Bye bye Prius Plug-in, Hello 2015 Ford Fusion.

FOTOMOTO, my son the Hedgehog's 2013 Ford Fusion Energi Titanium does have adaptive cruise control, just like my PiP Advanced had. I kind of assumed my 2015 Fusion Energi Titanium also had it... and I realized on tbe road back from Kentucky that it doesn't.

Oh yes, I wish that it did... once you live with it for a while, it takes some retraining to live without it. Grrr...

Frankly, it adds so much safety that, just lk,e the now-mandated rear view cameras, I can see the day when adaptive cruise control becomes mandatory. I mean, the cost by now is surely negligible at fleet scales, right?

My Energi has a passenger power seat, whereas the Hedgehog's Energi doesn't. Of course, the adaptive cruise control situation is reversed. Those are the only two differences we can find. Maybe the American build-on-order variations are the guilty party here... our cars always had many many more factory-bundled build variants than the Japanese cars did.

 

...and just to share the much bigger dimensions of this other plug-in, and also to flash my new car's new grille...

 

That was my plate choice for my very 1st Prius, the Gen 1, back in Spring 2003. I wanted the then-new Virginia HOV plates and VOLTME was the only original phrase that I could think of for a hybrid car, the limitation being six letters.

Of course, I kept that no longer obtainable original HOV plate because despite the cbanges in state law, vehicles carrying this original version of the HOV plate are allowed to use all the non-toll HOV lanes in tbe entire state, still, with only one person in the car. Of course, I have to keep buying as a minimum hybrids so that the DMV will allow re-using these now unobtainable plates on my replacement cars.

The Hedgehog, whe he bought his 2013 Energi, had to use the "blue" 3d generation HOV plate which only allowed him to use the Dulles Toll Road HOV lane as a single occupant. Well, then he moved to Kentucky, where they don't allow such foolishness as HOV lanes or HOV plates.

 

I guess I must be referring to tbe Gen IV hatchback as I think those are the ones I see fairly often. I actually sat inside one at a dealer's. Bleeeech!

 

The trade bracket for a 2012nPrius Plug-In Advanced (my model) was priced by Kelly Blue Book as between 4 thou and 7 thou. The dealer offered an even 5 thou for my PiP, with 107+ thousand miles, some rattles and smudges, and definitely owner-modified i.e. coilovers etc. Knowing what was breaking on tbe car although not necessarily in an obviious fashion, I took the cash and the hassle avoidance and walked