 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid. Click image to enlarge |
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2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid
North Vancouver, British Columbia – The all-new 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid joins a growing number of fuel-efficient, mid-size, four-door gas-electric hybrid sedans on the market – a list that now includes the second generation 2010 Toyota Prius, Toyota Camry Hybrid, Nissan Altima Hybrid, Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid and Saturn Aura Hybrid – and soon the new Hyundai Sonata Hybrid. With the exception of the Prius, each of these hybrid sedans shares the same bodystyle, interior and suspension bits with its conventional four and six-cylinder counterparts.
Among mid-size hybrid sedans, the 2010 Toyota Prius offers the best fuel economy ratings according to government sponsored fuel consumption tests by Natural Resources Canada (Energuide) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA testing methods, updated last year to reflect more realistic driving conditions, are higher than Energuide ratings and therefore closer to “real-world” fuel consumption. For that reason, I’ll use EPA results in the following comparisons.
 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid. Click image to enlarge |
With an EPA city/hwy rating of 5.7/6.5 (L/100 km), the new Fusion Hybrid is second only to the Toyota Prius (4.6/4.9) in the mid size sedan class, but more fuel efficient than the Toyota Camry Hybrid (7.1/6.9), Nissan Altima Hybrid (6.7/7.1), Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid (9.0/6.9), and Saturn Aura Hybrid (9.0/6.9). The Prius, Fusion, Camry and Altima all use a “full” hybrid system that allows them to run on battery power alone at low speeds, while the Malibu and Aura have a “mild” hybrid system that doesn’t. That’s the main reason the Malibu and Aura have higher city fuel consumption ratings. Still, all of these mid-size sedans offer considerably better fuel economy than their four-cylinder and V6 counterparts. For example, the Fusion four-cylinder sedan with a six-speed automatic transmission offers an EPA city/hwy rating of 10.7/7.6 L/100 km.
