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| Ford's first
foray into modern mass-market electric has 23 kilowatt-hours of battery
power and an EPA range of 76 miles. Your mileage will vary, probably
for the better, unless you treat every stoplight as a drag race.
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Brace yourself for an influx of electric cars coming onto the market
in the next two years. From Telsa to Toyota and Fisker to Ford, there
will be battery-powered transportation available in numbers not seen
since the turn of the century—the 20th or 21st.
Ford's
first foray into modern mass-market electric has 23 kilowatt-hours of
battery power and an EPA range of 76 miles. Your mileage will vary,
probably for the better, unless you treat every stoplight as a drag
race.
The Focus Electric
five-door seats five but gives up a big chunk of its utility to the
second of two battery packs, one crammed into what used to be the cargo
area of the Focus hatchback. We barely got a camera bag, a computer
backpack and a cheap navy blazer in there. The first battery pack is
stuffed unobtrusively under the rear seat, where the gas tank used to
be.
The whole batch of liquid-cooled, or -warmed, LG Chem
lithium-ion pouch cells fits into the same Focus hatch as the gasoline
version and rides down the same assembly line. That means that Ford
converted the Focus to pure electric power without making any major
structural changes anywhere, which kept costs down.
Nonetheless,
the entry-level sticker is set at $39,995. That's before the $7,500
federal tax rebate. In some states—such as California where the car was
unveiled—you get an extra $2,500 cash back on top of that, dropping the
Focus Electric's sticker to a more accessible $29,995 once you file your
taxes. That's for a fully loaded version, too. The only options on this
car are leather seats and fancy paint, the pricing for which will be
announced later.
On the road, the Focus Electric is the
quietest EV we've driven yet. Ford spent time and engineering adding
sound insulation throughout the vehicle and damping down everything that
might disturb its compact serenity. The 141-hp, 188-lb-ft
permanent-magnet motor drives the front wheels almost seamlessly through
a single reduction gear. Stomp on the throttle, and it's hard to feel
any torque steer at all.
Ford is not releasing a
0-to-60-mph figure, and the closest we got to an answer was “under 10
seconds.” Given that this car is about 500 pounds heavier than the
gasoline Focus hatchback at 3,624 pounds, we can accept that estimate.
Top speed is 84 mph.
Room inside is definitely
compact-class snug. Back-seat passengers have to depend on the largess
of the front-seat passengers to slide forward a little if they want to
be more comfortable.
There were many electronic
measurements displayed on the dash, from watt-hours per mile to
regenerative-braking efficiency, all of which the technologically driven
early adopters will love. A faster onboard charger promises four-hour
recharge times from empty via a Level II 240-volt outlet.
The
price is $5,000 more than that of a Nissan Leaf and $10,000 more than a
Mitsubishi i, so going electric isn't inexpensive—at least on the
sticker price. But with government rebates knocking down the price of
entry, and inexpensive electricity flowing into your tank, you might
like the Focus' overall formula.
2012 Ford Focus Electric
ON SALE: Now
BASE PRICE: $39,995
DRIVETRAIN: 23-kWh lithium-ion battery; FWD, permanent-magnet electric-traction motor, 141-hp/105-kW, 188-lb-ft single-speed reduction gear
CURB WEIGHT: 3,624 lb
0-60 MPH: 9.7 sec (est)
FUEL ECONOMY (EPA): 105 mpg-e
RANGE: 76 mi
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