Ford Mondeo "EcoMode"

[Aztec1430]

Hi Guys...
Just learning about my Mondeo

- is EcoMode something I set?
- or something I am just told about? (how environmentally friendly I am being)

The manual is vague, and the onscreen displays on the Mondeo don't seem to be "settable" to any particular value...

It's a 2014 2 litre turbo diesel automatic wagon - so maybe I am just stuck with whatever the computer thinks is good - just seems odd...

Any ideas?

Cheers,
Richard

[AlCan]

Hiya,

Great Question!

Someone else will confirm whether I'm correct or not, but I believe this display isn't for settable options but has a reporting function. I think it tells you, by the number of petals it displays (how cute!) how well it thinks you are doing on each driving trait it lists.

If you lead foot it, drive fast and hard and brake suddenly and fiercely, I guess your petals are gonna fall off.

TBH, I've never paid it any attention, just monitor my instantaneous and cumulative Fuel Consumption figures.

[AlCan]

Goodness Me!

Just looked at mine. 5 petals on each characteristic!

But I had the battery terminal off a couple of days ago and that might have done it.

[Mondaveo]

That's correct, it just rates how economically your recent driving has been based on accelerator and brake inputs. It's pretty easy to achieve 5/5 petals if you can drive at a steady rate without harsh or sudden changes in speed.

It's just one in a long line of greenwashing schemes by manufacturers to make you feel better about economic, environmentally-'friendly' driving, as if motor vehicles aren't entirely detrimental to the environment. For another example, our Mazda 'grows' a virtual tree based on how much fuel you 'save' using the automatic start-stop system

When I was growing up, my uncle had an automatic Falcon from the 80's (XE wagon, red) with a prominent 'economy gauge' where you'd otherwise find the tachonometer is most other trims - really an engine vacuum gauge with the high and low sides annotated 'Economy' and 'Power'. Young me found it fascinating, and I suppose it would give the driver a pretty direct indication on how your driving inputs affect fuel consumption, but to grown-up me it seems laughably pointless. I went looking for a picture of it, and found this example from a random Carsales listing, but I don't remember my uncle's looking like this - I thought the dial was just colour-coded all the way around without numbers. Anyway, it shows the notions of promoting economic driving, in this case quite in-your-face, have been around a long time

[AlCan]

Yeah, thought those flower petals were for the girls.

Ha, that's funny! The Vacuum-Eco gauge.

And it's not even true. At high vacuum, the pumping losses are far higher - the engine becomes a vacuum pump and wastes a lot of energy just pumping the inlet manifold down - so it's efficiency is quite low. Like, at idle, the vaccum is high and the efficiency is effectively zero, since you're not going anywhere.

Which of course is why they brought in Stop/Start, but that seems to be fraught with issues as well. In real city situations, your battery just drains lower and lower and doesn't get fully recharged, so dies much earlier. And those batteries are about twice the price of ordinary ones.

My parents sent me to a professional driving instructor for a few lessons, and I was interested to learn that he encouraged his students to "accelerate briskly" to achieve better fuel economy.

The Hybrid seems to me the best compromise - I'm very impressed with the Priuses, which don't have a normal starter motor at all. They don't have a "gearbox" either, just a single planetary gear set with remains permanently engaged. It's an eCVT, and very clever, the way they work. At stopped and low speeds, when the ICE is running, one electric motor actually runs backwards!

They use one of their two motor-generators (PMSM motor-alternators actually) to start the engine so you don't even hear it, and I've been told they spin the engine at about 1,300 RPM before they start fuelling it, so it has time to get oil pressure up before the bearings start taking any real load. And, since they are using the Traction Battery for the starting, it doesn't drain it very much and gets recharged from the engine and at the next decel.

And, because they have a Traction Battery and a couple of drive motors, they can creep forward in traffic without starting the engine at all.