We bought a hybrid... and it's not a Prius!

We just bought a fancy, new car, a Ford Fusion Hybrid. We live in a small, left-wing town (Ashland, OR) where every other car is a Prius. We like being different.

We bought a Ford Fusion Hybrid because:

• It drives like a dream.
• It gets excellent gas mileage, 41 city and 36 highway MPG per EPA, though we're getting better than that.
  
• Hybrids are better for the environment and help reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
• The Prius is prissy. The Fusion Hybrid is a real car with muscle.
  
• We're proud to buy from a U.S. company.
  
• Ford didn't take the U.S. government bailout.
  
• Ford understands that we live in a global economy. The transmission comes from Japan, the engine from Mexico, and the assembly was done in Mexico.
• Many parts were made in the U.S. and the design, engineering, marketing, sales, and management were done in the U.S. Plus, profits stay in the U.S.
• Supporting the U.S. automotive industry saves jobs and helps spur the development of new technologies in the U.S.
  
• Whereas I'd like to see more manufacturing jobs stay in the U.S., as a technical instructor, I'm confident that many manufacturing workers can be retrained to work in IT, green tech, and healthcare. Ford supports Michigan's No Worker Left Behind program, which has shown great promise so far. (I'm not always opposed to government programs, especially not ones that support education. :-)
  
• We liked all the salesmen we encountered in our quest to buy a new car (the ones at Toyota and Honda as well as Ford), and we were pleased with the friendly (no pressure) way that cars are sold these days. (It's been 12 years since we bought a car). But we were especially impressed by the extra effort the Ford salesmen made to get us the car we wanted.
  
• We were able to buy local (from Butler Ford right here in Ashland). To buy a Prius or Honda, we had to drive to Medford. We would have caused extra emissions just to buy a hybrid. :-)
  
• I don't want to re-learn how to start a car. The Prius doesn't even start like a normal car. I work with annoying technology all day (I work on a PC) and I want my car to just work, without a bunch of technology that might be flakey and hard to use. Both my husband and I were concerned that the Prius has too many gizmos, too much technology.
  
• What's with that silly 2-inch gear shift in the Prius? You give it a little poke but then it pops back to its holding place. I want a "real" gear shift that has some moxie. :-)
• The Honda Insight LX we drove felt like a Go Kart. (Perhaps the EX model is better though.)
• We like the dashboard in the Fusion, especially the LCD screens. Making more leaves appear as you get better gas mileage is fun, though I did run a yellow light while focusing on the leaves. Ooops.
• My husband doesn't care too much about the leaves but he likes the other displays (the more manly, left-brained graphs for MPG, battery usage, tachometer, vehicle power demand, and all that other automotive stuff).
  
• Speaking of technology, we can sync our iPhones to our new car with Microsoft Sync. We hope that actually works... We haven't tried it yet.
  
• Finally, by buying a Ford, I have bragging rights with my fellow Michiganders. Go Blue!