Published November 9, 2012
By Philippe Crowe
With production of the C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid started, Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant (MAP) is now the only manufacturing site in the world to build vehicles with five different fuel-efficient powertrains on the same line.
It also becomes the only one to build four vehicles that deliver 40 mpg or more in real-world driving.
Those four over 40 mpg vehicles built by MAP are the C-MAX Energi, C-MAX Hybrid, Focus Electric and Focus SE with SFE (Super Fuel Economy) package.
“Michigan Assembly Plant is setting a new global standard for flexible manufacturing, and is a central part of Ford’s important milestone, sweeping Toyota across the board for fuel economy leadership,” said Jim Tetreault, Ford vice president of North America Manufacturing. “The transformation of this plant is proof of how our One Ford plan has transformed our products, giving our customers industry-leading choices for hybrids, plug-ins, electrics and EcoBoost-powered vehicles.”
The fuel economy numbers for Ford’s four MAP-built vehicles are as follow and as provided by Ford, including the Toyota comparison comments:
• C-MAX Hybrid at 47 mpg combined beats Prius v by 7 mpg in the compact hybrid utility segment
• C-MAX Energi at 100 MPGe combined beats Prius Plug-in by 5 MPGe in the plug-in hybrid market
• Focus SFE at 40 mpg highway beats Corolla by 6 mpg in the compact segment
• Focus Electric at 110 MPGe city does not have a Toyota competitor.
Let’s just hope Ford is very sure of these numbers and will not be stuck with a “procedural” mistake in its mpg calculations like Hyundai and Kia did recently.
Ford is very proud of the flexible manufacturing efforts it has undergone and said its Manufacturing and Product Development teams began working together four years ago to develop product platform designs that enable the use of programmable equipment to produce multiple variations of products in one facility; today, more than 80 percent of the tooling in the plant’s body shop can be programmed to weld a variety of body styles. This allows Ford to quickly adjust the mix between models as customer preferences change.
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