The Ford Fiesta ECOnetic gets 65 MPG, but will not be sold in the USA.

[dogfriend]

I looked at the Focus back in Sept 06 (Labor Day weekend). I wanted a 5 door hatchback, they only had one on the lot in a bad color (dark grey is bad in Sacramento). This was before the redesigned version they have now. My GF didn't like it.

We ended up test driving a Mustang convertible, but I wasn't looking for that. I ended up buying a Prius in Feb 07.

I would like to see Ford bring some of their higher mileage cars to the states, like the one in the OP by BB. I also would like them to get the Ford Fusion Hybrid on the market. Not because I want to buy one, but because I really believe that we will see gas prices continue to climb and I would like to see Ford survive.

 

[JDM71]

I don't know, but I found this read interesting, and its in our back yard:

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

Also, the Fusions are nice on the mpg's. Driving from Southern California to Washington my wife averaged 34-41 mpg. I can't remember where she hit 41 but that is based on the digital odie. Its an 06 Fusion 2.3L.

 

[dogfriend]

Cool. No reason to drill offshore or in Alaska now. Start drilling in Montana and North Dakota.

I still bet we will see $5 gas in California next summer.

 

[briwayjones]

Its gonna cost more to develop these sources. In Saudi Arabia, the oil was very easy to extract, so it was cheap. If you go up to Alaska, its gonna cost more money (cold conditions, isolated from civilization, cost of transporting it), so don't expect a big drop in prices.

The initial cost will be more. The price we're paying for foreign oil now makes it almost a wash to use our own oil. But once it's setup and the system get's better the will slowly go down. What happens when foreign oil gets to $5 or $6 a gallon? If we had our own infrastructure setup already that would be a good thing since it would take time to build. Now's the time to build it. Even if it cost the same or even a little more to use our own oil we need to cut our dependence on foreign oil. What if for some reason we couldn't get oil from the middle east anymore or Saudi Arabia for some reason stopped selling us oil? In the short term we need to become self sufficient.