The last week of April I had the opportunity to drive the new 2012 Ford Focus all electric EV. The ride and drive is parts of Ford’s Go Further Tour getting drivers behind the wheel of EV’s. I have to say I have always been a big Ford fan, and through most of my life had some type of Ford vehicle (mostly trucks) in addition to some type of alternative fueled vehicle or EV.
The strategy for the Go Further Tour is very simple and effective. The event I attended was held in Long Island NY at one of the busier malls. I feel this is great marketing strategy as the event reached a large and diverse number of people. The set up was simple, great interactive displays where the main exhibit was placed. The exhibit uses a cargo container that folds up nicely into a compact unit for travel. On top is a solar array supplying power. To charge the vehicles during the tour when charge stations are not available on location the crew has a trailer with a diesel genset. On hand the helpful staff displayed 4-5 Ford EV’s lined up for test drives. The Go Further Tour has planned test drives for New York, Chicago, Boston, Raleigh, San Francisco, Austin and Houston in the coming weeks and months. The EAA will post the location and dates of the events as we are notified. 
The Ford Focus EV at first glace is an eye catching vehicle. It's built on the same assembly line in where all gasoline Focuses are produced and looks the same as its ICE counter part. Aside from a couple of chrome "Electric" door badges, and the charging port on the left front fender, you'd never know this was electric Vehicle. The Ford EV was much more than I expected. The seating was comfortable, controls and display arranged nicely. The test drive was better than I expected. The vehicle had plenty of power and really took off, throttle control smooth and even. Baking was smooth, as you pressed the brake the Brake Coach located on the left side of the dash can help you can maximize the range. Ford has tuned the regenerative braking to be aggressive, but not so aggressive that you would notice much. I found the braking to be smooth, unfortunately one-pedal driving isn't possible.
The Focus Electric uses a 23-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack and a 107-kilowatt (143-horsepower) electric motor. In comparison the Nissan LEAF has a 24 kWh lithium-ion battery and an 80 –kilowatt motor (107 – horsepower) electric motor. The EPA rates the Focus Electric at 76 miles of range and 105 MPGe, or miles-per-gallon-equivalent. The Ford specifications from the website advertise 100 miles of range which is similar to the rating of the LEAF.
The Focus Electric charger operates at up to 6.6 KW, it will fully recharge the battery pack in no more than four hours when using a 240-Volt Level 2 charging. There is no option at this time for DC quick charging.
Unlike other EV’s the battery pack in the Focus is liquid-cooled, which should make it more resilient to extremes variations of outside temperatures.
The Focus Electric is now available for purchase at one of our Electric Vehicle (EV) Certified dealers. Only a limited number will be produced for the 2012 model year. The Ford EV comes with SYNC® with MyFord Touch® technology, Ford collaborated with MapQuest® to provide custom routes with features like EcoRoute.
In my opinion and from test driving many electric vehicles Ford has manufactured a solid vehicle with styling and performance to meet the needs of the EV driver. I’m sold and I want one!!
Electric car are widely popular among the people who want to save money of fuel. he shipping container is the standard for shipping goods from place to place.
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It might sound a bit off - but I love Electric Vehicles a bit more each day! Still - Electric Bicycles are the best thing to save Money on getting around - Very Low Cost compared to cars, no Insurance - power usage of about 20 wh/Km compared to about 140 Wh/Km for my electric car (which can be as high as about 300 wh/Km!) To buy a New Electric Vehicle just because $50 is too high to pay for a fill - is one motivation - but there must still be other elements to make the full value - like ease of filling at home, a full tank (Charge) each day, no handling the Gas Nozzle to fill, no Gas fumes to breath while filling - etc. - all these things are maybe even more important than the $50!
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Come to EV Fest 2012 to See a wide range of Electric Vehicles from eBikes, and Scooters, to Garden Tractors, to Trucks, to Cars: OEM and Personal Vehicles, plus Hybrids, and more! www.evfest.ca
Fuel Engine much than better electric car. Electric car can not go faster. It's basically save money of fuel. But it was great post because many people do not know about the electric car.
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