SMALL IS SAFE:

FORD FIESTA EARNS

2010 TOP SAFETY PICK
· The 2011 Ford Fiesta has earned a 2010 Top Safety Pick from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) – it is the first mini-car to do so since the introduction of a new roof strength test

· Fiesta’s energy-absorbing body structure is optimized for strength and stiffness and designed to absorb and redirect crash forces away from the passenger compartment

· Fiesta features the most standard airbags in the mini-car segment and standard stability control – a requirement for any Top Safety Pick vehicle

· Ford has the most Top Safety Picks of any automaker
       

DEARBORN, Mich., Aug. 25, 2010 – The 2011 Ford Fiesta is the first mini-car to earn a Top Safety Pick from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) since the introduction of a new roof strength test. The award applies to vehicles built after July 2010. The Fiesta is the eighth Ford Motor Company vehicle to earn the Institute's top designation – breaking a tie with Toyota for the most “Top Safety Picks” of any automaker.

Fiesta’s extensive use of high-strength steels, Trinity front crash structure, Side Protection And Cabin Enhancement (SPACE) Architecture^® and advanced airbag technologies helped the car perform well in IIHS testing. Fiesta’s energy-absorbing body structure is optimized for strength and stiffness and designed to absorb and redirect crash forces away from the passenger compartment. Plus, it features the most standard airbags in its segment, as well as standard electronic stability control – a must-have feature for Top Safety Pick eligibility.

“Fiesta is proof that a small car can deliver big safety, and earning a Top Safety Pick further demonstrates Ford’s commitment to providing all of our customers with world-class crash protection,” said Sue Cischke, Ford’s group vice president of Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering. “Fiesta combines rigidity and more airbags – smartly deployed – than its competition, as well as standard stability control.”

Strong and stylish
Beneath Fiesta’s stylish exterior is a robust structure, crafted from high-strength steels engineered to preserve quality and enhance driver and passenger safety.

Fiesta uses significant cold- and hot-formed high-strength steel in the body structure. These components add rigidity and save weight, increasing structural efficiency while also helping Fiesta deliver class-leading fuel efficiency of 40 mpg, which is achieved with Ford’s new six-speed PowerShift automatic transmission.

More than 55 percent of Fiesta’s body structure uses these high-strength or ultra-high-strength steels in the floor structure, front rails, beams and in the ultra-rigid, integrated body reinforcement ring designed to help better protect occupants in side impacts.

Fiesta A- and B-pillars are fashioned from ultra-high-strength aluminized boron steel, adding robustness while allowing for slim width and rake to honor Fiesta’s distinctive design. Rocker panels – with welded baffles to absorb impact – also are crafted from very high-strength, dual-phase steels, known for their energy-absorption qualities. The side roof arch employs dual-phase steel construction. The under-floor support beams – so-called sled runners – and lateral floor reinforcements also use high-strength, dual-phase steel. These light but strong metals in Fiesta’s robust body shell help enhance crash protection by adding strength, rigidity and durability.

Segment-busting safety
The Fiesta body shell is well equipped with safety features to help protect its occupants in the event of a collision, including the most standard airbags in the segment.

Fiesta offers a segment-exclusive driver’s knee airbag, developed to help reduce lower leg injuries in the event of a frontal collision and to work together with other safety features. The knee airbag joins a suite of Fiesta safety features including dual-stage first-row airbags, side-impact airbags and side curtain airbags. A knee airbag won’t be found in Honda Fit, Nissan Versa or Toyota Yaris. Move up to Civic, Sentra and Corolla and you still won’t find a driver’s knee airbag.

“Smart” Passenger Occupant Detection System (PODS) sensors determine occupant weight and seat belt status to optimize deployment force. Smart sensors include the class-exclusive side-impact sensor that uses pressure to react up to 30 percent faster than previous sensor offerings.

Also available on the Fiesta is Ford’s AdvanceTrac^® with ESC (electronic stability control), which uses sensors to detect and measure yaw, or side-to-side skidding conditions, by monitoring vehicle speed, throttle position and steering wheel angle. When AdvanceTrac senses wheel slip, engine torque is reduced and braking is applied where needed to help the driver keep the car tracking on its intended path.

“Fiesta sets a new benchmark for small car safety,” Cischke said. “Fiesta is a clear example that making a safe car doesn’t mean making a large car or a heavy car. Fiesta has it all; safety, good design and driving character.”

DEARBORN, Mich., June 8, 2010 – Drivers who enjoy the convenience of Ford SYNC® with Traffic, Directions & Information (TDI) soon will be able to select a destination on Google Maps and send it to their Ford, Lincoln or Mercury vehicles.

'Send to SYNC' is a new capability added to the Ford Service Delivery Network, the company's cloud-based architecture, which provides a suite of voice-activated services accessible through a customer's mobile phone.

"Printing paper directions from a website is a relic in our digital age," said Doug VanDagens, director of Ford Connected Services Solutions Organization. "With Send to SYNC, you can map a destination at home, at work – wherever you have connectivity – and when you get to your car, it already knows where you want to go. It's convenient and it eliminates the waste and distraction of paper maps, conserving resources while helping drivers keep their eyes on the road."

The SYNC TDI application leverages a customer's mobile phone voice plan and the vehicle's integrated GPS receiver to deliver location-based services, such as driving directions or business searches, and on-demand information such as horoscopes, news, movie listings and stock quotes. Since these services, including the new Send to SYNC functionality, are cloud-based, no vehicle updates are required and they will be available to all owners who have registered for TDI services through www.syncmyride.com.

When users visit Google Maps on the web to find locations, they will have the option to send a selected destination to their Ford, Lincoln or Mercury vehicle via a "send" menu on the site. Once in the vehicle, the driver connects to SYNC TDI using the "Services" voice command, and when prompted, confirms the request to download the Google Maps destination into the vehicle.

The optimal route is calculated in the cloud using the latest traffic information, downloaded to the vehicle and navigation guidance begins. If the vehicle is equipped with a map-based navigation system, the destination point is downloaded directly to that system, which then calculates the route based on the in-vehicle navigation preferences set by the driver.

"Our cloud-based service network is helping deliver constant improvement for our customers, and has become a key reason why Ford leads the industry with SYNC," said VanDagens. "We're proud to be working with Google to bring this new capability to SYNC."

The Google Maps 'Send to SYNC' capability launches later this month. Ford is currently the only automaker offering this capability without requiring a paid subscription to a telematics service.

Ford previously announced the same feature for MapQuest (owned by AOL), which will launch later this year.