Ford Focus Electric
 

The Ford Focus Electric has been unveiled at the 2011 CES:

CES 2011: Ford Focus Electric ready to steal the EV spotlight — Autoblog Green
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog....1294410720.jpg

The upper grill is all blocked, thankfully...
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog....1294410721.jpg

I rather have that than a Leaf or a Volt. And I'd put an ICE propulsion trailer on it for long trips.

Ditto, except for the ICE addon. Not sure I could pull it off.

From what I can tell they have not released price or a range per charge yet, it does appear to have a 23kwh battery compared to the Leaf's 24kwh battery.
Big disappointment for me is that the battery pack on the Ford looks to be in the back hatch area, taking up cargo space, the other dislike is the liquid cooling, I like to keep liquids away from my batteries and I have heard quote from battery engineers who say that they are glad that they are not the ones responsible for warranties on the battery as there are so many seals and gaskets that seal up the batteries liquid cooling system, so many points that could fail.
Of course the advantage of liquid cooling/heating might be that they get more range out of a given size battery pack, but again, we will see.

Here's a photo of the Focus Electric chassis:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog....s-electric.jpg

And here's the best photo of the rear storage area:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog....s-electric.jpg

...that sure looks like it'd be ass-heavy as hell!

I'll be the first to say something nice about the car ;-)
I love the styling.
Well done Ford for making a mainstream electric car that doesn't look ugly.
The 'grille' is actually attractive since the grille doesn't look like a catfish with braces on its teeth ( like the Leaf )
I see some Aston Martin DB-9 styling in the shape of the grille, and there are no frog eye headlights needed.
The car also doesn't look like a crossbred Honda Civic + Malibu ( the Volt )

The DB-9 grille for comparison : http://avto-russia.ru/autos/aston_ma...rtin_db9_5.jpg

...+1 on the Aston Martin DB-9 resemblance.

I reserve my judgement comparing this to a leaf
(volt isn't even in the running except maybe used 10years from now)
once the following are known 100%

1. Aero/Weight/Range (lets hope ford can make a classy but light/aero electric)
2. Cost/Warranty

The main dissapointment on the leaf is that they would not do anything to the rearend to make the thing TRULY aero, which is what I think would do the most (besides weight) to make electric truly viable.

The insight had the right idea as did the EV1

Cd -

...+2 on the Aston Martin DB-9 resemblance. Even though Ford sold Aston Martin in 2007, it makes sense (to me) that there would be some overlapping design intertia.

CarloSW2

Does anyone know what they cost?

I'm waiting for one of the automakers to put their electric drivetrain into a BASE MODEL with no options!!!

It looks good, but I can't see this vehicle costing less then $30K...

We get these puppies in what Ford calls Econetic trim with a 1.6L diesel engine.
3.8L/100km or 61.9mpg on the European test cycle.

At least it looks better than the Leaf.
But what were they thinking when they put the batteries in the boot in such an intrusive way ?

Buyers already have to make a serious compromise on price and range when buying electric vehicles.
Why add yet another burden such as greatly reduced trunk or only 4 seats (Volt) ?

Or is it a case of we'll make it, but we'd rather not see it succed, so we make it unattractive ?

Here's a video of the Focus Electric:

[youtube]mkBQmQ2F54c[/youtube]

Do they get a grant of some kind ?

Anyone know cd/cda of the car? Thats whats gonna make or break it vs the leaf IMO.

...Ford's marketing slogan could be: "...Yes, it's an ELECTRIC!"

...take-off of Mopar's "Yes, it's a Hemi!"

I'm really liking what I see with this car.
The styling is so much better than the other guys have done.
( But can't help and wonder how many punk kids will pull that plug knowing the car will be charging at those outdoor stations for hours . )

The CdA looks like it could be a little large, but the Cd shouldn't have any problem matching the competitions ridiculously high drag numbers.

The Cd should be a couple points better than the ICE version...

Im seeing .27 as the Cd of the ICE 4 door models. Dimensions are 71.7 " width X 57.8 " tall.
I'm hoping that they add the sedan to the EV lineup. It looks like it could possibly have a better Cd. ( It does seem to have a rather short trunk /boot. )

2010 Paris: 2012 Ford Focus shows up in all three bodystyles, no coupe or convertible planned - egmCarTech

http://www.egmcartech.com/wp-content...images_001.jpg

Ford plans to hire 7,000 workers by 2012 as it adds electrics, hybrids to lineup | StarTribune.com

Some more about Ford electrics and hybrids...

I'd say the trunk is hidden by the design : long sloping rear window (reminiscent of old liftback designs), long stratched tail lights.
It looks to me as if it's as long as the wagon.

Also note on the propaganda photos that the electric focus has some sort of micro camback, if its significantly better aero than the leaf and weighs almost the same (which I doubt) it probably will have a better highway range but probably a poor city range due to the inevitable ford weight gain.

The Focus Electric is nearly 3,700 pounds. I think the Leaf is ~3,200?

:eek: That's a lot. That's almost double the weight of my Echo (about 2065 lbs).

Looks nice except for the fact that it's 3,700LBS.

Looks nice overall!

The flip around charging port is cute, but gimmicky. I can see that breaking real quick.

The state of charge indicator ring light around the charging port is pretty neat too. The Tesla has something similar. The ring around the charge plug changes color and how fast it "pulses" to indicate both state of charge and rate of charge.

On my Metro, I simply use an extension cord that has the power indicator light built into the end. That way, it lights up the charging port so I can see to plug in the dark!
I have thought about possibly adding some LEDs in there that would come on when the charging port door is open, and have it indicate AC power to the charger.

3700- it is a porker. Around 3000 for the gasser- should be at least 500 lbs lighter gasser and electric (cuz Tempos are around 2500 lbs and they're early '80s tech).

I'd like it if they offered a stripped version- none of that electronic gook- it'd knock thousands off the price and hundreds off the poundage.

Smore info:

http://www.caranddriver.com/news/car...nfo-auto_shows

So in other words, even if this has wicked good aero, it will suck in a normal driving cycle that has stops.

Leave it to the big 3 to ruin something good by not doing anything to reduce weight.

I would guess with minor, possibly unnoticable changes to the interior and seats they could shave 500lbs and if they would actually use the lightweight strong steel prototypes for the unibody they could shave 50% off the body/frame weight.

Ah well. :(

They screwed up from step one.
FWD.

So far it seems Tesla is the only one not interested in failure.

I think you must have misread the number?

Myself, and the chap in my avatar to the left, would both respectfully disagree on that one. :D

what, about the FWD or about Tesla?

My apologies, I should have amended the original post. The Tesla is cool - but only if you are a movie star at todays prices.

FWD = fail has me disagreeing. FWD is cool for normal folks, not a fail IMHO, nor that of my avatar who would not be so humble (see my sig).

I don't want to demand this thread is captured and flown to Havana but despite the preachings of Tom Petty (of whom I am quite a fan) FWD is quite good in the real world. When my avatar designed his cars he was accused of getting ordinary people into trouble because his cars handled too well.

FWD means more space (for people, luggage or indeed batteries for hybrids), more predictable handling for normal folks and less weight all in.

Anyhoo we could debate this in the lounge section if you like. This thread is about the Focus leccy, good or bad.

yeah sorry, no need to de-rail with this tired argument. But that is my opinion, I guess we will just be in disagreement.

RWD is alright in any vehicle if it is weighed correctly (aka batteries sitting on the RWD), 4wd would be a bad idea, FWD is just fine as long as you don't have to have anything repaired and is welcome on slush.