SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Ford Fusion Hybrid certified at 41 mpg in city

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- - Ford Fusion Hybrid certified at 41 mpg in city (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=146308)

I bought my wife a Prius a little over a year ago. Plenty of power (would surprise a few of you) and a great smooth ride. Does great on the highway as well.

We use it for our weekend driving around town and my wife drives it to work. I drive the pickup truck.

Impressive numbers for that Fusion. EPA estimates were a bit optimistic compared to what Cart and Driver reported actually averaging (34MPG)

Hooray for Ford. Maybe they can turn a profit with this one, instead of stealing billions in taxpayer funds.

I won't be buying one, because for $25-30k, it should get at least 70mpg and give me a back massage while I drive.
I've got an 04' Kia Spectra with comparable gas mileage and it only cost me $4500 (used, 48k miles). Better yet, I can actually maintain most of the thing myself.
I've never done so much as an oil change on a hybrid, but I'll bet anything that they have a veritable Gordian knot of electronic and computerized crap to sort through.

The environment is very nice, but for around twenty thousand dollars I'd gladly set fire to a pile of tires and throw aerosol cans into it.

The real measure of this vehicle will be how many are ultimately sold and whether or not it and others like it can turn an acceptable profit for Ford. If the market isn't ready for it, it won't take, and the whole thing will just be a waste of resources and time. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of it.

Our company vehicles used to be the Dodge caravan and we got a new on every 100K miles which we could put on the vehicles in 2.5 years. i had a total of three of these vehicles and they were very comfortable. The problem was the darn things were always in the shop being fixed. So we now have a much smaller vehicle called the Kia sportage. Not as cozy, but none of our fleet has been in the shop yet.

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Originally Posted by SteamWake

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Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

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Originally Posted by SteamWake

Key words here are "in the city".

Its been my observation that most hybrids are suited for 'city' driving and aint worth a damn on the open highway.

Have you driven a hybrid?

Sort of I know people whom have one and driven theirs.

Probably the weirdest thing is that most everything cuts off when at a stop sign. Leaving you feeling like you turned the car off. Its dead quiet except for the radio. A curious sensation.

Another cool thing is the regerative braking. They sort of work like dynamic brakes on a diesel electric loco. The electric motors are set as generators and place load on the braking wheels putting current back into the batterys.

There actually pretty peppy from 0-30 mph after that their performance falls off. Over 45 it feels like your dragging a parachute can make it tough to merge onto the interstate. :|\\

My buddy, who is a big green guy, went out and got a Prius to put his money where his mouth is. It is a very comfortable car and appears equally at home on the highway or in the city. I agree, regenerative braking is a great way to conserve energy. :yep: