Ford Escape Hybrid a mileage leader

That made the company's vehicles quite popular with consumers during the recent Cash for Clunkers program, causing many Ford dealers to temporarily run out of the most fuel-efficient Ford vehicles — including the best-selling SUV during the program, the compact Ford Escape, with a hybrid model that is among the most fuel-efficient SUVs available.

Ford also has joined the hybrid revolution in a big way for 2010, adding gasoline-electric versions of the redesigned 2010 Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan midsize sedans to its lineup, which already includes the Escape and Mercury Mariner compact SUV hybrids.

The sedans come with a new hybrid drive system that gives them quite impressive EPA ratings of 41 mpg in the city and 36 on the highway.

That's a significant improvement over their key competitor, the Toyota Camry Hybrid, which manages only 33 city/34 highway, and it approaches the 51/48 ratings of the Toyota Prius.

For consumers looking to buy sport utility vehicles, the mpg leader in the compact class is the Escape Hybrid (along with the Mariner Hybrid), with EPA ratings of 34 mpg city/31 highway for the front-wheel-drive versions and 29/27 for all-wheel-drive models.

Even front-drive versions of the gasoline-only Escape are rated as high as 22 city/28 highway, which helped make the Escape the most popular SUV sold under the clunkers program, which was designed to help people trade in older, less fuel-efficient vehicles for ones with better mileage.

The Escape and Mariner hybrids have been around since 2006, but they were redesigned just last year, along with their gasoline-only versions.

Fuel economy of the hybrids was increased with the redesign, but so was the mileage of the gasoline-only models, thanks to new engine and transmission combinations that also boosted their power.

The gasoline models rank among the best for fuel economy in the compact SUV segment when equipped with the base four-cylinder engine, six-speed automatic transmission and front-wheel drive. The highway rating was increased by 2 mpg by replacing the previous four-speed automatic with the new six-speed. It saves gasoline by providing two additional overdrive gears.