Ford is diving into the burgeoning social media world head first. Based on the success of its Fiesta Movement, the Blue Oval has decided to launch a new program called Fusion 41 – so named because of the Fusion Hybrid's 41 mile-per-gallon EPA estimate in the city and the fact that Ford is looking for 41 participants to take part in its new game.
A total of eight Fusion or Fusion Hybrid owners will be chosen from all applicants received based on their social media presence, and those drivers will each choose four friends or family members to join their team. Ford will then hand out assignments that must be completed with photo and video proof that is to be uploaded to the driver's Facebook profile. Ford is calling the program an "automotive relay race," whatever that means.
So, what's the incentive to participate? For starters, each team will be given a new Fusion for the challenge, and the winning team captain will have their own Fusion or Fusion Hybrid paid off by Ford. Not bad, eh? Plus, participating team members from the winning group will earn free gas for one full year. Want to know more? Click past the break for the press release and visit www.fusion41.com before November 6th to enter the contest.
There's no doubt about which automaker leads the hybrid vehicle race. Toyota – and particularly the Japanese automaker's Prius hybrid – outsells all other manufacturers combined. In total, Automotive News calculates that Toyota sold 144,351 hybrid vehicles in the first nine months of 2009, which actually represents a 28-percent drop from the previous year.
So far this year, Honda has come in second with its new Insight, but that position is currently in jeopardy. The 26,016 hybrid vehicles sold by Ford in the first nine months of the year represents an impressive 73-percent gain from last year. Honda has sold 29,958 hybrids so far in '09, representing a much smaller eight-percent increase. In both July and September, Ford actually sold more hybrids than Honda.
In other words, Ford, led by its Escape Hybrid and new-for-2010 Fusion Hybrid, is gaining on Honda at a very rapid pace. Moving on down the line, General Motors slots in at number four with 12,556 total hybrid so far this year and Nissan's 7,713 units make it the number five hybrid seller in the U.S.
Ford buyers appear to love their cars more than customers of any other automotive brand, returning back to the American automaker when it comes time to purchase their next vehicle. According to a study by Experian Automotive, six of the top 10 vehicles for customer brand loyalty wear badges from the Blue Oval. That includes the Ford Fusion (62.4 percent), Ford Edge (57.9 percent), Ford Five HundredTaurus (56 percent), Ford Freestyle (51.9 percent), Ford Escape (49.4 percent) and the Ford Focus (47.57 percent).
Other vehicles making up the top 10 include the Toyota Prius (52 percent), Chevy Impala (51.7 percent), Toyota Camry (47.8 percent) and Toyota Corolla (47.56 percent). This brings up an interesting question: With the closing of automotive brands like Saturn and Pontiac, where are those buyers to turn for their next automotive purchase?
Apparently, not back to General Motors. According to Experian, Pontiac owners are most likely to look to the Ford lineup for their next car or truck and Saturn shoppers will switch to Toyota or Honda – not particularly surprising given that Saturn was meant to compete with import brands. Experian predicts that GM's overall market share will fall from 20 percent to about 17.5 percent, with most of the slack being picked up by Ford, Honda and Toyota.
![Act silly, get a Ford Fusion Hybrid [w/VIDEO]](http://www.niot.net/blog-images/act-silly-get-a-ford-fusion-hybrid-w-video.jpg)
Ford has already demonstrated strong, puppetmaster-like abilities with the whole Fiesta Agent thing. In exchange for agreeing to go on secretive "missions," a few dozen people were given a Ford Fiesta for six months this year (they're about due to give them back). Building from of that idea, comedian Mark Malkoff – yes, the guy who slept in an IKEA store for a week – is trying to collect the "Keys to the City" from as many cities as possible this month. Malkoff has convinced Ford to loan him a new Fusion hybrid while he travels around and performs a few stunts to earn those keys – including collecting all of the coins from a fountain in Fairfax, VA and cleaning up after the police horses in Harrisburg, PA.
Ford is feeling pretty good about its products right now, and the Blue Oval is spreading the word by doubling down with a multitude of new ads for print, web and TV. Ford's newest ads feature real Ford owners talking about features they like in their new vehicles. The 15-second spots highlight the company's new technologies featured in much of its 2009 and 2010 lineup including SYNC, Travel Link and even the second row refrigerator in the Ford Flex.
Hit the jump to watch Paul, Becky, Hayley, Kristen, Jonathon, Amie and Adam talk about their favorite new features. We're thinking it's a little annoying that everyone in the commercial is under 30 and Ford found it necessary to use the lame shaky camera bit to give the quick ads that viral YouTube look, but that seems to be all the rage these days. On the bright side, Becky loves her Fusion Hybrid so much that she can't help but mumble at the end.
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When Jaime Case and Chris Hodges decided to get married, Jaime didn't want the regular run-up filled with fights, dresses, cakes, consultants and huge expenses. So she dreamed up a Wedding Road Trip, the theme of which was "Two people, two months, two hundred friends, one bad economy, one ring, one dress, one car, one life together." Essentially, it would be a trip around these United States – with plenty of rules – to see friends before getting married.
To help make the trip, Ford Motor Company donated a Fusion sedan to the couple's cause. It also happened that Jaime and Chris wanted to take new last names instead of Jaime taking her husband-to-be's surname, and so the couple spent months trying to come up with one. After "two months of long conversations, intense fights, and hours of thinking," the last name they came up with: Ford. That's right, they are now Chris and Jaime Ford.
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Recently, we had our third opportunity to drive the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid. Actually, the last go around was with a Mercury Milan Hybrid, but aside from a different nose and fanny, it is the same car. Even though we did a full review of the Milan, we asked Ford for another go around because of the difference in fuel efficiency compared to the first drive we did last December in California. We managed to achieve 43.1 mpg driving around Hollywood, beating the EPA city rating of 41. But back home in Michigan, a week of driving around Ann Arbor yielded only 29.4 mpg with the first several days actually barely managing to crack 27 mpg.
Why the big drop? It wasn't that we drove the Milan like a race car, although the Fusion and Milan do have some very nice dynamic properties. No, this was all about climate. While the temperatures in Hollywood were a very temperate mid-70s in December, six weeks later in Michigan, we were barely breaking out of the teens with overnight and early morning temps in the single-digit range. What we're about to say is heresy to the hybrid true believers, but hybrids are not the best solution for every driving condition.
Despite the recession, tumbling auto sales and an uncertain future, good cars are still being made. The 2010 Ford Fusion is one example. The Fusion Sport just spent a week in the Autoblog Garage and we're in the midst of reviewing the rest of the lineup, as well. Whether it's from a domestic or import, good product needs to be talked about during these troubled times, because it's one thing that can get people back into show rooms and buying again. Ford has launched a new ad campaign to get people talking about the 2010 Fusion that kicks off with three commercials you may or may not have seen on TV yet. The "We Speak" commercials are fairly simple in execution, show a lot of the car and two out of the three spots hit home the message that the Fusion is the most fuel efficient mid-size vehicle sold in the U.S. You may say yay or nay on how effective the commercials will be, but we're talking about them, right?
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When Ford introduced the Ford Fusion back in 2005, the Blue Oval's midsize sedan was a pleasant surprise. Ford delivered vastly improved quality while also offering impressive driving dynamics, room for five adults and a choice of four- and six-cylinder engines. The Fusion put Ford back into play in the battle for midsize sedan supremacy, and in some ways the agile sedan shined brighter than the Camry and Accord. The Fusion also won respect from Consumer Reports for its high quality, and JD Powers named the Fusion an APEAL winner. For all that is right about the Fusion, though, it has consistently ranked fourth or fifth in the sales battle, losing big to the Altima, Accord, and Camry.
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When applicants were first being interviewed to replace Bill Ford as the top man in the Blue Oval Office, we wonder what exactly the process included. It turns out that in addition to being a pretty good salesman, Alan Mulally is also adept at making house calls. The FoMoCo CEO personally phoned Michael Snapper, a lawyer hailing from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to thank him for purchasing a Ford Fusion Hybrid over a Toyota Prius. To put this into perspective, could you imagine getting a personal call from Honda's Takeo Fukui, personally thanking you for purchasing a Honda over a Harley? Or from Steve Jobs, congratulating you for choosing an iPod in lieu of a Zune? Ridiculous, no? If this seems like nothing more than a publicity stunt, well, it's exactly that. Regardless, Ford is a company that can use all the positive pub it can get right now, and a phone call from the very top of the company symbolically sets an example that customer service is among the highest of priorities for the automaker – from the top down.
