>> The Ford Fusion. Currently the company's only hybrid car not counting their first hybrid, the Escape. Many hybrids now run the roads, however. How does this one stack up in terms of MPG and value and of course tech?
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>> Now, inside the Fusion you've got a lot of commonality with the Mercury Milan, for example, which we've reviewed previously on CNET Car Tech, maybe you've seen that video. And of course this display gauge system is a key part of that. They call that SmartGauge with EcoGuide. You can change that to one of four modes depending what kind of a portrayal of the vehicle's propulsion system and gauge readings you want. It's one of the most interesting videobased gauges all with that LCD fairing on the side of the speedometer there -- nothing quite like it in the auto industry. As for the center stack, this is a nice looking display made larger. I don't believe the previous model year Fords with this technology had quite as much vertical height. There's a little more real estate here. And it really prints well. This system is harddrive based by the way. That generally means that you can change and navigate around various menus a little more quickly than a DVD based system especially when you're doing something that calls for DVD data lookup, GPS coordinates, map display, address lookup, POIs, that kind of thing. Base on this car is gonna be an AM/FM sixdisc CD plus MP3 disk audio system. But because SYNC is base on this car, you will always have an auxiliary jack and a USB port down here and A2DP stereo streaming. So base on this car, because of SYNC, is not really base at all. The media button down here gets you to the more interesting stuff. Now, we get to our CD or DVD player. If you put a DVD in there you can watch a movie when you're parked or pop a CD in and then this is where you can transfer to the hard drive by pressing the record button right here. Aside from the aux jack, of course, you've got your USB. I've got a stick in there right now. And if I go to this button one more time I can get to my Bluetooth streaming which I've paired my phone, my BlackBerry Bold in this case, but any phone with A2DP should work just fine. And because our car is upgraded with all the options as test cars often are, we have an upgraded Sony sound system here so better amps better speakers. This vehicle does have 5.1 surround sound if you're giving it sources that are encoded that way. The big screen is put to use for a generous rear view camera. No trajectory on this vehicle you just get three zones of crunch: really close, not so close, and you're okay. Visual quality's okay. I've seen better, but it's certainly ample for shut up backing up. And as you can tell, it's got the back up parking sensors in the bumper as well. And the last clever piece of cabin tech is, of course, the combination of Sirius and SYNC brings you Sirius Travel Link. That's just sort of mishmash of travel information from your traffic which of course is really useful. Weather, depends on what kind of weather area you live in and, of course, the big three lookups: sports, movie listings, fuel prices. This is pretty much what the state of the art is right now in terms of bringing live information to a vehicle. I'm in the engine bay of a Ford Fusion hybrid. You will, of course, find a hybrid powertrain. The engine part is a twoandahalf liter inline four Atkinson cycle. That means as the piston is coming up on the compression stroke the car leaves the intake valve open just a little bit late and then closes it on the way up. This creates a more of a lean burn engine. It's not terribly gutsy but by adding an electric motor, you make up for that loss of humph and more while getting more efficiency out of the gas engine. Bottom line, 191 horsepower 130 some odd foot pounds of torque until you add in the electric motor, and then you have a whole lot more ample in this car. 0 to 60 in 8.7 fine for this kind of a vehicle. And the mileage figures are quite good 41/36.
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>> The Fusion's a perfectly fine looking car less so from it's lumpy rear end. But the interior quality is what consistently draws praise. And of course, it being a Ford, we're always happy to see Microsoft's SYNC resting in the dash. 0 to 60 happens at a decent 8.7 through a CVT transaxle which makes the driving experience more utilitarian than sporty. There's no sport mode on the transaxle, no manual shifting gator paddle nonsense. This car's about getting places not pretending you're racing. But it does it in a very satisfying way not sloppy not overly aggressive. By the way the 41/36 MPG this guy delivers credibly beats the Camry hybrid's 33/34. That's the Fusions arch rival. The Fusion hybrid offers two optional lane technologies BLIS which is the blind spot warning system that lights up those little LEDs in the side view mirrors but does not correct your errant lane change. And crosstraffic alert which mostly helps when you're backing out of a blind driveway or parking space. Okay. Pricing a Ford Fusion hybrid $28,300 not the cheapest car in the market, of course. But it does come fairly wellequipped. You can't get one of these stripped as is often the strategy with these car makers that have hybrid models. Now, to do it up CNET style like we've got, you gotta add about another $4,000 on top of that for an option package or two that will bring you all the bells and whistles including the touchscreen navigation system that is harddrive based 10gig of juice box storage, Sirius Travel Link, the blind spot technology, the crosstraffic alert, the rear view camera, all the audio options we showed you but SYNC is standard on all Ford Fusion hybrids as it is on many Ford cars.
