While Honda and Toyota have been vocal about plans to spread hybrid technology throughout their product lines, this has not been the case with domestic automakers. Just a few hybrid models are presently offered by domestics with announcements of a small number of new models in the works. Now this dynamic is changing. Ford has announced that it will bring gasoline-electric hybrid propulsion to fully half of its vehicle models in the next five years, with an annual hybrid production volume of some 250,000 vehicles. The strategy is a simple one, as Green Car Journal has long maintained. Hybrid powerplants will become yet another option, the same as opting up from a standard four-cylinder powerplant to a six-cylinder, or a six-cylinder to a V-8. But rather than just more power, a hybrid powerplant will bring greater fuel economy along with better performance. It’s a winning combination that should prove popular in an environment of high and uncertain fuel prices in the coming years. Source: Green Car Journal Online
I think the Fusion is a neat car and when I was shopping the Prius I asked one of the local Ford dealers when the Fusion hybrid would be out. They told me mid '07. I just got a call fri asking if I was still interested because the release date for Fusion hybrids had been moved up to June '06.
As nice as the Fusion hybrid might be, they are gonna have to demonstrate great reliability to me for a few years before I buy a ford.
I hope they bring out a hybrid version of the Milan as well. Either way, both the Fusion and Milan have interiors that are light years ahead of the Prius, so I won't be going wrong there. And since that have that fantastic Volvo pedigree, you know it's going to be a good handling car.
