With California the most important domestic market for electrified vehicles, it came as no surprise that Ford chose San Francisco and the Northern California coastline as the backdrop for the C-Max Energi Plug-In Hybrid media drive.
The crossover-esque C-Max has been available in Europe since 2003 and comes to our shores for the first time. The C-Max rides on the Focus platform. It’s only available in America in hybrid or plug-in hybrid (PHEV) form.
The standard C-Max hybrid is rated at 47 city / 47 highway miles per gallon (MPG). The C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid uses a larger lithium ion battery to deliver up to 21 miles of pure electric driving, at speeds up to 85 miles per hour, before it switches to conventional hybrid mode.
Can America compete with the best of the European auto manufacturers when it comes to luxury sport utility vehicles that emphasize the Sport aspect of the SUV badge? The 2013 Ford Explorer Sport seeks to answer that question with a definitive “yes.” With the Range Rover Sport HSE as the primary target, Ford’s attack takes a three-pronged approach: price, performance, and fuel-efficiency.
A media drive event on the streets of New York City? We’re game! Earlier this year, I took part in the Ford Focus Electric first drive, traveling over a relatively short route in Midtown Manhattan. Yesterday’s 2013 Chevy Spark media drive took it to a whole new level, as we ventured out of Manhattan into Brooklyn in a fleet of tiny Sparks on a scavenger hunt for scents, sights, and sounds.
Some bloggers would rather tell you about the way that Chevy is marketing the Spark or go ga-ga about the cool places we visited. I’ll forgo the millennial-bashing and simply lay out the route.
The 2013 Acura ILX is positioned as the new entry to the Acura brand, and is priced under the TSX. I was able to spend a day driving all three ILX variants – the Hybrid, the 2.4-liter manual, and the 2.0-liter base – at the ILX launch event in New York state.
I started off with a run up the Saw Mill Parkway in an ILX Hybrid, which is EPA rated at 39 city / 38 highway miles per gallon (MPG) and had no problem easing through the mid forty MPG range within the first half an hour of driving.
