2017 Ford Fusion Energi Pushes the Bounds of Plug-In Hybrids

2017 Ford Fusion (Credit: © Ford)

The world of alternative-fuel vehicles continues to get better with each passing year, and one of the leaders in this segment is Ford. No, Ford doesn’t have a full-electric vehicle yet, but it is a pioneer in the world of plug-in hybrids. One of its more popular plug-in hybrids, the Fusion Energi, is primed to get a few powertrain updates for 2017 that’ll give it more overall range than any other plug-in on the market.

Surprisingly, there are no changes to the mechanical bits of the 2017 Fusion Energi. Instead, Ford has tweaked the hybrid software to milk an extra 60 miles from it. This increase brings the total range to 610 miles and the electric-only range to 21 miles—a 1-mile increase. Putting all of this into fuel economy numbers, the EPA rates the new Fusion Energi at 43 mpg city, 41 mpg highway, and 42 mpg combined, which are increases of 3 mpg city, 5 mpg highway, and 4 mpg combined.

The Fusion’s plug-in system is slightly different than most of its competitors. Instead of running on electricity alone until the batteries are dead then kicking straight into gasoline mode, the Fusion will bridge the gap between battery depletion and gasoline-only operation with a mile of hybrid driving.

Ford has yet to reveal pricing and a release date for the 2017 Fusion, but we should learn about this soon.