In busy city parking, it did take three tries to find a spot for Park Assist. The first time, as cit

This city traffic is heavy and the parking space is tight. Like Luke Skywalker, I listen to "The Force" and I let go of the steering wheel.  This 2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid then parks itself. With Active hotels munich Park Assist it backs into the city parking space, spinning the steering wheel as it makes a perfect parallel hotels munich park and while I sit hands-free. I watch on the 8-inch display as the rear camera captures the action. I do have to remember to work the brakes. If I get mesmerized with the automatic parking and forget to brake, the car will hit the car behind it.
This new 2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid hotels munich is impressive to drive. It delivers 47 miles per gallon (MPG) not only on the highway, but also on city streets. This best-in-class MPG is the result of a new drive system, improved internal hotels munich software, and a new Ford lithium-ion battery pack. This Fusion Hybrid assists me in a number of ways from parking to safety. hotels munich When I touch the voice button, the conversation between car and me is natural. For example, hotels munich I touch the voice button on the steering wheel and say "navigation destination California." The car replies, I then say "333 Battery Street San Francisco." I'm understood the first time, with no training. The destination correctly displays on the navigation map and I hear turn-by-turn directions while I drive. I don't listen to endless menus; I don't touch the screen. hotels munich No "I'm sorry, hotels munich I did not understand you."
In busy city parking, it did take three tries to find a spot for Park Assist. The first time, as city taxis squeezed by, Ford's Active Park Assist decided that it did not have enough room to maneuver. As you first drive by a space, it decides if it has 1.2 times the car length, then displays that it's ready to park. The second time, as I was lining-up my assisted parallel park, a delivery van swooped in and stole the spot. Unlike Luke in Star Wars, I was unarmed to deal with those from the Dark Side.
The new 2013 Ford Fusion family is loaded with telematics and safety features to make life easier for us in tight spots and intense traffic. The following options are available in Ford's Driver Assist Technology.
Classic styling, smooth driving, and excellent fuel economy come together in this new five-passenger midsized sedan. This new Fusion Hybrid beats its toughest competitor, the Toyota Camry Hybrid , in three ways: telematics, better MPG, and a drop-down 60/40 back seat for more cargo.
The Fusion Hybrid starts at $27,200 delivering 47 MPG, a $6,000 premium over the least expensive Fusion hotels munich that delivers 26 MPG. The Hybrid will save many drivers 150 gallons of gasoline annually, which is worth $600 annually where I live. At this meeting, most of the taxis we see are hybrid. Taxis are driven 90,000 miles a year in San Francisco, paying for the Hybrid advantage in one year, or two when battery packs are changed more frequently.
As I drive, the EV display stays blue, showing that I am only using the electric motor while the engine stays off. Under perfect conditions, I could stay in electric mode for a mile going as fast as 62 miles per hour (mph). Conditions aren't perfect, as a classic San Francisco hill approaches. The Fusion Hybrids electric motors and 2L engine work together to get me up the steep hill with ease using a combined 188 hp.
For the Fusion Hybrid and Energi, Ford has built improved battery packs using Sanyo lithium-ion prismatic cells. This Hybrid has 1.4 kW pack and two electric motors built by Toshiba in Houston, Texas. The 88kW traction motor moves the vehicle. The 60kW motor acts as a generator, capture excess electricity while driving and braking, and storing the energy in the battery pack. Seventy on-board computers and millions of lines of software handle hotels munich everything. I just drive.
In the Fusion Hybrid, the back seat can be lowered for more cargo like work projects, school supplies, and golf clubs. In most hybrids, such as the Camry and Civic, the back seat cannot be lowered.  The Fusion cargo flexibility is imperfect due to a large hump for the lithium batteries. Good enough for skis or lumber, but not for mountain bikes.
My test drive hybrid included a luxury package interior, SYNCH and navigation system with 8-inch LDC, and the Driver Assist Package discussed in this article.  Loaded with extras, this hybrid cost $35,265.
In addition to test-driving several Fusion models, I join Ford's Chief Technical Officer Paul Mascarenas and key members of Ford's research, technology, and engineering teams such as Chuck Gray, Chief Engineer, Electrification, and Jim Buczkowski, Henry Ford Technical Fellow. Ford is advancing in several fronts:
Intelligent mobility – with help from cloud services, you can start planning your trip and selecting your music on your iPad, have all that move with you into the Fusion, and then take that with you on your Droid when you arrive at the next stop.
The new Ford Fusion gives car owners unprecedented choice in powertrains and fuel economy. The Ford Fusion can be offered with an efficient EcoBoost engine or as a hybrid with better mileage than any midsized sedan or as a plug-in hybrid that allows many trips to use zero gasoline.
hotels munich Fusion brings the broadest selection of fuel-efficient powertrains in the midsize car segment. It offers hybrid and plug-in hybrid alternatives, a pair of EcoBoost™ four-cylinder engines, a normally aspirated four-cylinder engine, an automatic start stop system to shut off the engine at stationary idle, front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive ( AWD ) applications, and a choice between automatic and manually shifted six-speed transmissions. Choices include:
Mileage can be improved with the $295 optional Auto Start-Stop system, which smoothly shuts off engine power when the car is stopped and seamlessly restarts as the driver releases the brake pedal. This feature hotels munich typically improves fuel efficiency by 3.5 percent, but could improve mileage by 10 percent in heavy stop-go traffic.
The 1.6-liter EcoBoost outperforms many larger 6-cylinder engines with non-hybrid fuel efficiency of 26 mpg in the city and 37 mpg on the highway, 32 mpg combined. The 2.0-liter EcoBoost engine – paired with a paddle-shifted six-speed SelectShift Automatic™ transmission, available 19-inch wheels and tires, and all-wheel drive with the ability to send additional torque to the rear – is the Fusion performance option.
The Fusion has more cargo flexibility than the Hybrid, which reduces trunk size to make room for the lithium-battery pack. If you often need lots of cargo flexibility, then the Toyota Prius and Ford C-MAX offerings may be the better choice. For occasional cargo expansion, Ford with its smaller lithium batteries gives you the lowered hotels munich backseat flexibility missing hotels munich in Toyota and other hybrid sedans. The Camry Hybrid does include a smaller emergency spare tire. Like many hybrid and electric cars , the Fusion Hybrid has no spare. Get a flat and call AAA or other service.
For the first time, Ford's hotels munich Driver Assist Technology hotels munich is available in an all-wheel drive (AWD). Depending on road conditions, appropriate power is delivered to each wheel, unlike the front wheel drive of the other 2013 Fusion hotels munich models. If you live in an area where those 100-year storms now seem to hit every other year, then AWD may improve safety and handling in the rain, ice, and snow. AWD is only available with a 2L engine, and not in the hybrid and plug-in hybrid models. The Fusion AWD delivers 22-mpg city, 31 highway, and 25 combined.
Although Ford once led our Best AWD List   with the Ford Escape Hybrid, now discontinued, it falls behind Subaru and Audi in AWD mileage. Ford has been focused on achieving major advancements in other areas such as big mileage gains with EcoBoost engines and electric drive systems, telematics, and flexible manufacturing efficiency. Although Ford does not make AWD available on any hybrid or electric car , hybrids and plug-in hybrids are coming from Audi, BMW, Tesla, and Mitsubishi.
Arriving this fall, Fusion Energi is anticipated to deliver more than 100 MPGe, a mile per gallon equivalency metric for electrified vehicles. This is 8 MPGe more than the Chevrolet Volt and 13 MPGe more than the projected efficiency of the Toyota prius plug-in hybrid model. Many Volt owners tell me that in real world driving their first 40 miles are electric mode before the gasoline engine engages.
The Fusion Energi is expected to deliver 20 miles in electric mode using a 7.5kW Ford battery back with 76 Sanyo cells. The average American drives 4 trips daily with 40-miles per total. City streets and stop-go freeway are much of that driving. The Energi will support Level One and Level Two charging. Go fast, or use most of the lithium battery storage and the Energi drives like a hybrid the same two electric motors and 2L, 4-cylinder Atkinson cycle engine working together. An electronically controlled continuously variable transmission (eCVT) helps fuel economy.
The 2013 Fusion offers an unprecedented portfolio of driver assistance and convenience technologies based on sensors, cameras and radar that enable the car to see and respond. Fusion can help drivers maintain proper lane position, adjust vehicle speed to changing traffic conditions, identify suitable parking spaces and help park, even aiding drivers backing out of parking space where visibility is obstructed. Specific technologies include:
Lane Keeping System: 3 elements to help a driver maintain proper lane position. Using a small, forward-facing camera behind the inside rearview mirror, the system "looks" down the road, monitoring lane lines to determine that the car is on course. The system will alert a driver if drowsiness hotels munich or erratic lane keeping is detected. The second element warns a driver with a steering wheel vibration if the Fusion drifts too close to lane markings. Finally, lane-keeping aid will actually apply pressure on the steering to help bring the car back into proper lane position.
Adaptive cruise control: Using forward-looking radar,