National Fuel Economy Standard

Today, President Obama announced the framework to develop a new national standard for fuel economy that promises to provide a clear and achievable pathway for the auto industry to significantly improve fuel efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make progress toward energy independence.

Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally, along with other industry and government leaders, joined President Obama at the White House today for the announcement of this decisive and positive action. Although much work remains, this important step allows us to move toward a final regulation that all stakeholders can support for the good of our customers. We salute the cooperative efforts of the Obama Administration, the state of California, environmental groups and others that played a constructive role in this process, and we welcome the opportunity to work with the federal agencies to finalize the standards.

Rather than 14 separate state requirements, we will now have a single, harmonized federal standard that will allow us to deliver the full range of products in our portfolio to meet our customers’ needs. This addresses our concern about state-by-state standards, which had the potential to force us to restrict products in certain states where the mix of vehicles sold have lower fuel economy than the national average.

While meeting these tough new regulations will require significant financial resources and continued technological advancements, Ford is fully committed to not only meeting the federal standard but also delivering on our promise to provide the best or among the best fuel economy with every new vehicle we introduce – just as we’ve done with our new Ford Fusion, Fusion Hybrid, Mercury Milan, Milan Hybrid and F-150, among others.

Just this morning, we celebrated the beginning of production of the first of our advanced new EcoBoost engines in Cleveland. EcoBoost – which delivers the performance feel of larger displacement engines with the fuel economy of smaller ones – will first be available this summer on the 2010 Lincoln MKS, Lincoln MKT, Ford Taurus SHO and Ford Flex. It will be available on 90 percent of Ford’s nameplates by 2013.

We are equally committed to bringing to market more small cars, hybrids and electric vehicles.

Significantly improving fuel economy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are core to Ford’s mission to deliver great products, a stronger company and a better world.

For more information about Ford’s comprehensive blueprint for sustainability, visit www.at.ford.com.

Thanks for you continued commitment to Ford.