PurpleMystique
Hard-core CEG'er
I hope that the gauges slide out much more smoothly than they appear to in that video.
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2010 Ford Fusion
- Thread starter MapOfTaziFoSho
- Start date
I hope that the gauges slide out much more smoothly than they appear to in that video.
Tourige
CEG's Resident Jackass
TGO
King of the OFT
i'd hate to say it, but those gauges would be a major selling point for me...i would hope they're in every car in some way, shape or form.
Big Jim
Hard-core CEG'er
Another expense in offering multiple transmissions is emissions testing. The long term emissions testing on a programmed dyno must be done for each powertrain offering. Certainly one of the reasons that the CSVT, FSVT, and Cobra only had manual transmissions was for the improved performance (at least over the auto transmissions they could have been matched to), but it was also because of the additional cost to certifiy the emissions on more than one transmission.
Look, guys, the technology to design and build antomatic transmissions that perform very nearly as well as a manual has been available for decades. If they really wanted to, the automaker could do it. If they do it right, I have no problem with an automatic, I may even prefer it, although driving a stick is more fun.
PurpleMystique
Hard-core CEG'er
Thats what I got from the article too. I think it looks alot better. Maybe one day they'll come out with an ecoboost version. The Milan looks a little better too, though it reminds me of the previous Maxima or the Altima. I still think its the red headed stepchild of the bunch.
Yeah, talk about a blatant ripoff.
biminiLX
Hard-core CEG'er
Definitely NOT a blatant ripoff. Its got some similarities but you can argue that for most segments (look at the new Genesis 
)
-J
)-J
PurpleMystique
Hard-core CEG'er
Definitely NOT a blatant ripoff. Its got some similarities but you can argue that for most segments (look at the new Genesis
-J
Well yeah, besides the headlights, area between headlights and grill, and hood to grill mating area being IDENTICAL, it's only kind of similar.
Just because companies do take designs doesn't mean they should.
biminiLX
Hard-core CEG'er
I still don't see how you think those things are identical or a blatant rip-off, sorry.
That pic of the Milan never screamed Altima to me and that pic doesn't look that similar to me.
I agree designs rip-offs shouldn't happen, just saying many cars in the same segment have similar looks.
-J
That pic of the Milan never screamed Altima to me and that pic doesn't look that similar to me.
I agree designs rip-offs shouldn't happen, just saying many cars in the same segment have similar looks.
-J
PurpleMystique
Hard-core CEG'er
Look at the parts I mentioned - the headlights, including the shape and the blinker up top, the chrome strip on the front edge of the hood touching the grill, the shape of the area between the headlights and the grill...it's all nearly identical.
Dyoel182
Addicted CEG'er
They look similar to me, but so do a lot of cars. There are only so many things you can do once you get away from flat hoods, round headlights and standard foglights.
PurpleMystique
Hard-core CEG'er
Have we reached that point? The point where every possible design idea has been used up, and from here on out everything will be copies?
Dyoel182
Addicted CEG'er
Of course not. Its gonna take one new radical design that people either love or hate to start another trend, like the current round with edges look we have now. And you cant really blame Nissan for reusing the looks from the Maxima which look like lines from the Mazda6 that came before it.
biminiLX
Hard-core CEG'er
Klasse Act
I pee with gloves on!
That car looks real good and while I'm thinking of it my buddy and I were at his daughters cheerleading event last weekend and we saw a Fusion with the mask on the front and it had a boost gauge in the A-pillar, so atleast they're testing some boosted motor because that "S4 fighter" with AWD/340 hp would be great to see
BTW, I know gauges are supposed to be easy to read but are trying to make it understandable for kids to drive or what:shrug:
BTW, I know gauges are supposed to be easy to read but are trying to make it understandable for kids to drive or what:shrug:
LilCe98
Hard-core CEG'er
The more I look at it, the more I like it
biminiLX
Hard-core CEG'er
Looking forward to the reviews on the 3.5L 263hp/6-speed auto Sport model.
-J
-J
todras
Pretty fly for a white guy *cowbell*
Dan Neil Gets 52 MPG in a Fusion Hybrid
Dan Neil Gets 52 MPG in a Fusion Hybrid
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-neil19-2008dec19,0,1742816.story
2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid: 52 mpg and the darkness before dawn
Even when Detroit manages to do something right, the timing and execution are off.
By DAN NEIL
December 19, 2008
As we know from the works of Cormac McCarthy, despair can be kind of gratifying. And yet, as much as I hate to disturb our national mood of decline, I have some good news regarding the auto industry. You may return to your comfort drinking presently.
The 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid, and its twin, the Mercury Milan Hybrid, are mid-to-full-size sedans that seat five in surprising comfort and offer a full-size trunk measuring around 12 cubic feet. They measure 190.6 inches long and weigh a goodly 3,720 pounds. The gas-electric output is 191 horsepower and zero to 60 mph acceleration is under 9 seconds.
The retail price of a nicely equipped Fusion Hybrid -- with blandishments such as rearview camera, blind-spot alert and 17-inch alloy wheels -- is $27,270. With the applicable federal tax credit, the car should cost consumers about $25,000, I estimate (final numbers have not been announced).
On a test drive of a Fusion Hybrid last week in West L.A. traffic, I managed, without much trouble, to get 52 mpg in mixed city-highway driving.
Wait, so, has somebody invented the car of the future and didn't tell us?
It's a worthy question. The scolding undercurrent of recent congressional hearings on the auto-industry bailout was the notion that Detroit had failed to invest in next-generation technology that could help wean us off foreign oil. Not so. What they did fail to do was sufficiently commercialize this technology so that it was ready and waiting at dealerships when people got stampeded this year by spiraling gas prices.
Had Ford made a few hundred thousand of these cars available in June -- along with the financing to sell them -- we'd be erecting 50-foot equestrian statues of William Clay Ford and Alan Mulally in city squares, and the streets of Dearborn, Mich., would be repaved with diamond cobblestones.
As it was, the meme of national incompetence and inferiority vis-a-vis the Japanese carmakers -- Toyota, Honda -- was again reinforced. Of course, Detroit can't build a desirable high-mileage car. We're the country that bungled Iraq and bred a Bernard Madoff, that turned the mortgage market into three-card monte and put Britney back on top. It would seem almost a shame to interrupt the soothing pleasures of such self-pity.
And yet, here we are, with a car that seemed purely theoretical -- a desirable, affordable, no-compromise sedan that gets 40-plus mpg -- about to show up at Ford dealerships in the first quarter of 2009. Somebody ought to tell Thomas Friedman.
Now what? Now people have to buy them.
For all the game-changing glow around the Ford Fusion Hybrid, it's actually a fairly conservative and programmatic approach to gas-electric propulsion. The system is an evolution of the hybrid system in the Ford Escape. The battery is nickel-metal hydride, not lithium (lithium chemistry batteries are lighter and more energy-dense, but they are also expensive and finicky, which is to say, flammable).
The nickel battery will please many in the green-car movement who argue that the search for the perfect battery -- a la the Chevy Volt -- has only delayed development of the good. ( Edmund Burke said the worst thing a man can do is do nothing because he can do only a little.)
The Sanyo-supplied battery pack -- 270 volts and 1.4 kWh, if that helps -- is 30% smaller in volume and 23% lighter than the one in the Escape. The smaller battery is easier to cool, requiring only cabin air ducted from underneath the back seat.
The battery supplies enough glowing ponies to propel the car to speeds up to 47 mph on all-electric power. This is key to the car's in-city mileage. On my 50-mile drive, I was able to feather-foot the throttle enough to accelerate to commuting speeds without waking the gas engine. When I needed to accelerate faster, I could dip in to the engine horsepower briefly to overcome inertia, then maintain momentum with the electric motor. At one stage I was getting 63 mpg.
To make a full-size car go fast on electric power alone, you need a boatload of voltage. But high-voltage systems involve increased impedance and heat losses, which is wasted energy. To unknot this problem, the Fusion uses a variable-voltage converter that temporarily steps up system voltage during peak demand or hard braking, when the battery is forcefully recharged.
This is actually one of two high-tech converters on board: The second system provides juice to an array of high-voltage systems such as steering, air-conditioning and brakes.
There's a lot of other arcane technology that goes into a car, like reams of software code that allow all the various components to talk sweetly to one another. But perhaps the most valuable bit of software is the wetware, the stuff between the driver's ears. To that end, the Fusion Hybrid uses a delightful, LCD instrument cluster with modules that coach drivers on how to save fuel. In one panel, the more lightly you drive, the more leaves that grow on a set of animated vines. You can go from lead-footed, gas-bingeing knucklehead (like me) to abstemious hyper-miler in a matter of minutes. Brilliant.
So, is this the better mousetrap we've been waiting for? Well, there's a problem. The price of gas has dropped by two-thirds in six months, thereby de-motivating buyers who might have been willing to bear the incremental cost of a hybrid. What we really need is an increased federal gas tax, but the chances of that getting passed in Congress are comparable to my chances of being named Miss Universe.
Ugh. I'm getting depressed again.
Dan Neil Gets 52 MPG in a Fusion Hybrid
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-neil19-2008dec19,0,1742816.story
2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid: 52 mpg and the darkness before dawn
Even when Detroit manages to do something right, the timing and execution are off.
By DAN NEIL
December 19, 2008
As we know from the works of Cormac McCarthy, despair can be kind of gratifying. And yet, as much as I hate to disturb our national mood of decline, I have some good news regarding the auto industry. You may return to your comfort drinking presently.
The 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid, and its twin, the Mercury Milan Hybrid, are mid-to-full-size sedans that seat five in surprising comfort and offer a full-size trunk measuring around 12 cubic feet. They measure 190.6 inches long and weigh a goodly 3,720 pounds. The gas-electric output is 191 horsepower and zero to 60 mph acceleration is under 9 seconds.
The retail price of a nicely equipped Fusion Hybrid -- with blandishments such as rearview camera, blind-spot alert and 17-inch alloy wheels -- is $27,270. With the applicable federal tax credit, the car should cost consumers about $25,000, I estimate (final numbers have not been announced).
On a test drive of a Fusion Hybrid last week in West L.A. traffic, I managed, without much trouble, to get 52 mpg in mixed city-highway driving.
Wait, so, has somebody invented the car of the future and didn't tell us?
It's a worthy question. The scolding undercurrent of recent congressional hearings on the auto-industry bailout was the notion that Detroit had failed to invest in next-generation technology that could help wean us off foreign oil. Not so. What they did fail to do was sufficiently commercialize this technology so that it was ready and waiting at dealerships when people got stampeded this year by spiraling gas prices.
Had Ford made a few hundred thousand of these cars available in June -- along with the financing to sell them -- we'd be erecting 50-foot equestrian statues of William Clay Ford and Alan Mulally in city squares, and the streets of Dearborn, Mich., would be repaved with diamond cobblestones.
As it was, the meme of national incompetence and inferiority vis-a-vis the Japanese carmakers -- Toyota, Honda -- was again reinforced. Of course, Detroit can't build a desirable high-mileage car. We're the country that bungled Iraq and bred a Bernard Madoff, that turned the mortgage market into three-card monte and put Britney back on top. It would seem almost a shame to interrupt the soothing pleasures of such self-pity.
And yet, here we are, with a car that seemed purely theoretical -- a desirable, affordable, no-compromise sedan that gets 40-plus mpg -- about to show up at Ford dealerships in the first quarter of 2009. Somebody ought to tell Thomas Friedman.
Now what? Now people have to buy them.
For all the game-changing glow around the Ford Fusion Hybrid, it's actually a fairly conservative and programmatic approach to gas-electric propulsion. The system is an evolution of the hybrid system in the Ford Escape. The battery is nickel-metal hydride, not lithium (lithium chemistry batteries are lighter and more energy-dense, but they are also expensive and finicky, which is to say, flammable).
The nickel battery will please many in the green-car movement who argue that the search for the perfect battery -- a la the Chevy Volt -- has only delayed development of the good. ( Edmund Burke said the worst thing a man can do is do nothing because he can do only a little.)
The Sanyo-supplied battery pack -- 270 volts and 1.4 kWh, if that helps -- is 30% smaller in volume and 23% lighter than the one in the Escape. The smaller battery is easier to cool, requiring only cabin air ducted from underneath the back seat.
The battery supplies enough glowing ponies to propel the car to speeds up to 47 mph on all-electric power. This is key to the car's in-city mileage. On my 50-mile drive, I was able to feather-foot the throttle enough to accelerate to commuting speeds without waking the gas engine. When I needed to accelerate faster, I could dip in to the engine horsepower briefly to overcome inertia, then maintain momentum with the electric motor. At one stage I was getting 63 mpg.
To make a full-size car go fast on electric power alone, you need a boatload of voltage. But high-voltage systems involve increased impedance and heat losses, which is wasted energy. To unknot this problem, the Fusion uses a variable-voltage converter that temporarily steps up system voltage during peak demand or hard braking, when the battery is forcefully recharged.
This is actually one of two high-tech converters on board: The second system provides juice to an array of high-voltage systems such as steering, air-conditioning and brakes.
There's a lot of other arcane technology that goes into a car, like reams of software code that allow all the various components to talk sweetly to one another. But perhaps the most valuable bit of software is the wetware, the stuff between the driver's ears. To that end, the Fusion Hybrid uses a delightful, LCD instrument cluster with modules that coach drivers on how to save fuel. In one panel, the more lightly you drive, the more leaves that grow on a set of animated vines. You can go from lead-footed, gas-bingeing knucklehead (like me) to abstemious hyper-miler in a matter of minutes. Brilliant.
So, is this the better mousetrap we've been waiting for? Well, there's a problem. The price of gas has dropped by two-thirds in six months, thereby de-motivating buyers who might have been willing to bear the incremental cost of a hybrid. What we really need is an increased federal gas tax, but the chances of that getting passed in Congress are comparable to my chances of being named Miss Universe.
Ugh. I'm getting depressed again.
biminiLX
Hard-core CEG'er
Damn good mileage but I'd still take the Sport
Another article:
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/sedans/112_0812_2010_ford_fusion_hybrid_first_drive/index.html
Another article:
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/sedans/112_0812_2010_ford_fusion_hybrid_first_drive/index.html