The longest mile
Rush hour traffic into New York City has won an award as New York’s “longest Mile”, taking forty minutes to drive 9.6 miles from Route 78 between exit 56 and the Holland tunnel from Jersey city.
On Monday, March 22, 2005, five Ford Escape hybrids drove that route to see how much gas it would take them. the Ford Escape hybrid has graphs and average miles driven so the drivers were able to tell their mpg.
A typical Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) averages 16.5 mpg in city driving. The best driving the hybrid drivers came up with on the longest mile was 3.4mpg. That would mean yearly savings, according to Ford Motor Company, of $1,315 per year driving the Ford Escape hybrid vs. an internal combustion engine only SUV.
The Escape hybrid is also a Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle (PZEV)which means you are adding less pollution to the world, in fact, the air that goes in your engine is cleaner when it comes out.
The federal government estimates that for every penny increase in national gas price per gallon, $1 million dollars of discretionary spending is removed from the economy. Yesterday, gas prices nationally reached a new record high of $2.13 per gallon for regular, with crude oil trading at more than $57 a barrel. In the New York area, prices were as high as $2.39 per gallon, while the nation’s highest price of $3.05 was recorded in Malibu, Calif. One year ago, the national average price of gasoline was $1.74 per gallon.
The Escape can’t make you stop commuting, but it makes that traffic commute just a little bit easier to take.
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