Earth to Detroit: we want green cars! If any of the major automakers seem to be getting the message, it’s Ford, the company that started it all. According to a recent release, sales of the 2010 Ford Fusion have helped the company set a new record for hybrid sales in 2009.
The Ford Motor Company is reporting the sale of 31,000 hybrids through November, with hybrid sales up 67 percent from 2008. This trend reflects serious consumer interest in American-made hybrid gas-electric vehicles, as Ford’s numbers fly in the face of overall hybrid industry sales, which have slumped by 11 percent over the same period of time. The Fusion gets 41 mpg in the city, 36 mpg on the highway and was rated one of the “10 Best” cars for 2010 by Car and Driver. Introduced in March of this year, it now represents 45 percent of all Ford hybrid sales for 2009.
“Hybrid customers increasingly are considering Ford,” said George Pipas, Ford sales analyst, in a statement. ”And we are seeing a growing number of conquest sales, many of them from customers coming from import brands, mostly Toyota and Honda.” He adds that Ford’s hybrid technology is introducing them to a whole new community of customers who might have otherwise never visited a Ford showroom–i.e., people who want a reliable, fuel-efficient car for the 21st century.
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