Last year, Ford, with its Focus, was the sole U.S. manufacturer included in the final list for the North American Car and Truck of the Year award and it finished in third place, behind the VW Passat and the winner, Hyundai’s Elantra.
Even more surprising was the truck class where the Range Rover Evoque beat the Honda CR-V and the BMW X3. Where is this world coming to if U.S. manufacturers can’t build an SUV or truck to make an impression in their own market?
Ford has taken yet another swipe at Toyota in the battle of the hybrids. The Blue Oval announced that in November, their first full month of availability, combined sales of its C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi Plug-in Hybrid in the U.S. reached 4,846 units beating the 4,456 deliveries of the Prius Plug-in and Prius V hybrids delivered by Toyota.
“The C-MAX hybrids are off to a great start and our dealers and customers, especially in California, cannot get enough of them early in the launch”, said Ford general marketing manager Dave Mondragon.
Ford has been making a lot of noise about the mileage of its Fusion and C-MAX hybrids, claiming that their 47 mpg city/highway/combined mileage easily beat rival Toyota Camry and Prius models.
When tested by Consumer Reports (CR) though, both Ford hybrids' MPGs were found overstated. Actually, that’s an understatement: the publication bashed the two Blue Oval hybrids saying that “these two vehicles have the largest discrepancy between our overall-mpg results and the estimates published by the EPA that we’ve seen among any current models.”
Ouch! That must have hurt…
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a hybrid, plug-in and all-electric vehicle war raging in the U.S. new car market right now and Ford is one of the parties engaged in it.
Attacking Toyota and its Prius range claiming that its own hybrids are superior isn’t the only way the Blue Oval plans to boost the sales of its “green” fleet that by early 2013, will include the hybrid and plug-in (“Energi” in Ford-talk) versions of the C-MAX and the Fusion, and the pure-electric Focus EV.
Ford continues to downsize its engines in order to reduce consumption and lower CO2 emissions with the presentation of a brand-new 1.0-liter, three-cylinder EcoBoost petrol unit on its Focus family car range in Europe.
The new turbocharged engine replaces the naturally aspirated 1.6-liter petrol and is available with two power levels, the first of which produces 99HP (100PS) and delivers 58.9mpg UK (4.8lt/100km or 49mpg US) with 109g/km of CO2 emissions in the five door Focus.
Earlier today, we told you about Ford’s decision to increase production of the Focus-based C-MAX minivan at its Valencia plant in Spain to meet strong demand from European customers. We also noted that Ford was planning to launch the longer and more spacious 7-seat Grand C-MAX in the United States.
Well, it turns out there’s been a slight change of plans as the Detroit automaker just announced it won’t be bringing the petrol-powered Grand C-MAX to the U.S. after all. But not all is lost for fans of the Focus-based minivan as Ford will focus on the five-seat C-MAX in both hybrid and plug-in hybrid formats. The C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid vehicles were previewed at the Detroit Auto Show this past January.
Good news for Ford as the company has ramped up production of its new five-seat C-MAX and seven-seat Grand C-MAX to meet growing demand for the two minivans in the European market. The revamped schedule calls for an 18 percent increase in daily C-MAX production at the firm’s plant in Valencia, Spain.
It’s been a while since we last heard of Loder1899, but the German tuning house is back with a new proposal, this time for Ford’s new C-Max compact minivan. The tuner’s offerings include both performance tweaks and aerodynamic bits.
As we're nearing closer to the 2011 Geneva Salon, automakers are providing us with more details about their plans. Today, Ford announced that it will display a number of new production and concept cars including what the company simply described as a "groundbreaking new vehicle" without getting into any specifics.
Ford is certainly going “green” at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show with the world premiere of its first ever production plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, the C-MAX Energi, and the more conventional C-MAX Hybrid. Both models are based on the European market five-seater C-MAX and not the longer, seven-seater Grand C-MAX with the rear sliding doors to be offered in the States.
Ford is returning to the U.S. minivan market with the all-new Focus based and European developed, C-MAX, which will get its debut at the increasingly interesting North American International Auto Show in Detroit this January.
Ford today announced pricing on the all-new Focus-based five-seater C-MAX MPV and its seven-seater sibling, the C-MAX Grand, which will go on sale in the UK this October (U.S. sales of this model will start in late 2011). Both will be offered in a simplified two trim line-up (Zetec and Titanium) with prices starting from £16,745 for the C-MAX Zetec and £18,745 for the C-MAX Grand Zetec.
