Technobabble

Ford Focus: MPGs Or MP3s?

Posted by on Nov 13, 2007 | One Comment

Ford’s running a fun ad campaign to promote the new 2008 Ford Focus. You may have seen the commercials where two guys are driving down the road in a snappy blue Focus, fighting over the voice controls in the MP3ified SYNC sound system.

They refer to the compact as “the new 35 mile per gallon Focus.”

To be clear, that’s 35 miles per gallon highway, not combined…

Unfortunately, these aren’t fun times. There’s little doubt that with gasoline prices cresting four dollars a gallon in parts of the US, Ford Focus gas mileage needs to be a whole lot better than that… especially when you consider the vastly superior gas mileage of the (snappier) European Focus.

[tags]ford focus, mp3, mpg[/tags]

  • Michael

    Many of the euro-cars are not running on gas, but diesel – and citizens here do not buy unfashionable diesels. The cars are also lighter and on average smaller — but most of all they have smaller engines and manual transmisisons. Ford has a MPV car/van that is the top seller in Great Britt that gets wonderful (diesel) mileage, but it can’t be sold here because it doesn’t pass safety regs OR emissions. Ford/GM/Chrysler seem to design cars 1st by looks, 2nd by comfort, 5th by safety, 7th by gas mileage, 10th reliability. Looks like Toyota will continue to gain market share. That’s what I’m driving now and getting 40.6mpg over the last 2,000 miles. If the Chinese ever really wake up, USA car manufacturers will all be left in the dust of automotive history.