From: larry_scholnick@yahoo.com   
      
   After driving a 2002 Ford Taurus to its timely demise (260K miles) I purchased   
   a used 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid as its replacement.  It's been 5 months and I   
   wanted to report some of my experiences.   
      
   There hasn't been a hint of trouble, although some things took getting used to.   
      
   In the final months of driving the Taurus it took to stalling whenever it   
   could, especially while stopped at red lights.  The irony was not lost on me   
   that I had just purchased a car that was DESIGNED to turn off the engine at   
   most red lights.   
      
   There are 4 different display modes for tracking the use of the gas vs. the   
   electric engines; I finally decided that the most informative was indeed the   
   most useful.   
      
   When asked why I chose this car, my answer has often been: It's about as   
   economical to drive as a Toyota Prius, but it doesn't stand there making a   
   statement 24/7.  Plus, it has the same-sized gas tank as the conventional Ford   
   Fusion, which results in a    
   600-mile range on a tank of gas.   
      
   After explaining the dual engine design to one friend, she had one nagging   
   question: Why do you need the 2nd engine at all - Isn't the nuclear engine   
   enough?  She thought that the car had a (nuclear) fusion engine; she didn't   
   realize that Ford had simply    
   selected the name Fusion for this model of cars.   
      
   One minor annoyance is that you can't gun the engine in Neutral.  Why might   
   one want to do this?  When driving near pedestrians in a parking lot or an   
   alley, it might be useful to gun the engine ever so slightly so as to notify   
   pedestrians that you are    
   sneaking up behind them and that it would be appreciated if they would move   
   out of the way.  Oh well.   
      
   The closest thing to a serious flaw that I've encountered is that "flooring   
   it" isn't very effective for getting up to speed when entering a high-speed   
   freeway.  You may lean on the gas pedal (and screw up your gas mileage in the   
   process), but the car    
   has a lame power curve. I guess they just don't make continuously variable   
   transmissions like they used to.  (Oh, wait a minute, continuously variable   
   transmissions are relatively new.)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)