Production on the Ford Fusion ended on July 31
Photo: Ford
We all knew this day would come, but it doesn’t make it any easier. The Ford Fusion is dead. May angels sing it to its rest. Ford Motor Company confirmed this week to Ford Authority that the last of the Ford Fusions was built on July 31. Ford had originally intended to continue production of the Fusion through 2021.
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Ford announced in 2018 that it was killing off all sedans and hatchbacks in North America to focus on more trucks, crossovers, and SUVs as well as electrified vehicles. This meant the demise of the Fiesta, Focus, Taurus, and C-MAX, and while it spelled doom for the Fusion, it held on for a few years more as it wound down its lifecycle.
With the Fusion now dead, the Mustang is the sole remaining car in the Ford lineup and will likely remain the lone survivor for the foreseeable future.
The Hermosillo Assembly Plant in Mexico that had built the car since its debut in 2006 will now gear up to produce the all-new Bronco Sport, which is slated to start rolling off the line next month.
Sales of the Ford Fusion were consistent for its first nine full years on the market, peaking at annual sales of 306,860 cars in 2014. But as crossovers became more preferable and more popular, the cliff came for sedans in general. After a modest decline in sales in 2015, Fusion sales fell double digits every year from 2018. Last year, sales of the Fusion were just 166,045 — less than half its sales at its peak. Through June, Fusion sales in the United States total just 61,421 cars.
Though the popularity of utility vehicles is one of the largest contributors to the demise of the Fusion, that popularity may ultimately be what brings it back in some form. It’s rumored that Ford is working on a Subaru Outback-fighting Fusion wagon, and Car and Driver went as far in February as to say that it will debut in 2021 (though that likely has changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
Car and Driver says that the vehicle, which it believes will go by the name Fusion Active, will feature standard all-wheel drive, lower body cladding, and a probable plug-in hybrid variant. Ford Authority suggests that the Fusion Active could replace the Ford Edge, which is rumored for discontinuation at the end of its current generation.
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Kyle S. Johnson lives in Cincinnati, a city known by many as “the Cincinnati of Southwest Ohio.” He enjoys professional wrestling, Halloween, and also other things. He has been writing for a while, and he plans to continue to write well into the future. See more articles by Kyle.
