will alternate between them as well as run blended. EV+ is a feature in which the car learns places that it gets charged at and when close to one of those locations will keep it going in EV mode to a bit deeper of a discharge than it would otherwise with the expectation that it will be plugged in soon - getting that last bit (?3/4ths of a mile?) on all EV.
My understanding is that there is one larger battery (7.6 kWh) that is functionally divided by software to behave as two batteries virtually. One 1.1 kWh section that functions as a regular hybrid battery and the remainder 6.5 kWh section that functions as the storage or plug-in section. When the 6.5 kWh section is depleted it begins using the hybrid battery section and runs it like any hybrid runs its battery keeping it within some range of SOC by variable use of the ICE and electric motor up to and including 100% of either. Regen just charges the battery, fully filling the 1.1 kWh section first and then filling the remaining 6.5 kWh section. Coming home from Maine across the Appalchians using the grade assist on the way down got me up to 4 miles of electricity in the storage battery section … of course I have no doubt it cost that in ICE power and gas getting up in the first place. No free lunch but not letting that energy go to waste.
Good luck making your choice!
So what did you end up getting and how do your like the choice so far?
I don’t know about Chinaguy but I bought a 2011 Camry Hybrid over Thanksgiving and I’m loving it. It’s so QUIET.