Business View Magazine - June 2016 13
Angeles and all the way up to San Francisco, and still
have up to 110 miles of range remaining.”
Changes to the car’s hybrid power train software and
regenerative braking, which recycles energy to the bat-
tery otherwise lost when drivers hit the brakes, means
the 2017 Fusion Energi can travel up to 610 miles on
a full tank of gas and battery charge – up from 550
miles for the 2016 model.
Plug-in hybrids use both electric batteries and gas-
powered engines. Normally, a vehicle owner will run
on all-electric mode until the electricity is depleted,
at which point the engine turns on automatically. The
Fusion Energi’s all-electric range is an estimated 21
miles. If there is gas in the tank, the car will then oper-
ate for about a mile using both battery and gas. After
that, the gas engine kicks in for another 588 miles of
range – according to EPA estimates.
Ford – the No. 1 seller of plug-in hybrids for 2015 and
year-to-date 2016 – is leading the way in raising aware-
ness of the advantages these vehicles offer. Through
April, Fusion Energi sales are up 58 percent.
Kevin Layden, Ford Director of Electrified Power Train
Engineering, says Fusion Energi is a great option for
people who might not live, work, or play near electric-
vehicle charging stations, or who take trips to places
where the electric-vehicle infrastructure is not yet es-
tablished.
“Fusion Energi gives them both the freedom to go gas-
free for shorter trips and the fuel efficiency of a gas
engine for longer trips,” he says. “And it’s very afford-
able.”
Fusion Energi is on sale now. Its 610 mile range is
nearly triple that of the upcoming Tesla Model 3, which
Tesla says has a projected total range of 215 miles.
The Model 3 doesn’t run on gas, so it also must be
recharged immediately when its battery is depleted.
Since introducing the plug-in hybrid vehicle in 2013,
Ford has sold nearly 30,000 Fusion Energi cars in the
United States. Fusion Energi is one of six Ford Motor
Company electrified vehicles, including Ford Fusion
Hybrid, C-MAX Hybrid, C-MAX Energi, Focus Electric
and Lincoln MKZ Hybrid. By 2020, Ford will invest
$4.5 billion in electrified vehicles, adding 13 new ones
to its product portfolio. More than 40 percent of the
company’s nameplates globally will be electrified by
the end of this decade.
Data Ford collected from more than 610 million miles
logged by its electrified vehicle owners show these
drivers put an average of 13,500 miles annually on
their vehicles – similar to what owners of gasoline-only
cars log – with about half those miles in electric mode.
That breaks down to an average daily commute of 42
miles for Ford plug-in hybrid drivers.
So with the enhanced electric range, this means the
average Fusion Energi commuter could go the entire
day using no gasoline – if the car is fully charged be-
fore leaving for work and fully charged before leaving
for home.
Ford concludes from the data that most customers are
likely charging their vehicles only at home – leaving a
wealth of opportunity for growth in workplace charging
stations.
The 2017 Ford Fusion Energi has an EPA-estimated
rating of 43 city/41 hwy/42 combined MPG, a 14 gal-
lon tank and 21 miles all-electric range. Range calcu-
lation based on
. Actual mileage
and range will vary.
