Renewable Gossip

Given the major shift in consumer attitude towards fuel economy over the last few years, and the fact that auto makers’ fleets will now have to average 35.5 mpg by 2016 due to new regulations, it isn’t surprising that a car company would want to introduce more and more competitive, high mileage vehicles. But there’s a difference between simply adding more of those vehicles to your fleet, and adding them in a way that makes it almost lunacy to not buy them—which is exactly what Ford has gone and done with their 2011 Lincoln MKZ Hybrid.

Built to compete with the likes of other high end luxury brands such as Lexus, not only does the base model MKZ Hybrid come in at about $350 less than the Lexus HS 250h—which is a smaller,  less well-appointed, and, arguably, uglier car—as Ford announced today, the base MKZ Hybrid will also compete directly with its non-hybrid cousin because, at $35,180, it will cost exactly the same as the base V6 MKZ.

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