As an undergrad in college, I had the privilege of twice attending the annual Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas. SEMA is mostly known for wild, outlandish, and powerful versions of street cars; it isn’t the kind of place you go to find people discussing fuel efficiency and hybrids.
But 2009 is a year of reckoning and big changes are afoot in the auto industry. One sign of the times: M&J Enterprises has brought to this year’s SEMA a Ford Fusion Hybrid equipped with an aero body kit to reduce drag.
It has long been said that its not what you drive that determines your gas mileage, but how you drive. Stomping the gas pedal at every stop light, even in the most frugal fuel sippers, will suck up more gas than slow and even acceleration. Drivers have been applying hypermilling techniques to get the most out of their mpgs, and in an effort to promote their new Fusion Hybrid, Ford launched its mid-size family sedan on a 1,000 mile journey with just a single tank of gas.
That was on Saturday, April 25th. Yesterday, the 28th, the Fusion finally ran out of dinosaur juice after a staggering 1,445.7 miles on a single tank of gas over the course of three days. This publicity stunt not only showcased the Fusion Hybrid’s ability to get an average gas mileage of 81.5 mpg, but also raised more than $8,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
By Leslie Berliant •
April 27, 2009
An environmentalist praising an American car maker and a NASCAR driver in the same post? Fasten your seatbelts!
On Monday, a team of drivers, including
hypermiler Wayne Gerdes and NASCAR driver
Carl Edwards successfully completed the 1000 mile challenge, taking a
2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid 1005 miles on less than a single tank of gas. (Full disclosure time, my company, BLU MOON Group, does some work with Carl Edwards, but we weren’t involved in this event.) The 1000 mile challenge was also a fundraising event for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Here’s the best part, though; they made it over 1000 miles with almost 1/3 tank of gas remaining and achieved more than 80 miles per gallon from the same Fusion Hybrid that you or I can buy. Pretty cool, right?
