Maybe its just me, but Ford seems to be making a turn around. I've heard a lot of things about their improved quality in the last few years. They got the Fiesta comming up. The Fusion and Focus mileage are now on par with the Accord/Camry and Corolla/Civic. Now they have their own new hybrid technology comming out in (you guessed it) 2010 with aims to beat the Camry hybrid by "at least 5 mpg in the city". I gotta say, it looks like they may be headed in the right direction. This excite me as I really would love to buy domestic if they can put something out there worth buying.
I just drove an '09 Fusion SEL V6 and it seemed like the quality had increased. Much better than the first one I drove 2 years ago that had electrical gremlins.
The 6-speed auto helped the 6-cylinder find a sweet spot for a near-30 MPG avg. The 4-cyl is much better with FE, though.
If they bring over the Fiesta, they'll have a better lineup. Chrysler's latest attempt is to offer base engines in higher trim levels. Woo-hoo!
Somebody has to start doing something right. GM and Chrysler are about a year away from the scrap heap, merger or not. If you think our trade deficit is bad now, imagine when you can't even buy a car made in the U.S.
Why do people seem to think 40-50 mpg is good? To me, it seems rather like a 400 lb guy who went on a diet, and stopped to celebrate when he hit 300 :-) There's no reason in the world why they shouldn't have at least one model with fuel economy equal to my 8 year old Honda Insight.
I imagine it's safe to assume that Camry's stats will, at least, remain at it's present level 
