Aaaaaand that’s that. After lawsuits and more lawsuits over the fuel economy rating for the 2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid, Ford will officially announce tomorrow that it will drop that rating. The company has tried software updates to try and get the C-Max Hybrid MPG level to where it was supposed to be, but has now admitted defeat in that fight in what Automotive News calls “a rare and potentially costly move.” Ford is currently not making any statements on the issue but we should know a lot more tomorrow morning. For what it’s worth, there isn’t any specific mention of the Fusion Hybrid, but there’s certainly a chance that car will also be down-rated.
The current rating for the car is 47 miles per gallon, across the board, something Ford was happily trumpeting over and over in the public space, comparing the car to the Prius V. Of course, we’ve heard complaints since at least October 2012 that 47 mpg is an unlikely number to hit from various sources. Also in 2012, Kia and Hyundai admitted it, too, had inflated MPG numbers. The companies said “honest mistakes” and “human error” during in-house testing caused those problems. We assume we’ll hear some sort of reason for the C-Max’s problem numbers from Ford tomorrow. The big question is: what will the new numbers be. Any guesses?
