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While Ford is busy busting its you-know-what to prep its next-gen CD4 vehicles – the Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ here in the States and the Ford Mondeo in other markets – for launch, the team of Blue Oval engineers assigned to development of the updated Fusion Hybrid is reportedly hard at work reducing the gas-electric's fuel consumption.

A report from Ford Inside News suggests that the Fusion Hybrid's revised powertrain, which will most likely feature Ford's fuel-saving e-CVT trans, will bump the vehicle's fuel economy rating all the way up to 47 or 48 miles per gallon city. If true, that would be a healthy increase over the 2011 Fusion Hybrid's 41 mpg city rating, which is already class leading. Since the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid will make use of the same hardware, this means that the gas-electric MKZ is almost sure to have an identical mpg rating.

The next-gen Ford Fusion Hybrid should be launched in early 2012, with the debut of the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid likely pushed back a bit further.