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Re: [EVDL] EVLN: Not charged by Ford's Focus Electric

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Re: [EVDL] EVLN: Not charged by Ford's Focus Electric

Sounds like the Leaf: there's not much more room in the trunk than for
groceries, motor's in front, and when I opened the hood to show my neighbor,
he said, "wow, they made it look a lot like a gas engine with all these
ducts and manifold-like things." Seems to me Wolverton, while he may want
something better, makes little distinction from the Leaf other than looks.
In fact he makes the Focus sound a lot like the Leaf.

Peri

-----Original Message-----
From: xxx@xxx.xxx.edu [mailto:xxx@xxx.xxx.edu] On Behalf
Of brucedp5
Sent: 01 August, 2012 2:13 AM
To: xxx@xxx.xxx.edu
Subject: [EVDL] EVLN: Not charged by Ford's Focus Electric


% Reviewer dislikes Focus Electric because it isn't purpose built %

[unformatted]
http://www.siliconvalley.com/personal-technology/ci_21167487/wolverton-revie
w-not-charged-by-ford-focus-electric
[image] Wolverton: I'm not charged by Ford's Focus Electric
By Troy Wolverton 07/27/2012

[image
http://photos.mercurynews.com/2012/07/27/review-ford-focus-electric/
Ford Focus Electric gallery
Mercury News reporter, Troy Wolverton, test-drives a new electric Ford Focus
in San Jose, Calif. Wednesday, July 25, 2012.
]

I love the idea of electric cars. But I wasn't enamored with the Ford Focus
Electric.

I drove the Focus Electric for three days this past week. During that time,
I commuted to and from work, ran errands and made a trip up to San
Francisco. In other words, I used it much like I would my own Prius.

I found a lot to like about the car. It's well built. Features like a
navigation system, keyless door locks and a high-end sound system come
standard. And while it's more expensive than a similarly appointed
gas-powered Focus, the difference after federal and state rebates isn't
outrageous.

But other than its all-electric powertrain, there's little about the Focus
Electric that stands out. And the car offers practical problems -- many
shared with other electric vehicles -- that can be hard to accept.

In designing the Focus Electric, Ford took a different route than Tesla.
Instead of designing a car to be an electric vehicle from the ground up, it
took an existing car and dropped an electric powertrain into it.

Thanks to that approach, the Focus Electric doesn't look like an alternative
fuel car. Instead, it's a near replica of the gas-powered Focus on the
inside and out. So, if your big concern about having an electric vehicle is
that it will look weird or like some kind of glorified golf cart, the Focus
Electric should put that worry to rest.

The problem with Ford's approach is that it had to shoehorn the electric
system into the existing nooks and crannies of the Focus. In Nissan's Leaf
and Tesla Model S, the battery pack is underneath the seats. In the Focus
Electric, it's wedged into the storage space behind the rear seats.

As a result, the Focus Electric has 9 cubic feet less storage capacity in
that space than does its gas-powered sibling. You can still fit your
groceries in there -- but not a lot more.

Similarly, Ford placed the Focus Electric's motor in the front of the car.
In fact, when you open the hood, it almost looks like you have a regular gas
engine in there. Unlike the Model S, the Focus Electric doesn't have what
Tesla likes to call a "frunk," for front trunk.

Like other electric cars, Ford's vehicle has constant acceleration. Because
it doesn't have gears, it accelerates from a standstill or at speed without
pausing to shift. It's no race car -- or even a Model S -- but that instant
power can feel like a rocket ship.

But the car sometimes felt as out of control as a rocket ship. When
reversing, pressing on the accelerator can cause the car to lurch backward
much more rapidly than a gas-powered car. And gunning the accelerator at a
light sometimes seemed to cause it to veer to one side or another. It
reminded me a bit of when I was a teenager and would drive my parents '66
Mustang with its loosy-goosy power steering.

That said, the Focus Electric's driving quirks are ones to which an owner
would likely grow accustomed over time.

Ford has been on mission lately to embrace technology, and the Focus
Electric is part of that move. You can download an iPhone app -- sorry, no
Android version yet -- that will tell you where the car is at any point in
time and how much of a charge it has. The app also allows you to start the
car remotely and send over driving directions to the car's navigation
system.

Like other Ford vehicles, the Focus Electric comes with the MyFord Touch
touch-screen console system. I had some of the same frustrations with it as
I had when I tested the system earlier this year. It's frequently slow to
respond to taps and often does a poor job of speech recognition,
particularly of addresses. While driving around San Francisco trying find a
charging station, I felt like punching the system, because I couldn't get it
to search nearby; instead, it kept showing me charging stations in Brisbane.

That's a problem because, like many electric vehicles, the Focus Electric
has very limited range. The EPA says it will go about 76 miles on a charge,
but that can vary widely depending on traffic conditions, how you drive and
whether you are running energy draining things like the air conditioner. I
frequently found myself intensely focused on the car's range estimator and
always thinking about where and when I would next charge the car.

Adding to my unease, the Focus Electric's range estimator was often wildly
inaccurate. My drive home from San Francisco was about 52 miles, but the
range remaining on the meter decreased by only about 41 miles. On the flip
side, when I left home the next day, the range estimator said I had 92 miles
of charge. But after going less than 19 miles, it said I'd already bled off
31 miles of charge.

So you can take those range estimates with a grain of salt. They're kind of
like the warning light you get in some cars when you start to run low on
gas. You don't really know how much farther you can go. That ambiguity can
be stressful, because recharging stations for an electric car are much
harder to find than plain gas stations.

One other shortcoming of the Focus Electric in terms of its charging is that
it doesn't support rapid-charge technology. You can recharge it from empty
in about 14 hours from a regular outlet or in about 4 hours from a 240V
outlet. But you can't plug it into one of the new fast-charging stations
that are starting to open.

Those kinds of frustrations would lead me to pass on the Focus Electric.
It's not a bad car, but I'm holding out for something better.

Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-840-4285 or xxx@xxx.xxx. Follow
him at www.mercurynews.com/troy-wolverton or Twitter.com/troywolv.

Troy's RATING 7.0 (Out of 10)
What: Ford Focus Electric

Likes: Well built; navigation, nine-speaker sound system come standard;
quick acceleration; iPhone app shows car location, charge and allows for
remote start

Dislikes: More expensive than comparable gas-powered model; limited range;
small storage space; inaccurate range gauge; slow console system; poor voice
recognition; no fast-charge capability

Specs: 92 kilowatt electric motor; 23 kilowatt-hour, 76-mile range battery
pack; cloth interior; 17-inch wheels

Price: $39,200 before taxes, fees and federal and state rebates
Web: www.ford.com
C 2012 San Jose Mercury News All Rights Reserved]


http://www.dailybreeze.com/business/ci_21195041/troy-wolverton-focus-electri
c-not-real-charge-ford
Troy Wolverton: Focus Electric not a real charge for Ford brand





http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlSe
rvlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=413529&query=evln&sort=date
All EVLN posts, today's stealth-posted topics:

EVLN: Coulomb sez avoid EVSE that is unfairly more than $1/hr
EVLN: CALSTART wants employers to install EV charging @CA worksites
EVLN: I can't iMiev its Electric ...
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EVLN: GE 55kW traction motor for pih
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EVLN: NM developer suing Tesla seeking damage$ and fee$


{brucedp.150m.com}



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