Ford EVOS Concept

                       

Mays won't go on record that the Evos is the next Fusion/Mondeo, however. The concept is C-car (Focus) in length and C/D-plus car width. "I would say 85 to 90 percent of what you see here, you'll see this design DNA in short order coming to production," he says.

 

 

One Ford, as we've noted numerous times, is the mirror image of Volkswagen of America's new strategy. The 2012 Passat is larger than its rest-of-the-world-except-China counterpart, as VW is targeting specific models for our market. That's not to say One Ford is completely global-centric; its hugely successful F-Series (a model that engenders extreme jealousy among companies like VW and Toyota) likely will remain the nation's bestseller for years to come, and the '15 Mustang will continue to be the American-centric icon no matter where it's sold.

 

 

"On Taurus, because we're looking at that vehicle as a possible car that might at some point be sold outside the United States, that one I think in the future has the possibility of inheriting this design language," Ford design VP Mays says.

If the new Focus is any guide, the 2013 Ford Fusion will be something like 80-90 percent of what the European Ford Mondeo will be, jumping into the market less than half a year after the '12 VW Passat. Right on top of the '13 Chevrolet Malibu (Motor Trend, September). Amidst the all-new '12 Toyota Camry, '13 Honda Accord, and '13 Nissan Altima. For such a safe, boring automotive segment, this is going to be fun. It is the U.S. market's biggest, even if Europe prefers Focus-sized C-segment car

How have Mays, his engineering counterpart Derrick Kuzak, and company tackled this critical car? On the engineering side, we can say the next Ford Fusion ditches six-cylinder variants, just like the new Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima, and the coming Chevy Malibu. It will come with four-cylinder and turbocharged EcoBoost four-cylinder powertrains exclusively.

 

 

The Evos concept features a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrain with a lithium-ion battery pack similar in scope to what the automaker is planning for its Ford C-Max Energi, which is scheduled for introduction in North America next year. So far, Ford has been coy about what engine will be under the hood of the C-Max Energi (no doubt one of its smaller displacement EcoBoost mills), but is calling out a 500-mile range in the C-Max Energi. We’d expect to see a version of this powertrain available down the line in any next-gen Fusion.

 

 

Ford is also providing a glimpse of its future vision for how future cars would interact with the road with the Evos. The engineers at Ford’s Research and Innovation laboratories are working on drawing from the driver’s ‘personal cloud’ of information as well as data from the road ahead in order to optimize the car’s dynamics.

 

 

Ford is One. The automaker hocked every asset to defy the odds of the Great Recession without government handouts, transforming itself while successfully auctioning off all its superfluous brands, getting back to its roots and unifying its mainstream models in North America, Europe, and Asia for the first time since, probably, the Model T.

 

That means it's all over for the current Fusion and Mondeo. If you've been waiting on a killer deal on one of those, now's the time. The Ford Evos concept will debut mid-September at the Frankfurt International Auto Show, and smart money says you'll see much of its exterior design, and even some of the interior design, on the new production version of the Fusion when it bows at the North American International Auto Show next January in Detroit.

When "Alan (Mulally, FoMoCo CEO) arrived, the end of '06," Ford CCO J Mays says, "he made my life a lot easier, because where we were designing cars for three regions before, he said, 'Why don't we do it once?' I'm all for that."