Concur. I too went from a 2005 5.4L XLT Supercab w/ tow pkg and 145" WB to a 2014 EcoBoost XLT supercab w/ Max Tow and HD pkg and 163" WB. The new truck gets .5 to 1.5 better gas mileage in every mode, be it city, highway, or towing. And I have a 200+ pound topper on the truck, as well as carry 2 honda 2K generators, extra gas as well as an air compressor plus other stuff. I do not tow light. I'm quite happy with the performance so far. And the power difference is night and day different.

I also notice a big difference if I'm towing at 65 mph compared to 60 mph. And I'm sure 70 mph really eats into mileage.

 

pulling a 20' v-nosed enclosed trailer on Midwest flat interstate: I traded (mistake) my 2014 F250 diesel which got 16.8mpg towing for a 2014 F150 eco that gets 6.7mpg towing same trailer that is tipping scales under 5,800lb. for the last trip to Indy, I decided to save some money and tow with my 40' diesel motorcoach that got 9.8 mpg towing and has a kitchen.


The ecoboost motor is an overhyped joke. 12k on the odometer, it gets driven quite passively and has NEVER seen over 13.5 mpg average on a tank of fuel, EVER. Hade a v10 Excursion that got 16 mpg no matter what it was doing. A 6 cyl that gets 13 mpg is a ripoff plain and simple.

 

. Sounds like something is wrong with that engine?

 

I would think the same thing. My 4x4 crew cab gets 21 hwy mpg if if I take it easy.

 

The engine is not an overhyped joke. I have no clue why yours is doing as poorly as it is, but mine is certainly much, much better.

Recently, I got 18.9, not towing, and it's a 3.73 rear end, HD pkg, 163" wheel base truck. It gets 10.5 mpg towing a 4990# trailer.

As I said, you have a truck that has issues of some sort.

 

I had a 2006, 2WD F-150 supercab, 5.4L, tow pkg and 3.73 gearing with an Edge Evolution programmer set to tow mode, a cat back exhaust, cold air intake and had the transmission rebuilt with heavy duty clutch pack and shift kit. Towing my 9500 to 10,000 lb toyhauler I would get 8 MPG and it was a real dog in the hills of northern and eastern AZ. Not towing and on flat ground at freeway speeds the best I could hope for was 16 MPG and in town mixed driving was 14.

I traded it on a new 2014 4x4 Supercrew Ecoboost, 3.55 electronic locker, tow pkg and towing the same toyhauler on its first trip with only 700 miles on the truck got 8.5 MPG on the trip up and 9.5 on the trip back down, a little over 300 miles total. It also towed like a Monster, passing other vehicles at random even uphill and I never dropped below 50 MPH in 4th gear or went over 3500 RPM. Most of the trip up to 7700 feet elevation was in 6th gear at only 1600 RPM at 60 MPH!
Not towing I have been averaging 17-19 MPG in mixed driving so I am very happy with it so far. I am told it will improve slightly but I am happy with it just the way it is.

 

As a guy who races bicycles and does time trials I can say that if you want to double your speed, you need to make 8 times as much power.
So if it take 25 hp to move whatever you have through the air at 40mph, its going to take roughly 200hp at 80mph.
Pushing air means everything in regards to fuel economy.

 

. As an engineer, I can tell you it takes 4 times as much power...

 

Nope. Your forgetting that speed is cubed.
As a guy that races bicycles, this has been imprinted in my brain for the last 30 years.
Power is proportional to the cube of speed. Every track cyclist has been taught this since the 1920's.

 

. Well then you've been taught wrong for 95 years... but that's common for lay people... and you have the formula backwards, as well... speed is proportional to the square of power... that's because wind resistance is based on area in square feet...

 

Google is your friend here.
They guys that taught us were aeronautical engineers......you are forgetting the factor of x2.
I googled this and found a thousand articles that support it. So I believe I was taught correctly. Although they were just engineers...

Aerodynamics and Drag ? Krossblade Aerospace Systems

https://books.google.ca/books?id=doI...0times&f=false

Known drag, how much horsepower and cd? - Aerodynamic engineering - Eng-Tips

 

The power needed is proportional to the cube of speed. Gas or liquid.

 

. None of your links worked... but I found this chart of car speed vs HP required:


http://www.pugheaven.co.uk/When%20a%...esistances.htm



<table style="mso-cellspacing: 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 1.5pt 1.5pt 1.5pt 1.5pt;" border="1" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]SPE30ED (MPH)[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]FLYWHEEL POWER
REQUIRED<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]30[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]5[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]60[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]19[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]80[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]38[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]100[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]69[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]110[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]90[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]120[/COLOR][************]<o></o>[/COLOR]
</td><td style="padding: 1.5pt;">[************]114[/COLOR]

</td></tr></tbody></table>

 

. For 30 MPH, ~5 HP needed... for doubling to 60 MPH then 4 times as much or ~20 HP needed, chart says ~19... (sorry the chart didn't come out well and it wouldn't delete, but the numbers are there)... and you're seldom going over 60 MPH on a bicycle...

 

I copied this right from your link.

As a simplification therefore we can say that power required is closely related to mph cubed - i.e. to double the speed of a vehicle we need 8 times the engine power.

This is about an object moving through air or fluid. I understand the point you are trying to make about the amount of work being doubled and the formula you are using. And that would work in space. But here on earth moving through the air requires the speed to be cubed. I found a great link that explains this fully.

Aerodynamic Drag - The Physics Hypertextbook

Here is a bit from the article.

Thus, if drag is proportional to the square of speed, then the power needed to overcome that drag is proportional to the cube of speed (P ∝ v3). You want to ride your bicycle twice as fast, you'll have to be eight times more powerful. This is why motorcycles are so much faster than bicycles.