Ford

When I got back to the States after my vacation in diesel-clogged Buenos Aires, I had a Ford Escape Hybrid waiting for me to test drive. I don’t think I’ve even been so happy to see a low-emissions vehicle in my life.

Before we get to the mpg, a note on space: The Escape fit all of our suitcases, camera bags, backpacks, and whatever else in the back seat and cargo area, with plenty of space for a regular-sized driver (me) and a six-foot-plus passenger. It was far less crammed than the airline seats we had just happily left, and we had satellite radio.

When the Escape is started, the gasoline engine comes on, so there is an audible cue to let the driver know when to stop turning the key. In case that’s still too quiet for you, there’s the little green car-shaped light with a double-ended arrow under it in the dashboard to let you know the vehicle is ready to go. (This comes in handy when stopped at very long red lights and the gas engine drops out. The electric motor is silent, but ready to do your bidding at the green light.)

The home screen of the display has a little map, radio information, and an mpg meter. For more detailed mileage information, you can call up the HEV screen, which shows a diagram of the engine, electric motor, the battery, and the front wheels. A green outline shows which elements are in play at any time, and the status, i.e., “Idle with Charging,” is spelled out at the bottom of the screen.

The Escape doesn’t have the pep of the Mini I tested a few weeks ago, but I did take it on a variety of roads — surface streets, interstates, and state roads. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get my average fuel economy to budge from 30 mpg. Wait — I did get it to 29.9 mpg while I was passing a string of trucks. This is less than the EPA combined rating of 32 mpg, but still good for an SUV. The EPA also gives it an 8 out of 10 emissions rating.

That kind of mileage and low emissions come at a price, though: the Ford Escape Hybrid starts at $29,305. Hybrids are still hard to find on the lot, as they are expensive to build and popular to buy, so price breaks and dealer incentives are going to be equally as scarce for the Escape hybrid. But if you can find and afford it, the Ford Escape hybrid is a great SUV.

The Los Angeles Auto Show just came to a close, and not surprisingly, manufacturers brought a lot of green cars to the event. There were high-mpg gasoline cars, electric cars, clean diesels, and more. (Ferrari and Bentley also brought expensive gas guzzlers, but I’m willing to bet the market for those is pretty small.)

Here, then, is the Good Green Cars round-up of the enviro-friendly autos that were at the L.A. Auto Show.

• Ford hybrids: Ford brought the all new 2010 Fusion hybrid and 2010 Mercury Milan hybrid to L.A. The cars are nearly identical but for a few styling cues and trim levels, and they share the new lighter hybrid system found in the current Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner SUVs. The cars can go 47 mph on electric power only, according to Ford.
• Hyundai Blue Drive: This isn’t a new engine technology; rather, it’s Hyundai’s strategy to reach a fleet average of 35 mpg by 2015. It includes the 2010 Sonata hybrid, high-mileage “Blue” versions of the 2009 Accent and Elantra, and a future crossover with a gasoline direct-injection engine.
• Lexus hybrid SUV: The 2010 Lexus RX 450h gets its first update since its introduction, with more horsepower and better exhaust-heat recovery. It also gets its own distinctive grille. No further word yet on whether Lexus could be Toyota’s all-hybrid brand in the future.
• Mini EV: The Mini E plug-in electric vehicle made its official debut in L.A. Only a handful will be available anytime soon, and those will be tested by private and corporate customers in California, New York, and New Jersey. The Mini E can go 150 miles on a charge, with a top speed of 95 mph.
• Volkswagen diesels: VW expands its clean-diesel TDI technology to the latest Touareg SUV, which means it passes California’s stringent emissions laws. The EPA rates it at 25 mpg, and it will be available in all 50 states. This is the same technology that earned the Jetta TDI the “Green Car of the Year” award at the show.

Oregon Public Broadcasting’s call-in show, “Think Out Loud,” was about the future of the automotive industry this morning. The program focused on the state of Oregon, and most of the guests and callers were from the state, but the show had a lot to say about where personal transportation is headed in the next decade for the entire U.S.

The show, which aired Monday, December 1, was called “A Sustainable Auto Industry.” Guests included John Viera, Director of Ford Sustainable Business Strategies; Mark Perry, Director of Product Planning for Nissan North America; a representative from Governor Kulongoski’s office; and an assistant professor at Oregon State University’s College of Business. So they had their bases covered.

Highlights of the show (though you should listen to the whole thing):

• Viera says Ford will not go back to making so many trucks, no matter what the price of gas is. The company apparently is trying to learn its lesson and produce for the tomorrow instead of yesterday.
• Perry says Oregon will be one of the first launch markets for its new EVs in 2010. Yay!
• He also said Nissan wants to have 10% of its sales to be EVs by 2020 — that’s about 100,000 vehicles in the U.S.
• My favorite phrase came from Chris Warner, Kulongoski’s transportation adviser. He says there is no silver bullet, only “silver buckshot,” which includes alternative fuel cars, bikes, walking, public transportation, and whatever else the future holds.

A lot of basic alternative-fuel questions were answered, like shifting emissions from the tailpipe to the smokestack, and the recyclability of electric-vehicle batteries. It’s a good listen for newbies and alt-vehicle veterans alike.

A Sustainable Auto Industry

We Americans have it pretty good — freedom of speech, religion, and the press; pursuit of happiness; pulled-pork sandwiches — but not when it comes to green cars. Here’s a rundown of the latest models we want, but can’t have:

• Diesel-powered Ford Ka This little number will get 56 mpg from it’s 1.3-liter engine, and put out 75 horsepower. At the Ford presentation I recently attended, someone asked speaker and powertrain expert Dan Kapp about Euro-spec clean-diesel Fords coming to the U.S., and he said not in the foreseeable future.

• Ford Fiesta ECOnetic Another small, diesel-powered Ford. This one, which goes on sale in the U.K. in November, gets 65 mpg and would be priced similarly to the Toyota Prius, if it ever made it to these shores. Which it won’t. Ever, according to Business Week.

• Honda Fit Hybrid So Ford says it won’t bring its diesels to the U.S. because we’re all about hybrids, so why has Honda decided not to go forward with its Fit Hybrid? Competition with itself. It wants all the hybrid love to go to its new Insight, due next spring. So no one gets the Fit Hybrid until the next redesign, a Honda spokesman told Edmunds.com.

• VW BlueMotion Diesel Golf The latest TDI-powered Volkswagen to come down the pike is a quick little four-door hatchback that gets 52 mpg, according to a VW press release, while still achieving 103 hp and a top speed of 117 mph. Luckily, VW did deem the U.S. worthy of the new Jetta SportWagon TDI, which gets 40 mpg on the highway and emits a mere 6.4 tons of CO2 annually.

At a press event in Portland, Oregon, Dan Kapp, Ford’s director of powertrain research, said that the company has plans to become the number-one hybrid  producer in the country next year. By adding hybrid versions of the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan to the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner hybrids already on the market, Ford will double the number of its hybrids on the road.

Kapp laid out Ford’s long-term strategy, from today to 2050. The company plans to migrate its advanced fuel-saving technologies, like hybrid systems and the new EcoBoost engine, across the product line by 2012, so at least a few Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles will get a little better gas mileage. By 2020, Kapp said Ford will fully implement current technology and begin to delve into more gasoline-electric hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and more. After that, the plan is to roll out hydrogen fuel-cell cars, biofuel-powered vehicles, and whatever other new technologies have developed by then.

Kapp was eager to point out the advantages of Ford’s new EcoBoost engine, which uses gasoline direct injection and turbocharging to raise fuel efficiency by as much as 20% and lower tailpipe emissions by as much as 15%. The physically smaller engine will be able to deliver the same or greater power as traditional Ford engines, and will be available first in the 2009 Lincoln MKS sedan.

Kapp pointed out that while Ford was not pursuing hydrogen-powered cars as quickly as Honda, nor was it chasing Chevy’s PHEV Volt with any conviction, it does have the first driveable hydrogen fuel-cell PHEV in the Edge HySeries. The fleet of 30 cars is still very much in the test stage, and Kapp noted that hydrogen fuel has “monumental infrastructure problems.”

When fielding questions about bringing clean diesel cars from Europe (answer: not any time soon), a fellow journalist mentioned that he ran his diesel-powered Ford truck on B99 every summer. Kapp nearly choked on his coffee when he heard that one of his trucks was being powered by 99% biodiesel a few months out of the year. I was surprised that he was surprised — he was in eco-conscious Portland, after all.

After a disastrous second quarter, Ford announced that they’re going to build fewer trucks and SUVs and import six small cars that the company’s been selling in Europe. Consumers, and the dealers who can’t move SUVs off their lots, are chomping at the bit to get these more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The Ford Focus and Fiesta sedans and hatchbacks currently on the streets of Paris and London will be available in the U.S. in 2009-2010. At the same time, three truck plants — two in the U.S. and one in Mexico — will switch over to building the small cars that are currently in such short supply. I can’t help but think that a little bit of foresight on Ford’s part could have saved them from their worst quarter ever, which just ended with a total loss of $8.7 billion.

If we’re lucky, we Americans will get the latest Fiesta, the ECOnetic, which debuted in London July 22. It gets the best fuel economy in the company at 3.7 l/100 km, which on this side of the pond is an amazing 63.5 mpg. It also has the lowest CO2 output in its class, at 98g/km, yet it still has a top speed of 110 mph.