While Honda and Toyota have been vocal about plans to spread hybrid technology throughout their product lines, this has not been the case with domestic automakers. Just a few hybrid models are presently offered by domestics with announcements of a small number of new models in the works.

Now this dynamic is changing. Ford has announced that it will bring gasoline-electric hybrid propulsion to fully half of its vehicle models in the next five years, with an annual hybrid production volume of some 250,000 vehicles. The strategy is a simple one, as Green Car Journal has long maintained. Hybrid powerplants will become yet another option, the same as opting up from a standard four-cylinder powerplant to a six-cylinder, or a six-cylinder to a V-8. But rather than just more power, a hybrid powerplant will bring greater fuel economy along with better performance. It’s a winning combination that should prove popular in an environment of high and uncertain fuel prices in the coming years.

Source: Green Car Journal Online