Ford Focus EV

[Yggdrasill]

To hcsharp's point though, Ford sells the Focus Electric in all 50 states, not just CA plus the 13 other CARB states. What are their motivations for doing so, if it's 'just' a compliance car?

I think the FFE is to a large degree a compliance car, in that without CARB regulation, it wouldn't exist. But they have tried selling it even in Norway, and continue selling it outside the CARB states, so I think they do have some profit margin on each sale. The additional sales helps offset the development costs.

I doubt they'll try to sell the updated FFE here in Norway. It flopped in Norway not only due to the lack of rapid charging, but also because the trunk is pretty useless. They also priced it way too high, much higher than the Leaf. Since the FFE flopped here the competition has gotten much tougher, with the introduction of the i3, e-Golf, e-Up and Kia Soul Electric.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I didn't realize they got credit in the other CARB states. I live in one - Vermont, but Ford started selling the Focus EV in many non-CARB states before they allowed sales in VT. They have never treated CARB states any different. In fact Ford has offered incentives to buy the car in several non-CARB states while not offering the same sales incentives here in VT. I suspect CARB credits are not the biggest motivation for making the car. At least not the only motivation.

Why don't most of the other Automakers sell their EVs in the other CARB states? I'm thinking of the Fit, eRav4, Fiat, Spark, etc.

The Focus EV perhaps not. I think it is because Ford had enough for credits (with the Energi line-up helping), so no need to focus too much on CARB. Also Ford is not doing it as a one time only thing (unlike some of the other examples which are being discontinued).

The others tend to limit to California because they want to limit it to the largest market and not have to train dealers/service centers in states where they are going to have only a handful of sales. Basically it is to reduce costs of running the compliance program.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Why don't most of the other Automakers sell their EVs in the other CARB states? I'm thinking of the Fit, eRav4, Fiat, Spark, etc.

Once the auto makers have sufficient credits, they don't need to offer it anywhere else. If they can get enough credits by selling the car in a single state, that simplifies stuff like sales and servicing.

 

[hcsharp]

Once the auto makers have sufficient credits, they don't need to offer it anywhere else. If they can get enough credits by selling the car in a single state, that simplifies stuff like sales and servicing.

Aren't most of them trying to build up more credits for future use?

 

[Yggdrasill]

Aren't most of them trying to build up more credits for future use?

I would think that will vary from company to company. If they think they will be able to get the necessary credits at a later date without losing thousands of dollars on every compliance car they sell, the optimal course of action is to generate the minimum amount of credits.

On the other hand, if they are making money on each sale plus credits, there's no reason to hold back.

 

[RobStark]

Outside of the CARB states, how many Americans have walked into a Ford dealership and test driven a Ford Focus Electric?

Generally, a salesman tells you the car does not exist. They try to sell you an ICE Focus.

You have to battle and insist that they order one for you.

After going a couple of MMA rounds with a Ford dealership manager then you place an order for a FFE.

Don't know about the Norwegian experience. In most CA regions there is usually one FFE friendly dealer that has one knowledgeable salesperson and a single FFE available for test drives.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Don't know about the Norwegian experience. In most CA regions there is usually one FFE friendly dealer that has one knowledgeable salesperson and a single FFE available for test drives.

The dealers in Norway were hoping the FFE would be as big a hit as the Leaf, so they ordered a bunch of FFE. They didn't sell, so then they dropped the price down to almost the same price as an i-MiEV. Then they got rid of the remaining inventory and didn't order any more.

I don't think the dealers were to blame for the flop, it was just that the car wasn't competitive.

 

[ChadS]

Ford's strategy is one of the least clear of the major automakers. The good news is that they make 3 PEVs and make them available everywhere; and in total they are moving a good number of PEVs (each of their cars is behind the far-more-than-a-conversion efforts of Tesla, Nissan, GM and BMW - but they are ahead of the other conversions, and combined they are only behind Tesla for 2015). The bad news is that their PEVs are quick, cheap, compromised conversions (no DC charging, small batteries, shoving batteries in to the trunk!) and they only advertise them in ZEV states. And as RobStark notes, trying to buy a Ford PEV in a non-ZEV state can require a lot of persistence, though obviously that will vary by dealer.

My guess - solely from observing behavior - is that Ford is largely following the compliance route (though not completely; it's just a strategy and all automakers combine elements of more than one strategy), but trying to look like they are not to avoid the ill will that befell some automakers following that strategy a decade ago. Meanwhile, I suspect they are really studying the market (likely why they have multiple PEVs, and can help explain the cheapness of the conversions), and at some point I hope we will see a more serious entry. The updates to the Focus EV (~100 miles, DC port) doesn't tell us much; a pure compliance car might do that just to stay competitive. Ford has put out a few press releases about how much they are investing in "electrification", but of course that includes HEVs, so I still don't know for sure what their PEV plans are.

I haven't seen a recent Ford presentation on their plans moving forward, but 3-5 years ago while they talked a lot about how important it was to have green choices, they were very insistent that consumers, government, and technological advancements are all fickle, so they don't want to bet the farm on any single solution. They'd rather build platforms that can be easily adapted to multiple versions, and then adjust the output on the assembly line based on current incentives and consumer fads. So they could, say, build mostly diesels until some big scandal, then switch to mostly electric until H2 can be produced carbon-free for almost no cost, etc. That's a "versioning" strategy and I'm all for it as a cost-reduction measure for "volume" cars, but I sure hope future platforms will be designed to accommodate batteries better than their current ones do (even if they are also designed to accommodate engines).

Much more detail on the types of strategies automakers are following in THIS thread.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Ford's strategy is one of the least clear of the major automakers. The good news is that they make 3 PEVs and make them available everywhere; and in total they are moving a good number of PEVs (at least compared to other automakers that aren't trying). The bad news is that their PEVs are quick, cheap, compromised conversions (no DC charging, small batteries, shoving batteries in to the trunk!) and they only advertise them in ZEV states. And as RobStark notes, trying to buy a Ford PEV in a non-ZEV state can require a lot of persistence, though obviously that will vary by dealer.

My guess (though it is only a guess) is that Ford is largely following the compliance route, but trying to look like they are not to avoid the ill will that befell some automakers following that strategy a decade ago. Meanwhile, I suspect they are really studying the market, and at some point I hope we will see a more serious entry. The updates to the Focus EV (~100 miles, DC port) doesn't tell us much; a pure compliance car might do that just to stay competitive. Ford has put out a few press releases about how much they are investing in "electrification", but of course that includes hybrids, so I still don't know for sure what their PEV plans are.

Much more detail on the types of strategies automakers are following in THIS thread.

I think Ford's strategy is that way because they don't really have a halo car in any of the alt vehicle categories. GM has the Volt as a PHEV halo. Toyota and Honda has the Mirai and Clarity for the hydrogen segment. Nissan has the Leaf.

So Ford has to take a more spread out approach. They dabbled a bit in hydrogen, but clearly isn't a leader. They are playing second fiddle to the Volt in terms of PHEVs. The Focus EV is doing okay for what it is, but is heavily compromised because of being a conversion.

The only other large volume automaker left is Fiat/Chrysler (they are far worse).

 

[ChadS]

That is indeed likely a factor. GM was in a similar place somewhere around 10-15 years ago when Toyota, Honda and even Ford had hybrids (which is why Lutz jumped on building a PEV in 2006 when he heard about the Roadster; he didn't care about Tesla, but was sick of the brand halo Toyota got for building the Prius; he did indeed intend for the Volt to be a brand halo - though their marketing of it has been all over the place). I remember numerous ads from GM back then talking about how many cars they had in their lineup that got over 30mpg - of course that does nothing to sell a specific car; and in fact in terms of direct sales does nothing at all unless the person reading the ad happens to be a fleet buyer planning to sign a contract with a single automaker. The real point, of course, was to make you feel better about GM by seeing how many "green" cars they build, so you'd feel better about them the next time you bought a GM that was nearly identical to offerings from other automakers - whether it got 30mpg or not.

I got something similar from Ford about 2 years ago. (Note that I live in a non-ZEV state; I am sure ZEV state residents got different materials). It was a very expensive feeling, ~10-page glossy brochure that on the plain cover asked which automaker had the cars that used the least gasoline. I was excited, hoping I would learn about new PEVs. I opened it up and saw a whole line of Fords...but not their PEVs! The cars pictured were a mixture of HEVs and ecoboost cars. In the section on the Focus, after describing their ecoboost engine and hybrid option, they had one sentence saying that they offered a BEV. One of the C-Max and Fusion sections had an asterisk, and if you looked at the footnote you could see that they offered a PHEV version. The other PHEV wasn't mentioned at all; I went through the whole brochure carefully several times. If they don't even mention they have a PHEV in a brochure about how little gas their cars use, well, you can see how central it was to their strategy.

In my other thread (see my signature), I only listed 5 strategies. Of course automakers follow more strategies than that. One that I chose not to include, but could have to include Ford, was the "defensive" strategy (I do not know what name they use for it in the industry, though that is probably not it). When other automakers like Nissan came out with the LEAF as a conquest car to grab buyers from other automakers (a strategy that is going gangbusters for them), others like Ford built cheap similar cars just to hold on to brand loyalists that might otherwise have jumped ship. This is similar to what GM tried to do with the 1985 Astro van after the 1984 Dodge Caravan appeared. I haven't seen any numbers, but I suspect that most Focus buyers are Ford loyalists that just didn't want to go to Nissan. Of course there are other buyers; the Focus is similar enough to the LEAF that somebody that simply prefers the looks of the Focus may buy it instead of the LEAF. Such buyers would be giving up DC charging (though that may not be available in some areas, or important to some buyers with other cars) and getting less trunk space - and until the new Focus comes out, they are getting less range too. And they might have to work harder to get one through their local dealers, though that varies.

 

[cwerdna]

Weird. But I guess it's not so surprising given how they don't seem serious about selling the Focus Electric in anything beyond minuscule quantities. I guess it'll remain that way or be dropped altogether once 200+ mile affordable EVs actually arrive.

Ford Not Interested In Competing With Bolt Or Model 3 - Won't Offer A 200-Mile Electric Car
Ford Says No to 200+ Mile Electric Car, Maintains 100 Miles Will "Satisfy A Big Chunk Of The Population"

 

[SD Diver]

First, I'm on the M3 list. Looking for a used MS. In the mean time, I drive a 2013 Fusion Energi (FFE) Titanium and my wife a 2014 Focus EV FFEV). The M3 will replace the FFEV, keeping the FFE for LONG trips. I the mean time, the 20 mile range on battery for the FFE is just enough for my work commute while the FFEV meets my wife's needs. Looking forward to replacing it with a Tesla!

 

[hcsharp]

First, I'm on the M3 list. Looking for a used MS. In the mean time, I drive a 2013 Fusion Energi (FFE) Titanium and my wife a 2014 Focus EV FFEV). The M3 will replace the FFEV, keeping the FFE for LONG trips. I the mean time, the 20 mile range on battery for the FFE is just enough for my work commute while the FFEV meets my wife's needs. Looking forward to replacing it with a Tesla!

On this forum the more common initials/abbreviation for the Ford Focus Electric is FFE. It's confusing because then what do you call the Ford Fusion Energi?

My wife likes the FFE (Focus Electric). She likes that it looks like any other car and most people don't know it's all-electric. It's at the dealer right now for 2 weeks! They're replacing part of the high-voltage wiring harness and the battery because of corrosion from all the salt they put on the roads around here. Be glad you don't have to deal with that.

 

[SD Diver]

Funny - we had the HV wiring harness replaced as well about 8 months ago. Seems to be a rather common problem.

 

[hcsharp]

Funny - we had the HV wiring harness replaced as well about 8 months ago. Seems to be a rather common problem.

The tech told us that they issued a service bulletin for the HV wiring harness. One of the connectors is apparently quite vulnerable to moisture ingress. I wouldn't think you'd have a problem in San Diego but you never know.

 

[SD Diver]

Going strong for now. Just needs to keep going until my model 3 is available.

 

[SΞXY P100D]

Happy 4th everyone!

Just spreading the word that Ford has a July promo going on now. Used FFE prices have dropped sharply.

So in order to keep my sanity while waiting for the Model 3, I just purchased a gently used 2012 with leather seats, 17k miles for well under $12k! Quite crazy since it used to be over $40k. I've read of even better deals but they're too far for me to drive a short range EV back home.

 

[gene]

Happy 4th everyone!

Just spreading the word that Ford has a July promo going on now. Used FFE prices have dropped sharply.

So in order to keep my sanity while waiting for the Model 3, I just purchased a gently used 2012 with leather seats, 17k miles for well under $12k! Quite crazy since it used to be over $40k. I've read of even better deals but they're too far for me to drive a short range EV back home.

I'll take a look myself. The FFE is also much safer in an accident than the 500e or the Leaf, or the Spark ev.

BTW, last month I considered a Spark EV. Chevy had a sale on new ones here in California that after the $7500 fed and $2500 state left a net purchase price of only $11,000 for a new Spark ev. I ended up passing after watching the IHS crash tests--ouch!

 

[SΞXY P100D]

Have you considered the Mercedes B Class Electric Drive? I was thinking of buying but the one near me was a lemon buyback. Gorgeous car but didn't want to risk it. On the contrary, my FFE is certified pre owned and less than half the price of the Benz. You should have a lot more choices there in CA.

 

[gene]

Have you considered the Mercedes B Class Electric Drive? I was thinking of buying but the one near me was a lemon buyback. Gorgeous car but didn't want to risk it. On the contrary, my FFE is certified pre owned and less than half the price of the Benz. You should have a lot more choices there in CA.

The price is way too high on the Mercedes. The Kia and dread I say "VW" are both safe vehicles and in my range.