Results tagged “Ford” from Green Mesh

...but don't look for this Ford Fiesta ECOnetic model in the US as clean diesel doesn't seem to fly here.

The Australian press is buzzing with talk about the little car from a U.S. based company that beats the Prius in price and fuel economy.

How refreshing.

BMW, Mini, Audi and Volvo have special frugal models that use similar fuel-saving technology, but Ford hits the low price point.

According to the story, the car has been immensely popular in Europe, where fuel taxes promote small car use.

The U.S. Fiesta is expected to arrive in her late this year

Jim Buvalic is a hybrid transmission systems engineer at Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Mich., who worked on the development of the Fusion Hybrid. He gives a Q&A about what where they gained efficiency designing the Ford Fusion Hybrid. auto.theglobeandmail.com

Buvalic says that it's a "total systems approach" but that regenerative braking gives the total boost in fuel economy.

Regenerative braking is also the single most driver controllable element of driving a hybrid.

Long slow stops.

The longer your brake pads last, the more you have mastered this skill. I have 80,000 miles on the original brakes of a 2005 Civic Hybrid. I predict that I may squeeze another 8,000 miles out of the original front brake pads.

The daily voice of the Obama campaign, manager and adviser David Plouffe slipped into history after the election.

He recently purchased a Ford Fusion Hybrid (41 mpg city and 36 mpg) in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. usnews.com

As alternative engine technology matures, manufacturers jockey for position and price.

Honda decides to cancel diesels for their larger platforms and evolve their gasoline hybrid offers into the larger cars. The price of the new low cost Honda Insight will not chase Toyota lowering the price of a Prius. automobilemag.com Consumers win with two low cost hybrid offerings.

Volkswagen has revealed its new Golf GTD, a sporty diesel version of the Golf. autoweek.com I recall a friend stuffing a diesel into a sporty 80's vintage VW GTI and thinking that I wanted one. Unlike the 80's a modern diesel has gobs of low end power, runs clean and would be alot of fun. Consider the premium cost of diesel fuel over gasoline before determining the dollars saved.

Chrysler LLC on Monday named U.S. based A123 Systems as the supplier of batteries for its first electric vehicles slated for debut in showrooms 2010. reuters Chrysler's plan like General Motor's Volt Electric car will use an efficient fossil fueled motor to charge batteries that will run an electric motor(s).

The electricTransit Connect (commercial truck) will be Ford's first full-electric vehicle and will be followed in 2011 by a 5-passenger car that will travel up to 120 miles per charge, according to Ford. Further details on that vehicle are unknown, but Ford is has been testing a fleet of Focus compact sedans that use an electric powertrain built by Magna International of Canada. foxnews

AT&T to add 15,000 alternative-fuel vehicles

In the York area, these vehicles would help service cell phone sites and the miles of fiber optics making up AT&T's massive telecom network.

• Largest U.S. corporate commitment to Compressed Natural Gas vehicles to date.
• Saves 49 million gallons of gasoline
• Reduces carbon emissions by 211,000 metric tons
• Removes the emissions fo 38,600 traditional passenger vehicles for a year

Source: AT&T

One of the primary benefactors of this expenditure will be Ford and other companies who choose to innovate.

The company will initially buy the trucks from Ford and have them converted by other firms to run on natural gas. It also plans to push for 40 new natural-gas fueling stations to be built in the states where it operates.

AT&T said it planned to replace 7,100 passenger cars over the next decade with hybrids or other advanced-technology vehicles, depending on when such technology becomes available.

Ford has said it would double its hybrid production this year, with the Fusion and Milan sedans joining the Escape and Mariner SUVs in its hybrid lineup.

Detroit Free Press

Nothing concentrates the mind more than a death sentence, except when the sentencing is clouded with taxpayer money.

The automakers are back in Washington making their last ditch plea today.The more I listen to these exchanges, the more I realize that life is destined to change for all of us.

Both G.M. and Chrysler are racing to complete restructuring plans by Tuesday's deadline with the Treasury Department. After listening to this plea my mind is concentrating on how this can possibly work long-term.

Over capacity, too expensive, too much debt. Regardless of how you look at it; your opinion of the Detroit 3s products, your opinion of unions, and the obvious desire by all of us not to slip into a depression, it doesn't work.

The plan to bail out car companies is stalling what we have been avoiding all along by using debt to bolster an out of balance global economy that is employing cheaper labor costs (the jobs that gave people money to consume in the United States) and wealth to developing countries.

Some alarming highlights I heard during this discussion.

• Ford is valued at $3.4 billion, General Motors $1.8, and Chrysler $0.5. BMW, a small niche company, is valued at $14 billion. Detroit automakers are seeking about $60 billion total in bridge loans from taxpayers that in all likelihood will not be paid back because these companies are worth a fraction of the loan amount.

  Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, testified before Congress in December that it would cost between $75 billion and $125 billion to bailout the Big Three.



• Pennsylvania is home to 83,000 jobs associated with automotive part supply.

OK, let's just get it out there: The 2010 Ford Fusion hybrid is the best gasoline-electric hybrid yet.

What makes it (Ford Fusion Hybrid) best is a top-drawer blend of an already very good midsize sedan with the industry's smoothest, best-integrated gas-electric power system. It's so well-done that you have to look to the $107,000 Lexus LS 600h hybrid to come close. usatoday.com/money

The journalist tester got 40 mpg in a series of short trips out of a car that weighs 3,720 lbs and says Ford has mastered removing the engine start-up "shutter" usually associated with this type of hybrid power plant.

It's interesting to read the heated reader replies from this story. It's a lesson of just how long it takes a car company to build and destroy perceptions. Big deal!!!!I have a Honda Civic Hybrid and I get 50mpg. Having the experience of owning a 1997 Taurus and a 1998 Camry and watching their depreciation,...Let's stick to the facts. Get Consumers Reports...

I have driven a normally powered Ford Fusion and was nicely surprised at the feel and fit. It feels and looks more European than Ford sedans of old and I am a Civic Hybrid, former VW TDI and BMW bike owner.

The car is bigger and heavier than a Honda Civic Hybrid so the mileage is in line or better than the competition. Consumer Reports now says that Fords are equal to Honda in reliability.

Fusion Hybrids are also eligible for a tax credit until the end of March.

Time will tell if reality will change perceptions, but the facts are stacking in Ford's favor as well as a projection I have that Americans will begin to make a concerted effort to start coming home to spend their dollars where it will do the most good for their own future.

Even if the Fusion Hybrid is assembled in Mexico; at least it's a North American country that shares our border and it isn't a communist, currency manipulator. It is a noble effort by an American automobile company to use brain power to harness new technology to offer the American car market with an efficient, well designed hybrid car.

Save $2 on $8 tickets online. Want to be even more cheap? They stop charging for parking a couple hours before the show closes. The show continues at the PA Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg through Sunday until 9pm each day.

The word "Hybrid" is plastered on many vehicles at the annual show.

There are green hybrid logos, leaves sprouting out of logos and green signs on the carpet. The same technologies as in previous years, but in more models.General Motors has their mild hybrid (a couple mpg more for a small price) on display in the new Malibu.

The GM 2-mode hybrid, that shares engineering with Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, is on display. The electric/gasoline hybrid will be available in the Tahoe SUV and Silverado Pickup.

Ford has an interesting cut-a-way of their EcoBoost engine that is a direct injection gasoline engine boosted with turbo that promises a 20% increase in economy.

The Ford Fusion Hybrid is on display. It shares mechanical concepts with the Escape Hybrid and takes on the Toyota Camry Hybrid.

A small SUV/crossover from KIA with a small, 4-cyl common rail diesel engine (CRDi) that is European/Asian? spec that we won't get here, but you can see under the hood.

BMW features a full-size SUV with a new clean diesel that gets 26 mpg.

The weird award goes to the Nissan Cube. A boxy little, yet marshmallow looking car.

After a public relations massacre last month when pan handling CEO's seeking a bailout from consumers cruised in on jets that cost $20,000 for the day, Tuesday was a day of reckoning.

This time, the big three drove cars to Washington.

"There is not a Plan B," said GM Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson. " Absent support, the company can't fund its operations.

The chief executives of GM and Ford, stung by the public relations mess caused by recent comments at congressional hearings, said they will be willing to accept salaries of $1 a year. Ford plans to sell its five corporate jets, while GM will stop using corporate jets. cnn.money

In 1978, Lee Iacocca took on the challenge of transforming Chrysler for just $1 in compensation which was saved after he sought and landed a loan guarantee from Congress in 1979.

Chrysler went on to use those resources to build the K car platform on the success of the Omni, Horizon twins. These fuel efficient front-wheel-drive cars would be considered junk by today's standard, but for a country fresh out of a 1970's Arab Oil Crisis, they were great frugal tools from a manufacturer with a history of building big Detroit iron.

"Recession" has been the unspeakable word for months, though most of us have known it as reality for quite some time. It was whispered between the words of stories and secretly referred to in the code words embedded in business charts.

This week the big three auto execs jetted in on their private planes with golden cup in hand pleading for a bail out from you and me via our money managers in Washington.

To date, our money managers can't agree on how to give them our tax dollars to do what hasn't been accomplished with the free market. All the solutions seem treacherous.

Congress is somewhat agreeable to sending them home on the jets with the loot and the Bush administration wants the money to come out of a fund that was designated to help domestic manufacturers retool to make more efficient cars.

It doesn't make sense to trade in our future lean burning technology to plug a few more holes in a business model that isn't working. Then again, it didn't make sense to throw billions taxpayer dollars into a credit market that doesn't seem to be working only to watch the folks at AIG run with it to the spa.

I'm at peace with the idea that I am supposed to live more like a worker in China or India as the global money flows away from me. Do more with less if that's the hand you are dealt.

GM CEO Rick Wagoner, whose flight reportedly cost $20,000 round-trip -- about 70 times more than a commercial airline ticket -- told Congress he expected about $10-$12 billion from the requested bailout. foxnews.com

Savings tip for the auto execs:
When you come asking me for money, fly in on a commercial flight. A nice seat in coach costs $540 round trip according to usairways.com

Killing off the guzzlers

The 51-year-old Michigan Truck Plant, located in Wayne, Mich., will start building the Focus in November when it kicks equipment now used to build the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUV to it's Kentucky plant. A third shift will be created to boost production of the Ford Focus.

Ford's Cuautitlan Assembly Plant, located in Mexico, is to begin building a Fiesta subcompact car in 2010. The plant currently produces the F-Series pickup trucks. The Louisville Assembly Plant, located in Kentucky, also will begin producing a new small car in 2011. It is now home to the Ford Explorer.
wsj.com