Ford Expanding Fuel Saving Hybrid Technology To Conventional Vehicles
March 15, 2011 Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis 
2011 Ford Fusion Hybrid. Photo courtesy of caremycars.com.
If you’re like most people, you aren’t very comfortable with change, so if you’ve driven a conventional vehicle your whole life, you might not be quite ready to take the leap into a hybrid or electric.
Getting use to new technologies can be a bit intimidating, but the good news is that some of that hybrid fuel efficiency will soon be coming to conventional vehicles, and it won’t require you to change your driving habits at all.
Ford is working on adapting one of its popular gas saving feature from its hybrids to its conventional models. It’s a feature that automatically shuts off the engine when you hold down the brake while you’re stopped and automatically starts it again when you take your foot off the brake.
In the United States, the feature currently exists in the Ford Fusion Hybrid and Ford Escape Hybrid. The global rollout of its “auto start-stop” system is already underway in Europe. The system is designed to work on both gasoline and diesel engines, and is standard on the Ford Ka and Mondeo.