Ford’s Electric Future

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Back at the beginning of the 80′s, Ford set out to build a true “World Car”–the Escort–a version of which was to appear on every continent on Earth, making it a global vehicle in a way that hadn’t been earnestly attempted since the Model T. Though I continue to drive a Ford Escort (or two) just about every day, I’d sure never driven an electric car. But with its new global electrification strategy, the next-gen Focus already billed as the company’s next “World Car,” and the all-new electric Focus spearheading its varied fleet of battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, Ford is embarking on something far more ambitious than the last world-car effort.

But forget about world domination for a second–let’s talk about the car. On the road, I found the all-electric Focus to be a total darling. Continue reading…

At Ford’s press event in Seattle last week, I got to take it for a spin with Mike Tinskey, Ford’s Manager of Vehicle Electrification and Infrastructure. The weirdness of the electric car experience begins when you press a button to turn it on–remember, a modern EV is kind of like a big laptop–and nothing much happens. The feel of the pedals and steering as you maneuver it out of the parking lot seems ever so slightly alienated, just different somehow from what you’re used to, until you realize it’s largely because you don’t have the feedback of engine, pumps, and pulleys as your aural reference points–the silence is a little eerie, but the experience is interesting. The brakes on the electric Focus are regenerative, and almost entirely a function of the electric motor–pretty much the only time you actually get on the binders at the wheels is during a panic stop–yet slowing and stopping felt surprisingly seamless. The Focus was a kitten in stop-and-go traffic: in this car, you can ride a traffic jam all afternoon in total tranquility without being enveloped in fumes or feeling the urge to keep nervously checking your temp gauge.

Though we didn’t have much time with it, I naturally wanted to thrash on the car a little bit, so I got on it on Westlake Ave alongside Lake Union and then took a sharp left up into Queen Anne to try it out on some of Seattle’s most straight-up-and-down hills. On a level straightaway, it accelerated nicely with great torque. The only thing missing was the satisfying kick-down of a gas car, since the Focus has a single-speed transmission that turns at a constant 5.4:1 gear reduction. And much like any conventional four-banger, the electric Focus gets up to speed on its own schedule, which is fortunately pretty prompt though not neck-snappingly fast. Where it really shines is on the hills: I gunned it up the near-vertical incline below Dexter Ave, and the car barely seemed to notice the hill was there, just powering right up it effortlessly. After we had to pause near the top for cross-traffic, the Focus gave no wheel chirp taking off and no nasty hill-assist nannies kicked in to hold it back. Coming back down from the precipice, the regenerative braking felt consistent and sure, with no hint of diving or squirreliness. Throughout, the Focus behaved nearly as if it was on a level.

Moreover, the handling felt solid and intuitive, with none of the wallowing I’d been led to expect from a heavy electric car. The electric version of the new Focus will be heavier than the gas-powered edition by a few hundred pounds, and although Mike wasn’t at liberty to give many details on specific suspension mods and other fortifications, it seems that Ford has done a terrific job of balancing the added weight against heavier-duty running gear without making the car feel like a tank. It was actually pretty nimble, with the electric power steering negotiating even sharp turns under load without perceptibly struggling.

Keep in mind too that this is a test car based on the European Focus, not the next-gen Focus that will be the actual basis for the battery-electric when it hits the market next year. This prototype had also been set up for the track for its recent run on Jay Leno’s “Green Car Challenge”, where it was abused by every celebrity who took part in that series on the show (incidentally, this is also the very same car that President Obama messed around with in Detroit last month–it’s been all over the place). In any case, impressions of this pre-production electric Focus will not translate exactly to the production version, which will be revealed at the North American International Auto Show in January, and there’s still a few rough edges to straighten out. But if Ford learns anything from its mock-up and the feedback it receives on it, it’s going to have a solid little electric car to offer to the public next year. I hope they keep the spartan-but-not-cheap interior with the clean gauges and the cool cloth sport seats, since loading it up with opulence and doo-dads would feel overblown on this car. I also loved the tight but not harsh euro suspension, the effortless hill-climbing ability, and the energy-consumption gauge that functions just like a tach. And it’s nice to see an electric, finally, that doesn’t look like a Prius clone.

Here’s Ford’s basic plan for its electrified vehicles: a battery-electric Transit Connect van will be quietly rolled out later this year, while the production electric Focus will hit the market in 2011, with two next-gen hybrid-electric vehicles and a plug-in hybrid (most likely some combination of existing small-to-medium SUV’s from the Ford and Lincoln lineups, plus a midsize sedan), to follow in 2012. Unlike Ford’s hybrids, the pure electrics will have no auxiliary gas motor to kick in and get you home when you run out of juice–an interesting risk on Ford’s part, but one that will presumably be addressed by ever-increasing battery range and the ubiquity of charging infrastructure. There is no “dedicated” EV in Ford’s lineup, but rather, each of the vehicles offered as battery electrics will also come in a variety of alternate drivetrain flavors, so anyone really worried about being stranded by a straight-up EV can simply select a hybrid or a high-efficiency gas motor instead. The electric Focus, for one, is to be built at the same Michigan assembly plant that’s putting out the gas-powered Focus, and parts interchangeability among battery-electric, hybrid, and conventional models is expected to help keep purchase prices down.

But, for a moment, back to world domination. Ford’s project here is not just to build a few EVs and see if anyone buys them. Partnering with local governments and municipally-owned utilities in fourteen US cities, the company is spearheading a nationwide electric infrastructure program to help make it affordable and convenient for the average Joe to own an electric, and to ease increased and uneven demands on regional power grids as thousands of EVs plug in for recharging each night. There are plans in the Seattle area to install over 1000 publicly-accessible charging stations–parking-meter-sized units that reduce charge time on a fully-depleted battery to a few hours versus nearly 20 from household power–and to streamline the permitting process and defray costs for installing these units on private properties such as office buildings and home garages as well. High-speed public charging stations for juicing up your EV while you grab a Starbucks are also in the works. Ford, along with the charging-station installers they’ve contracted, will be supplying home charging stations for free to several thousand of the first battery-electric buyers. And a Department of Transportation grant will help turn I-5 into an electric corridor, with enough public charging stations to get EV drivers from Oregon to Canada without running out of juice.

While it all seems a little ambitious for the 24-36 month time span that the honchos at the press conference were envisioning–the economy is still in the toilet after all, and this whole plan is kind of contingent upon people actually buying cars–I’m convinced that at the very least this will catch on a lot better than the hydrogen fuel cell did. We’re talking about the first real large-scale revolution in city commuting that’s likely to result in a significant slackening in the demand for fuel–which, remember gearheads, means more and cheaper gas for our shameless, carbureted, big-displacement guzzlers. As long as the electrification transition is more carrot than stick, it’s a win for traditional car enthusiasts as well as environmentalists and rank-and-file commuters. And from what I saw on Thursday, Ford’s got the vehicle lineup to make electrics appealing to a wide range of tastes and applications, and a great plan to get Americans into EV’s while investing profits back into US infrastructure instead of siphoning it off into overseas economies.

It’s not very easy for me to get excited about the average new car–and though I won’t be replacing my “World Car” Escorts anytime soon, who knows, give it a couple of years and the electric Focus could be the car to break my no-new-cars rule.