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Detroit Auto Show: Will Ford's New Car Really Get 100 Miles Per Gallon?
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/energy/27481/?p1=blogs[font face=Times, Serif][font size=5]Detroit Auto Show: Will Ford's New Car Really Get 100 Miles Per Gallon?[/font]
[font size=4]The fuel consumption of the new Fusion Energi will depend on how it's used.[/font]
Kevin Bullis 01/10/2012
[font size=3]Ford unveiled its new Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week. It didn't say much about the car, except that it will get something like 100 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe), which is better than the Chevrolet Volt or the upcoming Toyota Prius plug-in, and that it will go on sale toward the end of this year.
Of course, 100 miles per gallon equivalent sounds impressive. Unfortunately, the MPGe figure is not very meaningful. It's useful as a way of comparing the efficiency of cars when they are operating in electric mode, but for a plug-in hybrid, which can run part time on gasoline, it doesn't tell drivers what they really want to know: how much gas the car will use and how much it will cost to operate.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency definition, MPGe is meant to describe the efficiency of the vehicle when operating using electricity alone, which in a plug-in hybrid is typically only a relatively short range—the Chevrolet Volt can go about 35 miles on the electricity stored in its battery. MPGe refers to how many miles the car can go on an amount of electricity equivalent to a gallon of gasoline.
Based on the figure of 100 MPGe, we know that the Fusion Energi will be slightly more efficient in electric mode than the Volt (93 MPGe) and the all-electric Leaf (99 MPGe).
…[/font][/font]
[font size=4]The fuel consumption of the new Fusion Energi will depend on how it's used.[/font]
Kevin Bullis 01/10/2012
[font size=3]Ford unveiled its new Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week. It didn't say much about the car, except that it will get something like 100 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe), which is better than the Chevrolet Volt or the upcoming Toyota Prius plug-in, and that it will go on sale toward the end of this year.
Of course, 100 miles per gallon equivalent sounds impressive. Unfortunately, the MPGe figure is not very meaningful. It's useful as a way of comparing the efficiency of cars when they are operating in electric mode, but for a plug-in hybrid, which can run part time on gasoline, it doesn't tell drivers what they really want to know: how much gas the car will use and how much it will cost to operate.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency definition, MPGe is meant to describe the efficiency of the vehicle when operating using electricity alone, which in a plug-in hybrid is typically only a relatively short range—the Chevrolet Volt can go about 35 miles on the electricity stored in its battery. MPGe refers to how many miles the car can go on an amount of electricity equivalent to a gallon of gasoline.
Based on the figure of 100 MPGe, we know that the Fusion Energi will be slightly more efficient in electric mode than the Volt (93 MPGe) and the all-electric Leaf (99 MPGe).
…[/font][/font]
http://www.ford.com/cars/fusion/2013/features/Feature16/