Would The Most Efficient Midsized Car Please Stand Up?
Poor Ford. All they wanted to do was claim to offer “the most efficient midsized car in America.” “We’ve been pretty clear, probably annoyingly clear, to Toyota that we’re comparing Fusion to Camry,” Ford spokesman Mark Truby tells USA Today (via Daily Tech). After all, the Camry gets a paltry 33 city/34 highway rating from the EPA. At 41/36 mpg, the Fusion is clearly a more efficient mid-sized car than the Camry. But wait!
Toyota’s Prius just barely fits into the EPA’s midsized category with 110.6 cubic feet of interior volume, .6 cubic feet over the cutoff. Ladies and Gentlemen, according to your Environmental Protection Agency, the 48/45 mpg Prius is The Most Efficient Midsized Car In America. Or, as Toyota spokesfolks put it “it’s not exactly a squabble. What’s going on here is that we respectfully and cordially disagree on the definition of a midsize car. This is important when we’re discussing the EPA fuel-economy ratings of vehicles like the Camry Hybrid, the Prius and the Ford Fusion.”
But the polite tone didn’t lessen the blow in Dearborn, where the Fusion Hybrid marketing campaign had already written itself. “There’s a process to work through,” sighs Ford’s Truby. “Sometimes there’s an asterisk (in ads), clarifying why you think you can say that. Fusion (hybrid) is the most fuel-efficient midsize, in the way customers shop for cars. If we do use it in advertising, we’ll say most fuel-efficient midsize ‘sedan’.”
After all, the Prius has a hatchback. And all’s fair in love and marketing.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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That's the problem. I had a Prius for a week... we did an economy run in it with four to five people jammed into the car. We had it up against a european Ford Focus diesel...arguably the most cramped "compact" car in its class. The Prius isn't based on a Corolla, true, but it's on a compact-car floorpan, nonetheless... built to take engines from 1.5 to 2.0 (the new Prius is getting a 1.8, right?)... that was our consideration in doing the economy comparison... these two cars were quite likely to be cross-shopped by potential buyers interested in this amount of space and fuel economy. We noticed the headroom difference (Damn Focus/Mazda3 C-pillar), but the rest, elbow room, leg room, etcetera... didn't even register. Compared to a modern Accord or Camry? The difference is immense. It simply isn't in the same class. Now we don't have the Bu' here, but I've seen one at an autoshow... not the roomiest of cars, but I can see why... incredibly thick transmission tunnel, big, clunky seats. The Prius comes within an inch or two here only because, like most ultra-space savers, it uses thinner seats and clever seat mounting. Equip a decent midsized car with light, space-saving seats (a la Honda Fit) and the comfort factor you considered when going for a mid-sized car goes out the door. That's why a Honda Fit, despite having great interior measurements, doesn't quite compare to a full-on compact in comfort. Class sizes are wandering, which adds to the confusion on size classification, and, as some organizations have found, trying to stay on top of these classes can cause an incredible amount of complication and confusion. But the EPA's combined volume rating is, again, just plain daft. As is the subcompact Bentley Continental GTC... which probably has more engine displacement than passenger space.
johnthacker, you will not find me arguing that it's not "between" the Corolla and Camry. I only ever raise the midsize argument against those who insist it's a compact car.