Peugeot was pretty impressed with its 90-mpg 208 at this year’s MPG Marathon, but then along came the new Ford Fiesta ECOnetic setting an amazing record of 108.78 mpg. The car did that in a 370-mile route through the hills of South Wales and the Cotswolds was made more challenging by a bridge collapse and a traffic light failure along the way. So yes, it was real-life condition!
Of course you are not going to 108 mpg in your daily commute. Ford’s official figure is 85.6 mpg and emissions of 87g per kmCO2. If a hypermiler can get 108 mpg out of it, you should be able to hit 85 mpg easy peasy. To achieve that record, the ECOnetic combines start/Stop technology, combustion and calibration improvements, smart regenerative charging and revised gear ratios among other enhancements.
Ford also brought along a Focus Titanium 1.0 EcoBoost that did 61.93 mpg, and a Transit Custom T270 that did 56.04 mpg. Both those figures are considerably better than last year’s records, which shows Ford’s fuel saving strategies have been successful.