Check out the fuel mileage specs:

2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid specs, auto safety at Edmunds

It just doesn't look right for a hybrid. What are they thinking? So sad...

 

my Fit gets the same mpg...and weighs like 1300lbs less.

 

And $27, 270 MSRP for the base model. The most expensive Insight EX w/Navi is $23,100 with 41 MPG estimated.

 

Insight > Fusion

Honda wins again.

It's really sad to see American companies sucking total balls at keeping up...

 

Honestly, comparing a Fusion to an Insight doesn't really make a lot of sense. It's not the same kind of car really, and it isn't marketed at the same people.

Comparing a Fusion hybrid to a Camry hybrid makes a lot more sense. Or comparing it to any normal 4-cyl gasoline midsize sedan.

 

But the camary doesn't go bleeding all it's efficiency on highway speeds.

The fact that the car bleeds energy on the highway just shows how much more inefficient the technology is. All other cars are able to get more efficiency out of highway mileage because they retain lower energy usage/bleeding at highway speed. This means the Fusion is using way more energy to stay at highway speed than it's suppose to. Something just doesn't seem right...sounds like fishy mpg math manipulation?

 

It's simply the way the electric motor is designed to work. The motor does a fair amount of the driving in stop-and-go traffic and at low speeds. The trade off is that the electric motor doesn't do very much assisting on the highway--at cruising speeds it runs more like a normal gasoline 4-cyl sedan, albeit one with a more efficient engine. It's just the way the engine and motor are programmed to run.

I don't see how this is any different from the way the Prius or Escape hybrid are set up to operate. They all have higher city mileage than highway mileage.

 

*Sigh* No motor assisance on highway? Once again, Detroit doesn't go the distance to completely eliminate the competition. The car has a higher potential than it was built with...not that the car bad or anything... Maybe next year's Fusion will get 41 mpg average.

Or maybe my expectations are too high....lol...

 

If you can find a good way for the batteries to charge during steady-state highway cruising that would make them have enough juice for the car to go 70 mph on electricity alone and then still have enough juice left to drive on in stop-and-go conditions once the highway portion of a trip is done, I'm sure Ford would love to hear from you.

GM's 2-mode system that they have in their big hybrid SUVs is the only full hybrid system I know of that actively tries to use the electric motor much during steady-state high speed cruising. I'm not entirely sure how it does this. They haven't put it in anything smaller yet though to see what it can actually do against other hybrids from Ford, Toyota, and Honda.