Eric Trytko can tell you first hand. He had the opportunity to spend time with Wayne Gerdes, pilot a Fusion Hybrid on one of the two Washington DC-area routes that the record setting team followed, and drive one of the Fusion Hybrid media cars back to Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.
The experience (and all that time behind the wheel) provided Eric with some interesting insight on the Fusion Hybrid and how it operates in the real world. While he wasn’t able to come anywhere close to the 81.5 mile per gallon (MPG) mark on his one attempt on the event route, Eric was able to easily break the 50 MPG mark. Eric’s real world highway mileage results on the drive back to Michigan provide tangible proof of the Fusion Hybrid’s fuel efficiency while at speed.
In his Ford Fusion Hybrid review, Eric gets down to the details on the car’s interior and delivers unbiased driving impressions. If you’re thinking about buying a new fuel efficient four door sedan, this is a must read.
We’re hoping to put a 2010 Fusion Hybrid to a week long test drive at some point this summer …
How far can you go on one tank of gas? A team of drivers has driven 1445.7 miles on one tank of gas in a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid, averaging a remarkable 81.5 miles per gallon on roads in the Washington DC area. Team members included CleanMPG.com’s Wayne Gerdes, NASCAR driver Carl Edwards (shown below), and four Ford engineers, Sherif Marakby, Gil Portalatin, Tom Rolewicz, and Steve Burke.
The team set out on Sunday morning with a goal of breaking the 1000 mile mark, in an effort to raise funds for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The Fusion Hybrid was a standard production model, running on 87 octane gas. It was not modified for the event. After driving for 69 hours continuously, the tank finally ran dry early this morning. Continue reading →
We’ve just spent a week’s time with a 2009 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid. When the big SUV crept out of the driveway for the last time earlier today, I was still trying to get my head around the target market. While the Tahoe Hybrid delivers significantly improved fuel economy over the conventional version, it does so at a price. At today’s lower gas prices, it would seem that the added cost of the hybrid drive train presents a roadblock to sales. But just hours after giving up the keys to our blue granite metallic test unit, I saw my first Tahoe Hybrid in the wild – and in our town, no less – while performing after-school family taxi duties.
A quick trip to eBay is an indicator of the current level of discounting. At least one dealer was slashing seven thousand dollars off the Tahoe Hybrid’s MSRP. Buyers can also expect another $2,200 off for the federal hybrid tax credit.
It can take a while to get accustomed to driving the Tahoe Hybrid. Stomping on the accelerator pedal from a standing start is an interesting experience, to say the least. In this video, the system is in Auto Stop mode, with the engine off, as it launches.
What a difference half a year makes. At the peak of the gas price bubble last summer, hybrid vehicles were in short supply. Some dealers were tacking on thousands in “market-adjustment” ploys. And here we are, six months or so later and there’s a glut of hybrids sitting on dealer lots. An article in today’s LA Times spells it out in detail.
But in these crazy times, it seems, there are still vehicles that are commanding premiums over the Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). We’ve heard numerous stories about Volkswagen dealers charging well over the MSRP sticker price for new Jetta TDI clean diesels. And needless to say, it doesn’t make us very happy.
We can understand the demand. Our week-long 2009 VW Jetta Sportwagen TDI test drive proved the point … this is one of the best vehicles for the money in America today.
For the good of the brand – and for clean diesel’s acceptance in America – market demand must not be allowed to provoke greed.
If Volkswagen is to market their cars as the People’s Cars, they must exert pressure on their dealers to stop the unfortunate practice of selling Jetta TDIs for above MSRP. We fully understand that it’s tough to be a car dealer at the moment, but a smash and grab sales tactic sullies the brand over the long run, purely for short-term dealer gain.
While the hybrid SUV phenomena can’t match the combination of peanut butter and chocolate for pure popularity, the blending of truck-based people-mover and electric propulsion technology has produced a notable oxymoron.
Justly or not, SUVs are frequently cast as the poster boy for conspicuous consumption. You won’t find the conventional press or hordes of lemmings (any similarities are purely coincidental) praising the vast majority of SUVs for their fuel-stinginess. Yet the Ford Escape Hybrid SUV achieves quite remarkable gas mileage in city settings. (We were able to hit the magic 40 MPG mark in-town in our Escape Hybrid review.) This unique quality has led the Escape Hybrid to sell out its production runs, year-after-year.
Earlier this week, Ford announced a notable milestone: the 100,000th Escape Hybrid has rolled off the line at the Kansas City Assembly Plant. With production constraints due to battery availability, 100,000 vehicles in a relatively short time frame is significant. It’s clear that many Americans aren’t keen on giving up their SUVs and the Escape Hybrid fills an important niche.
The economic climate and drop in the price of gasoline have not been kind to the market, and there’s little to trumpet on this front on the other side of town. With Chrysler putting a hold on production of the Chrysler Aspen Hybrid and Dodge Durango Hybrid late last year, the twins have earned the distinction of being the first hybrid SUVs to be put on hold … two canaries in the coal mine. The market has further delayed the introduction of GM’s next-generation Saturn VUE Two-Mode Hybrid.
Nevertheless, there are seven hybrid SUVs available in America today. Over the last twelve months, we’ve had the good fortune to have opportunity to review four of the hybrid SUVs currently on sale:
