Fiesta breaks through 3.0-litre barrier

The magic fuel consumption figure that dominates the thinking of car company engineers is 3.0 litres.

That's the lower threshold believed to be regularly achievable by conventional cars with internal combustion engines. Volkswagen's Lupo was promoted as a 'three-litre car' several years back, but in the main, reaching this figure is nigh impossible -- outside of economy runs. Even then, such a low rate of fuel 'sippage' is not easily attained.

But Ford has managed this feat in the company's Fiesta ECOnetic, competing during Day Four (yesterday) of the Global Green Challenge, 2009. Compared with its official combined-cycle consumption of 3.7L/100km, the Fiesta's result of 2.9 litres yesterday represented a 21.28 per cent improvement.

The Challenge -- and particularly the run yesterday, from Alice Springs to Coober Pedy -- is conducted mostly on the open road, and the Fiesta's highway consumption is 3.2L/100km, according to ADR81/02.

On the face of it, reducing fuel consumption from a standard set at open-road speed limits by 0.3L/100km doesn't seem all that remarkable, but achieving this sort of top-down improvement in a car that is designed from the start to be quite frugal is all the more outstanding, in practice.

If for no other reason, Ford has scored a significant PR 'win' for the new car from this event. But we're wondering whether we'll see other fuel consumption figures tumble as the drivers sweat off some weight in the mobile saunas -- since the crews are not running air conditioning.

You can read more about the Global Green Challenge in our blog.

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