Clark Hewitt likes cars.
He sells cars for a living at Gary Crossley Ford in Liberty. And before he recently bought his 2022 Ford Maverick, he drove a performance car. Something loud, and fast.
But with a 60-mile daily commute and the near-record price of gas around Kansas City, suddenly the hybrid Maverick and its impressive fuel mileage started making more sense.
How many miles per gallon will the Ford Maverick get?
Ford, the EPA, and all the usual suspects say that the 2022 Ford Maverick should get 42 miles per gallon in the city, 33 MPG highway, and 37 MPG combined.
That’s pretty impressive and some people might look at how much they’re saving each week at the gas pump and think that’s pretty good. Clark Hewitt thought that wasn’t good enough.
It kind of makes sense, Clark specializes in selling performance vehicles at Gar Crossley Ford so he often thinks in terms of getting the highest “performance” out of vehicles whether it’s horsepower, acceleration, or the fuel mileage on his latest toy, the Ford Maverick hybrid.
“I started bugging our general manager, Terry Miller, about it because every day I when I get into work I was like, hey, guys I’m getting better fuel mileage than I was the day before,” says Hewitt. “It’s almost like a running joke around here how much I talk about it.”
His 2022 Ford Maverick Hybrid is getting 53 MPG for combined city/highway driving.
That’s something worth talking about, but the truth is he isn’t doing anything special to hack the truck and boost performance.
His Ford Maverick has hacked him.
Hybrid vehicles can operate on just gas, just electric, or both fuels at the same time to give you as much power as you need. The magic trick for boosting fuel milage is for the Maverick to be operating without gas power as often as possible.
“What’s cool about the Maverick is it’s got what’s called the EV Coach, and it shows you when you’re driving in hybrid mode,” says Hewitt.
“The power flow screen on the center console also shows you what’s happening while you’re driving. It takes up the whole display and says hey, you’re using gas power because of normal driving conditions or because you have the AC up to high to run just electric, but usually it will say running gas from normal driving conditions. Then it will switch over to fully electric when it doesn’t need the gas power and work and run on fully electric.”
His Ford Maverick judged him, graded him, and gave him a score that he took as a personal challenge to improve.
“Every single time you start the vehicle until you put it back into park, it tracks your trip. Every time you park the car and shut it off, it tells you this is what you got. That’s also part of the coaching,” says Hewitt.
“When you get to where you’re going it tells you this is how your fuel mileage was during that trip and reminds you of your driving habits and how they reflected on what kind of fuel mileage you got.”
His Ford Maverick’s miles per gallon exploded when he discovered these simple tricks.
If you just get into the new 2022 Ford Maverick and start driving, same as you always have, you’re probably going to get the rated fuel economy, a little under 40 MPG, a little more if you stay off the highway. The Maverick will continue to switch between gas and electric as needed.
By adjusting his driving habits to stay in electric mode, he dramatically reduced his fuel consumption, but that still wasn’t good enough.
That’s when he turned to internet forums, Maverick chatrooms, and YouTube videos to find subtle ways to trick the Maverick to stay in electric mode, even when it wants a hit of the gas.
Spoiler Alert: smash that ECO button early and often.
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