A writer from the Montreal Gazette and his son drove from St. Louis to Tulsa on Route 66 to test-drive Ford’s new Fusion Energi car — a plug-in hybrid that runs on electricity and gasoline.
Most of the article was a travelogue — mentioning landmarks such as Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, Meramec Caverns, Wagon Wheel Motel, World’s Largest Rocker, Missouri Hick BBQ, Gay Parita gas station, Blue Whale of Catoosa, and the Campbell Hotel.
But how did the car perform? Here’s where the rubber meets the road:
Total distance covered first day: 160 km and our mileage in the Energi hybrid was the equivalent of 130 km per gallon using the entire electric charge, the regenerated charge from braking at all the stops and starts and a little bit of gas.
The car is plugged in to recharge and we go to bed knowing we have a long drive the next day that will use the hybrid completely differently.
In fact, with 482 km to cover in one day we drive Route 66 and the adjacent freeway with less braking (thus less recharging of the battery while on the fly) and arrive in Tulsa with the screen telling us we’d achieved a hybrid equivalent of 64 km a gallon. So the Energi performs best in town with stop and start driving.
But it is no slouch on the highway either offering 195 horsepower and far better plug-in hybrid mileage than a standard gas-powered vehicle.
For the first leg of the drive, that was equivalent to 80 miles per gallon. The second leg didn’t do as well, but decent enough — 39 miles per gallon. The range of the car is an impressive 618 miles.
One cool part of the story I almost neglected to mention — Ford specifically chose Route 66 as the route for the writers to test-drive the car.
(Image of the Ford Fusion Energi at the Devil’s Elbow Bridge on Route 66 in Missouri by Melissa Hincha-Ownby, via Flickr)