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

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?

A: 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 batterypowered 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