Quincy Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 Read all about it here! We got a new fuel economy record for a nice piece of American steel! http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/23...d-at-41-mpg/?hp 41mpg City / 36mpg Highway! I would have been pleased if the Fusion Hybrid matched the Toyota Camry Hybrid (33mpg city / 34mpg highway), but the FFH's 41/36 just blew me away. NICE! This basically puts the Fusion Hybrid squarely between the Toyota Prius (48/45) and Camry Hybrid (33/34)-- A worthy challenger to Toyota's offerings. For those who can't get into the Prius's quirky styling but wants fuel economy that approaches that of the iconic Japanese hybrid, I think the Fusion Hybrid is just about perfect. Now if Ford would stop screwing around with the "25,000 per year only" production numbers and start cranking the Fusion Hybrid out en masse! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 Read all about it here! We got a new fuel economy record for a nice piece of American steel! http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/23...d-at-41-mpg/?hp 41mpg City / 36mpg Highway! I would have been pleased if the Fusion Hybrid matched the Toyota Camry Hybrid (33mpg city / 34mpg highway), but the FFH's 41/36 just blew me away. NICE! This basically puts the Fusion Hybrid squarely between the Toyota Prius (48/45) and Camry Hybrid (33/34)-- A worthy challenger to Toyota's offerings. For those who can't get into the Prius's quirky styling but wants fuel economy that approaches that of the iconic Japanese hybrid, I think the Fusion Hybrid is just about perfect. Now if Ford would stop screwing around with the "25,000 per year only" production numbers and start cranking the Fusion Hybrid out en masse! A) they're not making a lot of money on hybrids and they are constrained by battery and transmission supplies (which could probably be fixed if they were making a lot of profit on them). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quincy Posted December 28, 2008 Author Share Posted December 28, 2008 It's a vicious circle.. It's tough to turn a profit on hybrids because of those production constraints due to costs and such. Personally I think Ford should put more PR and marketing effort behind the Fusion Hybrid-- Toyota realized very early on that the only way they will ever make a profit on the Prius is to sell A LOT of them, and they did-- They sold more than a million worldwide in the past 10 years since the Prius was first introduced in 1997. Unless Ford can sell a million Fusion Hybrids like Toyota did with the Prius, this can very well turn out to be of those "we tried but nobody wants it so we are going to kill it" sort of tragedies. :-( 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 It's a vicious circle.. It's tough to turn a profit on hybrids because of those production constraints due to costs and such. Personally I think Ford should put more PR and marketing effort behind the Fusion Hybrid-- Toyota realized very early on that the only way they will ever make a profit on the Prius is to sell A LOT of them, and they did-- They sold more than a million worldwide in the past 10 years since the Prius was first introduced in 1997. Unless Ford can sell a million Fusion Hybrids like Toyota did with the Prius, this can very well turn out to be of those "we tried but nobody wants it so we are going to kill it" sort of tragedies. :-( Ford has already said that they'll be breaking even on hybrids this year, and I think there will be a long wait for a Fusion hybrid, just like the Escape hybrid. They don't need to sell 100k/year although hopefully they'll be able to increase production in following years if the demand is still there. As for PR - I'm sure they were waiting for the official EPA numbers - otherwise they couldn't advertise the MPG ratings. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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