The Puma’s powertrain has a downsized, turbo three-pot able to shutting off completely when the automobile’s coasting; of deactivating a cylinder when working lean; and of utilizing on a 15bhp, 37lb ft electrical motor to spice up total effectivity, outright efficiency or drivability. It works rather well 99% of the time to hide the technical complexity wanted to realize all that.
It hauls the automobile alongside from lowish revs with spectacular responsiveness and a pleasingly accessible sense of oomph. Perhaps extra importantly, it solely means that you can develop into conscious of the complexity of its working transient in probably the most fleeting moments – generally with a touch of inconsistency in its braking response when you occur to knock the automobile out of substances early when decelerating, or with a barely abrupt take-up of drive simply as you tip into the accelerator pedal. These are issues you’d be more likely to develop into acutely aware of provided that you had been anticipating them, although.
Considering how a lot it plainly does to spice up low-rev torque, saving you from in any other case needed gearchanges, the mild-hybrid system provides way more to the automobile’s total drivability than it detracts.
On a moist check day, the Puma took a two-way common of 10.0sec to hit 60mph from relaxation, a reasonably sturdy if not distinctive displaying. But the truth that it was virtually 7.0sec (or about 40%) faster accelerating from 30mph to 70mph in fourth gear than the 1.0-litre turbocharged Juke we examined beforehand illustrates the distinction made by Ford’s hybrid system.
When pulling from low engine speeds in larger gears, you possibly can really feel the torque it contributes fairly clearly – and, when you watch the tacho needle, you can too really feel the purpose within the rev vary (simply above 4000rpm) when the electrical motor has to change off.
The automobile has a healthy-feeling outright efficiency stage for blended street driving and a brief, nice, well-defined gearshift motion. It’s clean sufficient and as highly effective and steady because it must be, below braking, though it’s simpler to evaluate your preliminary pedal inputs when you’ve realized to squeeze the center pedal solely after you’ve already chosen a decrease gear.
It’s finest to not downshift in the midst of a deceleration section the place you possibly can keep away from it, since doing so interferes barely with the regenerative braking you get from the hybrid system and spoils the preliminary braking response slightly.
The automated gearbox fails to stay as much as the engine. In regular mode, it’s a lot too keen to vary up and too reluctant to kick down, which blunts efficiency if you most want it. Sport mode has the other downside; too wanting to go down by the gears somewhat than let the engine rev by the mid-range. The ‘manual’ mode helps with the timing of gearchanges, however doesn’t like to carry onto your chosen ratio below full energy.
Ford Puma assisted driving notes
The entry-level Titanium Puma has autonomous emergency braking, typical cruise management and lane-keeping help. An non-obligatory Driver Assistance pack brings blindspot warning, cross-traffic alert and visitors jam help methods, amongst others, and provides ‘intelligent’ distance-keeping performance to the cruise management.
The methods are usually tuned in order to be fairly discreet however can, most often, be adjusted for sensitivity and, in some circumstances, deactivated fully. Even in its most delicate setting, the lane-keeping help retains the motive force engaged. However, it didn’t all the time detect the bounds of a motorway lane by roadworks or in unhealthy climate.
It is ready to constantly recognise posted velocity limits and provided a rushing warning however couldn’t adapt the automobile’s set cruise management velocity mechanically. Still, for a £25k automobile, the Puma’s assisted driving performance is pretty intensive and spectacular.