Ford Focus Electric to Have 100-mile Range, Active Liquid Cooling for Battery Pack Taking a leaf out of Tesla's book?
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-32254_1-20027666-283.html http://ces.cnet.com/8301-32254_1-20027017-283.html
From the Ford press release: Coming fresh from the Model S videos, I think this shows either a short-sightedness in the ways an EV can be made *better* than gasoline-powered counterparts, or an intentional PR stance to try to slowly bring the masses into the fold of EVs (i.e. by not scaring them off, see the Volt's "more car than electric" tag). The other reality is lowering cost- and time-to-market for traditional automakers by not building their first EVs ground-up from scratch. Chevy kind of does this with the Volt and Cruze relationship, though at least they market the two completely separately. And arguably, Tesla did something similar with the Roadster (drawing from Lotus chassis design and components). But hey, at least they're jumping into the fray. The more the merrier IMO...
Did they announce a price? It seems it has 6.6kW J1772 charging (2x the current 3.3kW leaf), but no provision for level 3 quick charge. (I expect Leaf will get 6.6kW also when they update the models that come from their new USA factory.)
I would expect Tesla would want a bit more range, performance, and style out of even their entry level model. No knock on Ford, but I would be a tad disappointed if Tesla offered something just like that.
The huge "bump" in the floor of the cargo space is awful. I think that (and the lack of DC fast charge) hugely hamper the Ford Focus EV versus the Leaf. On the other hand, active thermal management looks like a great positive over the Leaf. Overall I am unexicted by both, and await Model S.
Are there pictures of this bump? I must have missed them. EDIT: OK found one That's not good. In fact I think that is worse than the prototype they had at Frankfurt 2009. This is the old one: Not sure why they don't bring the battery forward a bit.
I find it interesting how both this and the Leaf have their electronics under hood (bonnet) arranged in such way that they resemble an ICE. I wonder how much room could have been saved by a more efficient packaging. I also wonder if the "battery hump" design is such to remind the customer the car has a "big battery"...
I think this is due to the fact that Focus EV was initially designed for Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicle. That bump is where the high pressure tanks is supposed to be.
I was kind of excited for the Focus, but it seems they made some pretty bad packaging decisions. And them contracting most of the engineering out to third parties will likely mean its base price is higher than the Leaf. Seems like they did the same design has the MINI-E & their previous Focus FCV, having the pack take up the trunk (or the back seat in the MINI-E's case). That design is okay for a rough prototype, but not for a production vehicle. Hopefully they still have time to change the design (assuming the platform allows for it, which if it doesn't would show the major disadvantage of not doing a ground-up design or at least a design with major changes to the chassis like Tesla did).
Another view on engadget http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/10/ford-focus-electric-pops-a-hatch-and-shows-all-that-battery-junk/
I like the way this charging port opens. Any idea what the four quadrants of blue LEDs are supposed to indicate?
Not blue LEDs, but 4 arcs of white LEDs with gaps in between. http://green.autoblog.com/2011/01/07/2011-ford-focus-electric-ces-unveiled/ 50% charged: