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The Ford Fusion Hybrid we talked about yesterday, the one that had as of our last report cleared 1,000 miles on its hypermiling publicity stunt, has finally reached the end of the road its fuel supply. The final number: 1,445 miles on a single tank of gas.

For the high-mileage odyssey, the Fusion hybrid was pushed to an average of 81.5 mpg. Even considering that hypermiling techniques were employed to reach these numbers, we're quite impressed, as the event took place on city streets and public freeways, not on a closed course. Better still, the entire 69-hour event raised $8,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. You can read the details of how the driving teams managed the 80 mpg in the official press release after the jump – and no, they didn't find a thousand-mile downhill road.

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Complete Article and Press Release

SICK!

Kudos Ford!

impressive!

1445 MILES ???that's over 2300 km !!! ...and I suppose the fuel tank is somewhere between 55-70 litres . Sounds great , the catch is that its cost is "only " 10000$ more than the base model . Ouch !

yeah i still can't believe you can get 2300km on one tank. Apparently the actual model that will be on sale gives you only 36/50 mpg. That's too bad.

That's awesome!

cornflakes,May 1 2009, 11:57 PM Wrote:yeah i still can't believe you can get 2300km on one tank.  Apparently the actual model that will be on sale gives you only 36/50 mpg.  That's too bad.
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It WAS a stock, production 2010 Fusion Hybrid. They just used some fairly extreme hypermiling techniques to get to that number. Even the Ford Exec in the article commented on how they were really pushing the car.

It CAN be done but definitely not by everyone, and not all of the time either.

It does stand that if you want a more than decent domestic hybrid - you're looking at it. The rest of the domestic hybrids are almost all "partial hybrids", where the gas engine runs 24/7 and the electric motors assist as required. That way the manufacturer can install a smaller, less-adequate engine for the size of the vehicle and still get acceptable performance from it. Normally this yields better fuel economy as well.

The Fusion is actually in line with the Prius and the new Insight as being the closest thing to the Volt as you can get right now. The Fusion will run on batteries as long as you're easy on it and you have enough charge. The engine will also charge the batteries and so will regenerative braking.

The Volt (if it makes it) will be the first plug-in hybrid, which means you could fill the tank and not need to refill for quite some time if your driving range fits within the range of the batteries - just plug it back in and you're good to go again, sans gas.

Amazing stuff really, but I wonder how much the fuel economy will be affected when the temperature hits extremes of heat and cold (which are murder on batteries)

As to the hypermilling thing, I think I would run over anyone trying to pull that stuff in front of me on the reads :ph34r:

NefCanuck

NefCanuck,May 4 2009, 11:09 AM Wrote:I wonder how much the fuel economy will be affected when the temperature hits extremes of heat and cold (which are murder on batteries)
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And that was the one thing that kept me from buying a Hybrid. Seriously. Most of my driving (90-95% of it) is city driving and a hybrid would have probably yielded HUGE gas savings for me. Of course, trailering is right out, then. :lol:

I don't have a garage and winter temps routinely dip below -30C before windchill here in North Bay. In those conditions, year after year... hybrid FAIL. :(

swwweeeeeeeettttt!!!!