Acceleration of a FFE

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0 to 60 is suppose to be 10 seconds. But the car feels faster than this under some conditions. I think dissabling the traction control may improve acceleration. I have not tried this yet to see if this helps. It seems to me the acceleration seem stronger if you step on it once the car is already moving.
 
jeffand said:
0 to 60 is suppose to be 10 seconds. But the car feels faster than this under some conditions. I think dissabling the traction control may improve acceleration. I have not tried this yet to see if this helps. It seems to me the acceleration seem stronger if you step on it once the car is already moving.
Edmunds did a bunch of roads tests with the 2012 FFE:

http://www.edmunds.com/ford/focus/2012/road-test-specs4.html

In short, they clocked 0-60 mph at 9.6 seconds with traction control disabled; 9.7 seconds with it enabled. They also said that D or L made no difference to acceleration results.

That all jibes with my experience (with my 2013 FFE, after nearly 2.5 years of driving). IMO, the car really doesn't behave any differently in D or L or with traction control on or off. There is no magical "acceleration unlocker", unfortunately.

About the only thing I have noticed is that, if you "pulse" the accelerator once and slightly (to get going from a stop) and THEN floor it, it can "sometimes" make the acceleration feel a little more powerful. I don't know if it is really accelerating more quickly or not.

Where the car really shines, though, is accelerating from about 20 mph to about 50 mph. The thing just darts at those speeds, in ways that I imagine other drivers might think, "Whoa, did you see what that Focus just did?". :)
 
I agree about the 20-50 MPH acceleration. It's pretty easy to chirp the tires from a stop which slows down your rate of acceleration.
 
I think the torque is limited from 0-20mph and therefore you get a much stronger pull from 20-60mph. I think the low rolling resistance tires don't hook up well and if you had full bore and traction you'd get into the 8-9 second territory.

I Love the blast from 20-60 but if i get in my Passat 3.6 with 285hp then you get a much bigger seat of the pants blast from 20-60mph.

Tesla CPO puts you in a 5 second 2012 car for $60K now. Double the money, double the speed!!! :lol:
 
Lithium said:
I Love the blast from 20-60 but if i get in my Passat 3.6 with 285hp then you get a much bigger seat of the pants blast from 20-60mph.
Gasoline cars no longer impress me in any way. The can be big and powerful and fast, but they just plain sound old-fashioned, puttering and vibrating along, making smells. I find myself hearing "engine roar" as simply annoying and obnoxious now.
 
Gasoline cars no longer impress me in any way. The can be big and powerful and fast, but they just plain sound old-fashioned, puttering and vibrating along, making smells. I find myself hearing "engine roar" as simply annoying and obnoxious now.

LOL! Same here. And there is something to having that sudden turn of speed with no sound that makes it seem so much more sudden and exhilarating than when you can Hear it.
 
WattsUp said:
Lithium said:
I Love the blast from 20-60 but if i get in my Passat 3.6 with 285hp then you get a much bigger seat of the pants blast from 20-60mph.
Gasoline cars no longer impress me in any way. The can be big and powerful and fast, but they just plain sound old-fashioned, puttering and vibrating along, making smells. I find myself hearing "engine roar" as simply annoying and obnoxious now.
Rogerschro said:
Gasoline cars no longer impress me in any way. The can be big and powerful and fast, but they just plain sound old-fashioned, puttering and vibrating along, making smells. I find myself hearing "engine roar" as simply annoying and obnoxious now.

LOL! Same here. And there is something to having that sudden turn of speed with no sound that makes it seem so much more sudden and exhilarating than when you can Hear it.
I agree completely!!! Great way to put it.
 
For my job i quite often need to rent cars. I had an incident while trying to merge on to the freeway. Traffic was heavy and vehicle is bearing down on me. So I step on it to try and merge into traffic, and nothing happens. The vehicle is trying to down shift two gears and rev up the engine. This was taking forever to happen, and the thought of something really bad was about to happen. Then the transmission finaly found a gear it liked, and the car accelerated in a non impressive way. With an electric car this is not a problem because of it's single speed gear box.
 
hybridbear said:
WattsUp said:
Lithium said:
I Love the blast from 20-60 but if i get in my Passat 3.6 with 285hp then you get a much bigger seat of the pants blast from 20-60mph.
Gasoline cars no longer impress me in any way. The can be big and powerful and fast, but they just plain sound old-fashioned, puttering and vibrating along, making smells. I find myself hearing "engine roar" as simply annoying and obnoxious now.
Rogerschro said:
Gasoline cars no longer impress me in any way. The can be big and powerful and fast, but they just plain sound old-fashioned, puttering and vibrating along, making smells. I find myself hearing "engine roar" as simply annoying and obnoxious now.

LOL! Same here. And there is something to having that sudden turn of speed with no sound that makes it seem so much more sudden and exhilarating than when you can Hear it.
I agree completely!!! Great way to put it.

So, at the risk of perhaps being completely ostracized from this forum, I'm going to disagree with this.....I find driving an electric car to be very sterile, almost "video-game" like, if that makes sense. I get in, I push a button, then push the pedal and steer. That's it. No involvement at all in the driving experience. Call me old school, but I still love the roar of a properly tuned V8 engine, the smell of gasoline and unburned hydro-carbons (plenty of that from my old Buick, LOL!!), I still celebrate the perfectly executed heel and toe downshift (yes, I still drive cars with manual transmissions). I am strongly considering an electric car simply because it seems to make financial sense. I am not planning to get rid of either my BMW (a complete blast to drive, but only 20 mpg), or my old Buick (gotta love that old muscle car feel). And, I doubt I will ever get rid of them, or cars like them. I will always have a fun car, likely with an ICE, that I will drive when I want to enjoy driving. I will use the EV for when I need to get from one point to another with the least cost and involvement.

Let the flaming begin.......... :D :D :D

Keith

PS - looking at some of the signatures of some other forum members, I'm thinking I may not be alone with this opinion......we'll see!
 
campfamily said:
So, at the risk of perhaps being completely ostracized from this forum, I'm going to disagree with this.....I find driving an electric car to be very sterile, almost "video-game" like, if that makes sense. I get in, I push a button, then push the pedal and steer. That's it. No involvement at all in the driving experience. Call me old school, but I still love the roar of a properly tuned V8 engine, the smell of gasoline and unburned hydro-carbons (plenty of that from my old Buick, LOL!!), I still celebrate the perfectly executed heel and toe downshift (yes, I still drive cars with manual transmissions). I am strongly considering an electric car simply because it seems to make financial sense. I am not planning to get rid of either my BMW (a complete blast to drive, but only 20 mpg), or my old Buick (gotta love that old muscle car feel). And, I doubt I will ever get rid of them, or cars like them. I will always have a fun car, likely with an ICE, that I will drive when I want to enjoy driving. I will use the EV for when I need to get from one point to another with the least cost and involvement.
No flames from me. I totally get this. An EV with the motor directly connected to the axle (like in the FFE to some degree) has even less "feel"/complications than an automatic transmission. Its hard to say that there is "even less for the driver to do" but there is "less for the driver to feel". It feels to me very much like driving a CVT car around (except for the ICE noise in the CVT car).

We are rapidly approaching the point were there will be no drivers and EVs will probably be a bigger part of that picture than an ICE vehicle. At that point it will be completely sterile to you: just put in your destination and sit back; the car will take you there.

Having said all that I just love driving the FFE around. The silence and simplicity to me just makes it feel like a much more sophisticated car. In addition all the tech in the dash and display speaks to the geek in me... So far my FFE has been my most favorite vehicle I've ever had.
 
campfamily said:
So, at the risk of perhaps being completely ostracized from this forum, I'm going to disagree with this.....I find driving an electric car to be very sterile, almost "video-game" like, if that makes sense. I get in, I push a button, then push the pedal and steer. That's it. No involvement at all in the driving experience. Call me old school, but I still love the roar of a properly tuned V8 engine, the smell of ....
I'm sure the stream locomotive engineers felt the same way when their time came as well.

With those new-fangled diesel-electric locomotives, they just pushed a button and that's it. No coal to shovel. No valves to adjust. No involvement with managing the stream pressure from moment to moment. No "feel".

Well, good riddance, I say. ;)
 
campfamily said:
So, at the risk of perhaps being completely ostracized from this forum, I'm going to disagree with this.....I find driving an electric car to be very sterile, almost "video-game" like, if that makes sense. I get in, I push a button, then push the pedal and steer. That's it. No involvement at all in the driving experience. Call me old school, but I still love the roar of a properly tuned V8 engine, the smell of gasoline and unburned hydro-carbons (plenty of that from my old Buick, LOL!!), I still celebrate the perfectly executed heel and toe downshift (yes, I still drive cars with manual transmissions). I am strongly considering an electric car simply because it seems to make financial sense. I am not planning to get rid of either my BMW (a complete blast to drive, but only 20 mpg), or my old Buick (gotta love that old muscle car feel). And, I doubt I will ever get rid of them, or cars like them. I will always have a fun car, likely with an ICE, that I will drive when I want to enjoy driving. I will use the EV for when I need to get from one point to another with the least cost and involvement.

Let the flaming begin.......... :D :D :D

Keith

PS - looking at some of the signatures of some other forum members, I'm thinking I may not be alone with this opinion......we'll see!
You're certainly welcome to your opinion. I never liked the sound of an ICE. I don't miss my Saabs with the high-pressure turbos because the FFE is very quick off the line too. I love cruising in silence with the windows down in the summer. Cruising in an ICE was never this enjoyable.
 
campfamily said:
Let the flaming begin.......... :D :D :D
No flaming here. I actually think driving the FFE is like something very familiar. It's like driving an electric golf cart except souped up and hot rodded. I even affectionately refer to my FFE as my oversized golf cart! :lol:
I get what you're saying about ICE vehicles though. I won't drive one with an auto tranny. I'm someone of Luddite with my ICE cars though. I want manual everything.
 
I let a friend drive mine and he said "Like a big MB2 car..."

In case you don't know, MB2 has indoor electric go-kart tracks, very fast and fun


http://www.mb2raceway.com/
 
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