What will the future be like? The future of the car has been a favorite topic of Movies and television for years. What did you think vehicles would be like in the year 2010? Floating space speeders like on The Jetsons? Hovering craft like in Star Wars? We imagined better, faster, cooler cars than ever. That isn’t the direction that technology has taken. Cars already do what we need them to do. Hovering would be cool, but wouldn’t really serve any other purpose. The police are busy trying to slow drivers down because our cars already go more than fast enough. A lot of the time we can’t even use the speed our cars are capable of because there’s too much traffic. Although we do want good looking cars, consumers are choosing cars that look good, but pretty boring. Even spoilers are usually understated and painted the same color as the car. Auto makers tout the vehicles’ reliability and safety records, which has improved exponentially in recent years. Is there anything we need that our current cars don’t offer? Even more practicality, in the form of fuel efficiency. The price of gasoline has soared in recent years, and it’s expensive just to drive around town. Cars that run on less gasoline, or none at all, are the hot sellers. There are a lot of options for accomplishing this goal, from propane to hydrogen to biofuels. None of these technologies is perfect yet, especially economically. One technology has taken the lead in the last few years and reached the consumer via the car dealership showroom: electricity. Hybrids have been here for a while, and fully electric cars are appearing now. Toyota was the first to get its hybrid, the Prius, to consumers at a reasonable price. The other automakers followed closely on their heels. The Ford Escape, Infiniti M35, Honda Civic and Nissan Altima are just a few of the offerings. Hybrids don’t have to be small anymore, either, as evidenced by GMC’s Sierra and Cadillac’s Escalade. The government has encouraged the use of cars that consume less gasoline and don’t cause as much damage to the environment by offering financial incentives. You can go buy one of these cars today at your local Atlanta Honda Dealer or Car Dealers Des Moines with no problem. The fully electric car is the next development we’ll see. You’ve seen them for quite a while, in experimental cars owned by the local power company or as spec cars at car shows. The Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf are finally hitting showrooms. Limited range and battery price are not completely resolved yet, but clearly this is the direction that new cars are going. Good old fashioned fuel efficiency is getting overlooked to some degree. Even gasoline powered engines can be greatly improved if they just use less gas. This is a technology that’s been slowly but steadily improving for many years. There are gasoline powered cars getting 34-35 MPG – the Honda Civic and Ford Focus to name a few. This was unimaginable back in the 80’s when gas was only $1.35 a gallon and we loved our V8s. So while we’re unlikely to see cars like the DeLorean from Back to the Future or Kitt from the Knight Rider, cars will continue to evolve to meet our ever-changing needs. America’s love affair with the automobile is far from over.

When Ford ceased production of the outdated Taurus a few years ago, they had to scramble to fill the void inthe mid sized car arena.The public is really starting to notice the Fusion’s new Hybrid power plant system in comparison to the original introduction in 2006.  Ford officially released the Fusion Hybrid recently at the Los Angeles Auto Show late in 2008.The new Ford Fusion recieves some of the best in-town gas mileage, that only a hybrid can get.  The EPA rates the Hybrid at 41 MPG which bests the Camry by 8 MPG and even outshines the Civic Hybrid by 1 MPG in the city;  a great feat for a mid-sized sedan.The electric engine can get the Ford moving and can continue to power the car up to a limit of 47 mile per hour before the gas engine kicks in.  Already there have been many automotive magazines that have employed this system to achieve much better MPG ratings then the EPA estimates.

New technology in the Hybrid allows the Fusion to teach drivers which driving style gets the best fuel economy.Ford has made a smart feature built into the gauge cluster called the Smart Gauge.A couple of different info categories are displayed on two screens next to the gauge cluster.The 1st display tells the power left in the battery packs and the remaining amount of fuel.The 2nd display shows the vehicle tachometer and also tells which mode the Fusion is running in; full electric or hybrid.The third monitor will tell how the battery power is and what the engine output is.The fouth data screen shows which wheels are being powered and accessory power consumption.  All data screens show fuel economy, fuel consumption history, an odometer, trip data, and coolant temperatures.A real time MPG information gauge easily displays to drivers which driving style would be best for fuel economy.

You can see the hybrid flow graph located in the navigation screen.This display will exhibit the five modes of the Hybrid Pwer Train in cluding things like the regenerative braking, the elestric engine boost, and various hybrid and electric drive systems, and finally the charge while at idle.

The For Fusion is unique among other hybrids in that recycled yarns were used to make the seats, another eco modification first.Toyota and Honda have been selling thousands of hybrids per year unchallanged, better late than never with Ford.

Check out the inventory at Huntington Beach Ford today.  Or view a cool video and review of the Ford Fusion Hybrid brought to you by your Orange County Ford Dealer. Or check out a great bunch of Atlanta Acura Dealers.

A hybrid car is a vehicle that uses two or even more distinct sources of power in order to get propelled. Among the power sources for a hybrid car there are gasoline or diesel fuel, on-board or out-board rechargeable energy storage systems (RESS), hydrogen, wind, compressed or liquid natural gas, solar, coal, wood or other solid combustibles, etc. The term hybrid car/vehicle is used most frequently to refer to hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) in which an internal combustion engine is combined with one or more electric motors.

As mentioned above, there are other hybrid vehicles beside the hybrid cars we will mainly deal with here. Just think of mopeds and electric bicycles. These are the simplest forms of hybrid vehicles. They combine the power from an internal combustion engine or electric motor with the power of the rider’s muscles. Then there are hybrid heavy vehicles like railway locomotives, buses, heavy goods vehicles, ships or mobile hydraulic machinery. Usually, the term hybrid car/ vehicle is used to refer to hybrid electric vehicles. This category includes the following types of automotives: AHS2 (Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon, Chevrolet Silverado, Cadillac Escalade, Saturn Vue), Toyota Prius, Ford Escape Hybrid, Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Toyota Camry Hybrid, Honda Civic Hybrid, Honda Insight and many others. A petroleum-electric hybrid car usually gets its power from an internal combustion engine (gasoline or diesel engine) and an electric battery.

The beginnings of the hybrid car date back to the late 1900s when David Arthurs, an electrical engineer from Arkansas, invented the braking regenerative hybrid. Besides the hybrid car as mentioned above, which uses two or more different propulsion devices, there are also vehicles which use distinct sources of energy or input types but only one engine. These are also considered by some people to be similar to the hybrid car. Actually the latter should be more appropriately called dual mode vehicles (electric trolleybuses, dual mode buses, flexible-fuel vehicles, etc).

A hybrid car presents a number of advantages from the environmental perspective and there are two sides to consider here. First, there is the aspect of fuel economy, and secondly, the benefit for the environment and, implicitly, for humankind is undeniable in the fight to reduce pollution. There is a triple combination of factors that make the design of a hybrid car so appropriate for our times: first there is the combination gas-electricity, secondly, the battery comes with a high storage capacity, and thirdly, the kinetic energy wasted by braking is recuperated and reused.