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There’s finally a great alternative to the Toyota Camry hybrid: Mercury has rolled out a gasoline-electric version of its redesigned Milan midsize sedan for 2010, and it’s quite a pleasant surprise.
With a starting price of just $27,855 (plus $725 freight), this beautifully styled car has ample room for five people, one of the best-laid-out interiors I’ve seen lately in a family sedan, and fuel economy that knocks the pants off the Camry.The Milan hybrid is EPA rated at 41 mpg in the city and 36 on the highway, which easily beats the Camry hybrid’s 33 city/34 highway ratings.Milan even beats the new Honda Insight compact hybrid’s city rating, which is 40 mpg, although the Insight does score a higher number for highway driving, 43 mpg. (Honda no longer offers an Accord hybrid, but when it last did – 2007 -- its mileage was paltry in comparison with the Milan -- 24 city/32 highway.) Under the hood of the Milan hybrid is a combination of a 2.5-liter four-cylinder Atkinson cycle engine and an electric motor, while gasoline-only models offer a choice of a different four-cylinder or a 3.0-liter V-6.Base prices of the gasoline-only Milan models range from $21,535-$28,155 (plus freight).Even the four-cylinder Milan S outranks many compact and most midsize sedans on the market with its EPA ratings of 23 city/34 highway. That beats both the gasoline-powered Camry and Honda Accord models, EPA rated at 21 city/30 highway for the Accord and 21/31 for the Camry.This year’s redesign of the Milan is not considered a complete makeover because it still has the same basic architecture of the Milan that was originally introduced for 2006. But there were numerous exterior and interior changes, along with a lot of new technology.The big satin-aluminum signature Mercury waterfall grille makes the car look more elegant, and there are more standard amenities even on the base model, giving the Milan the feel of a luxury car at a mass-market price.Until this year, Ford’s only hybrids have been the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner compact crossover utility vehicles, which entered their second generation last year. All of Ford’s hybrids come with the new Atkinson cycle four-cylinder engine for better fuel economy. It’s assisted by an electric motor, and power is transferred to the wheels by an electronically controlled continuously variable transmission.The hybrid’s gasoline engine is rated at 156 horsepower and 136 foot-pounds of torque. Ford developed the system on its own, but licensed some of the technology from Toyota because of similarities with Toyota’s hybrids.A continuously variable automatic transmission is used with the hybrid to seamlessly integrate gasoline and electric power.This system allows the Milan to run at high speeds, up to 47 mph, in electric-only mode. The new Toyota Prius can go only as high as 25 mph before the gasoline engine kicks in. A smaller, lighter nickel-metal hydride battery has been developed for the hybrids, and can produce 20 percent more power over the previous generation of this battery.
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