Ford expects to be 25% electrified by 2020

Ford predicts the electrification of America's auto fleet to happen a lot faster than most have expected.

Nancy Gioia, Ford's director of global electrification, told our colleague Jewel Gopwani at the Detroit Free Press that Ford expects 10% to 25% of its sales by 2020 will be vehicles that in some way run on batteries, up from about 2% now.

Of those electrified vehicles, 70% will be hybrids, 20% to 25% plug-in hybrids, the rest pure electrics.

For starters, Ford, which needs to give Lincoln new life as it kills off Mercury, says its new 2011 Lincoln MKZ Hybrid has gotten an EPA sticker rating of at 41 miles per gallon in the city, 36 mpg on the highway. That beats what it considers the MKZ hybrid's top mid-size luxury sedan rival -- the 2010 Lexus HS 250h hybrid -- by 6 mpg in the city and 2 mpg on the highway. Ford also claims a top speed on battery alone of 47 mph vs. 25 mph for the Lexus.