Tag Archives: Ford Focus Electric

What a difference 3 years can make.

One of the great things about the web is it’s really easy to find media reports from years gone by. That is unless it was you doing something in the past you want to forget about or worse want to deny so you can get elected to public office.

In this case I’m talking about a couple of episodes of AutolineNetwork (Click here to watch it) on youtube. This one from 2012 is trying to explain why the Chevy Volt is such a big disappointment. One guy is from the Wall Street Journal, another from a Conservative Think Tank and another who was an engineer on the EV-1 project now turned auto journalist.

Two of the guys are totally dissing the Volt. The other two have driven it and say how much they love it. Their only real issue they have with it is the price.

The WSJ guy and the Think Tank Guy have nothing good to say because all they see are political reasons to not like it. They don’t believe that the government has any business giving rebates and subsidies to help it along. They don’t believe it would exist without CAFE rules or CARB regulations. And while I might agree with the latter the former is reasons are just plain selective amnesia.

How many things do we have today because the Government took an interest in something. The internet didn’t just pop up in the mind of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. The Interstate Highway System wasn’t the brain child of Ford or GM. The Cellular Network and even the TV Broadcasting Networks were only built because the Government gave certain Companies assurances of exclusive license to build those networks.

We have seat belts and more crashworthy cars because of Government intervention or that hated word regulation. Something that all of the guest somehow like. Maybe it’s not popular anymore to say your against saving lives. Yet they still rail against CAFE standards and CARB rules. It’s not popular to tell people they should drive cars that get good gas milage. Why?

There is another episode with Csaba Csere, the former Editor-in-Chief of Car & Driver magazine and Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics. In this episode they once again talk about how great the Volt is and the Tesla. When you boil it down their only objection is price. Yet by listening to them you would think GM and Tesla had adopted a Marxist Ideology doomed to fail only to fall to the one true economy. The really high horsepower ICE engine that gets 20MPG instead of 12MPG.

Now fast forward to just a couple of months ago. On this episode they have on one of the main engineers of the Gen 2 Chevy Volt. They don’t have a single bad thing to say about the car. You would think GM hit a home run. It has yet to sell but now the car guys are coming around. I have no doubts if they invite back the WSJ guy his only dislike will be the $7500 tax credit.

I have said it once before. The EV is going to follow the path of the cellphone. And oddly enough the company that invented the EV-1 only to scrap it back when we as a Country also scrapped solar panels (bad move) will be the company that actually made the car that starts mass adoption of Electric powered vehicles. Not Nissan or Tesla. Especially not Ford.

While Nissan has sold the most EV’s of any car maker it is still a niche player. You really have to accept some major limitations to drive a Leaf. Think Apple Watch Sport.

Tesla proved that if you spend enough money and make something nice enough you can find enough buyers to spark interest. Think Apple Watch Edition.

The Gen 2 Volt on the other hand can get 50 miles on a charge. That covers 90% of most suburban Americans. The car gan go 400 miles on a tank of regular gas. That cover the other 10%. The only obstacle is the car is a Chevy. One body style. One company with a past of making bad decisions. The Volt is not one of them.

Ford may get caught sleeping on this one. While they have several Hybrids and a couple of plugins they don’t really seem to be taking the market that seriously.

Even if you don’t buy an EV or a Range Extended Hybrid like the Volt there is something you can do to reduce our dependence on oil.

It’s something else that has been around since the 1970’s but the auto press and automakers  has taken this long to finally accept the reality and benefits. Synthetic Motor Oil. Go back over the years and you will find hundreds or articles on why synthetic oil was a waste or even detrimental to your cars health. Today with automakers having to get better gas milage and people owning cars longer and expecting more reliability from their cars those same automakers are putting synthetics in their higher priced cars at the factory.

They have finally been dragged into accepting reality. When you use synthetic motor oil your car gets better fuel economy, runs cooler, last longer and is actually cheaper since you can run it for up to a year in most cars.

Amsoil Signature Series Motor oil can be run for 25,000 miles or one year in many cars. To learn more about extended drain intervals and Amsoil click here.

I hate CNBC

Ok, it’s not just CNBC but pretty much all so called news outlets They don’t report news as much as sell you something.

I was on Yahoo.com doing some financial research on Tesla. While I’m looking at the research there is a video from CNBC with some talking heads and a so called expert from Garage Monkey  or some crazy name telling people that we will never give up our loud sounding big horsepower muscle cars. Or at least he won’t. We love the sound and the smell. Just look at how many classics are still around.

Well, yeah, there are lots of classics still around. In garages and museums. Unless you count the thousands that are rusted out and decaying in the barns and backyards of America. About the only place people still drive Classics everyday, Cuba. And I doubt that’s because they want to.

I remember the days of my youth riding in my fathers ’67 (maybe ’68) Dodge Charger. I remember what a cool car it was at the time. It was also a real piece of crap. It always had trouble starting and it didn’t have air conditioning . The sad part is I was to young to drive it. Had I drove it I surely would have never look at a classic ever.

In the late 70’s and early 80’s I got to drive classics like the Chevette, Chrysler K car, and Nova. There are more as I drove a lot of real junk back then. They sure didn’t make them any better. I can’t or don’t want to remember all those really bad cars of the day.

But like many folks in their late 40’s and feeling flush with cash after the market boom of the early 2000’s I went out and bought not just one but 2 classic cars. A 1967 Chevy Chevelle SS. Wow, what a cool car. Well not really. It would make a lot of noise and sounded really neat but it really drove like crap. It’s amazing people drove those things more than 10 miles a day even when they were new.

But being a glutton for punishment I bought a more luxurious classic car. A 1964 Chevy Impala. Also the SS version. This was a boat. I should have driven it before I bought but I got it sight unseen off eBay.

What these cars did most of the time was sit in my warehouse. I had to move them every time I got a delivery. After the market crashed in 2008 I decided they were just to much trouble to keep moving. They were so crappy that I never wanted to drive them. They were pretty to look at though. If I want to do that there are plenty of people who have them in garages all around me. My best friend has a 1964 Corvette sitting in his garage. He’s not a big fan of driving it either. He’s afraid that if he leaves it parked to get something to eat that someone might steal it or crash into it. It’s around 64k of wasted potential. While it keeps going up every year if he had taken the 22k he paid for it ten years ago and bought almost any decent stock it would be worth twice what it is now. And instead of parking his Kia Soul in the driveway he could fit it in the garage. That’s right, he’s driving a Kia Soul. At least when he doesn’t need his big Dodge Diesel for moving motorcycles everyday. He buys and sells them.

So as long as we are giving opinions, here are some of mine.

Just like people hated answering machines when they first came out or cellphones (the people who didn’t have one yet). The technology and price of the electric car gets more attractive every few years. It might take 10-20 years to get to the point where that’s what people want or can afford but there is no question that the technology is here and if automakers actually build them and sell them in every market people will buy them. As more people get them, more people will want what everybody else has. Just like the Navy Converted from Coal and Wood to Oil back in the day.

Used cars will hit the market as well. Just like some people wait for last years iPhone before they buy it there will be people buying 5-8 year old electric cars and loving them.

No buying gas. No oil changes. No filters to change. The scheduled maintenance is pretty much rotate the tires every 10,000 miles.

I have about 2000 miles on my Ford Focus Electric and there has only been one day where I was afraid to take it on the trip I had planned. If I had known I was going to be where I was for as long as I was it wouldn’t have been a problem. They had a charger there and in 2 hours I would have been good to go. I was there all night.

While todays ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) cars are really pretty good, O.K. really good they still burn gas. A product that we fight wars for. A product that we have no control over the pricing or production since most of it is imported. We use almost 80-90% more than we produce. And while people still debate if fossil fuels cause global warming there is no debate that they cause pollution. Oil spills cause catastrophic losses to wildlife and livelihoods.

Do we want to go back to the days where air pollution was so thick in many cities you couldn’t see more than a couple miles. Do we want Los Angeles or Chicago to look like Mexico City or Shanghai. Should we go back to the days where Lake Erie is dead and the rivers of Ohio burn when you light a match?

The price of gas in Phoenix is over $2.70 a gallon again. Up more than a dollar a gallon in less than 4 months. The cost of my electricity is down. At least between midnight and 5 AM. The electric company wants me to charge my car at night. They need people to use all that excess capacity that’s available at night when people are sleeping and the temps are cooler so the AC doesn’t run as much.

Another thing is there are no refineries in Phoenix using a ton of electricity to turn all that crude oil into gas. Yeah, it takes a lot of electricity to make a gallon of gas. Then it takes a lot of diesel to truck it to the gas station. Then it takes more electricity to pump it into your car.

Almost everybody in the U.S. now days has electricity already coming to their house. It doesn’t take any more modification to get it to your car than it does to hook up an RV.

The only reason I go to a gas station now is to buy a snack and use the washroom.

Finally, an affordable Electric Car that isn’t ugly.

The Ford Focus Electric.

The 2015 Ford Focus Electric Car has a list price of $31,990 with Leather Seats,  Without leather seats it’s almost $1k less.

If you are in a Compliance State they have many of them and not so many buyers.
They should have more buyers but people fear all electric cars. They shouldn’t.
If you live in a non-compliance State like I do they sell for a premium. That’s why I went out of State to get it. Actually I never left my house to get it. It was all done using email, phones and FedEx.

I bought this car in March.
Sticker Price:                 $30,990.00

Ford Focus

2015 Ford Focus

Negotiated Discount:   $-2,057.40
Price before Rebates:   $28,932.60
Sales Tax and Title:       $ 1,428.23
Out of State Delivery:   $   300.00
Ford Rebate:                   $-3,500.00
Total Out the Door:       $27,160.83
Federal Tax Credit:       $-7,500.00
5 years of tags:               $    60.00
Price after Tax Credits: $19,720.83

Or about $60-80k less than a Tesla S. To get the max tax credit you have to have paid at least that much in Federal Taxes in the year you purchase the car. Check with your accountant to make sure you qualify. It might make more sense to lease if you don’t get most if not all of it.

In Arizona the License Plates are only $30 a year and you have access to the HOV Lane. In California the plates are more but they give an extra $2500 tax credit which more that offsets that. There are other incentives available depending which State you are in.

To find currently available Federal Tax Credits Click Here. For current incentives and tax credits in you State Click Here.

I did get the windows tinted with SunTek CXP for $370 plus a set of wheel locks for $35 off eBay so I guess I have a few more bucks in it but I still consider that a smoking deal.

That’s a lot of car for 20k. Try and find a used one for that price let alone a gas model Focus with the same trim level.

And to date I have never got home with less than 20 miles of charge left on it. Thats running the AC in the Arizona Sun. I’m also not hypermileing.

My utility company also has a EV value charge plan where midnight to 0500 is 6 cents a KWH and I’m averaging 4 miles per KWH so 1.5 cents per mile. The average car in the same class as the Focus gets 30 MPG.

So if my math is correct, 30 miles in this car costs 45 cents. Compared to a gallon of gas today at $2.19 I’m saving the equivalent of $1.74 per gallon.

That’s almost 6 cents per mile. I doubt gas is going much lower. But even if it did, I haven’t seen 45 cent gas since 1971.

If gas goes back to $4 a gallon then I’m saving close to 12 cents per mile.

Should we see $1 gas again then it’s still a savings of $3k over 100k miles. $2 gas,  $6k savings and $4 gas $12k savings at 100k miles.

And don’t buy the BS that an electric car will be worthless in just a few years. After 3 years the car will be worth at least 14k. Even if the battery loses 10% of it’s range. The odds of that are slim. The Ford Battery is liquid cooled unlike the Leaf.

My 2011 Miata which cost $25k out the door sold 3 years later with 31k miles on it for $14k An $11k loss. It also needed 3 oil changes during that 3 years and only got 26 MPG with $3 a gallon gas average.

Any car should easily get 100k miles and if taken care of 300k miles or 15 years before repairs cost more than its worth..

The Focus Electric is much more practical than the Miata with room for 4 and some Cargo space. The back seats also fold down. I have put a bicycle in the back with both wheels on it.

In the 3 years I owned my Miata it only went more than 70-80 miles in a day twice. Those two times we could have rented a car. It went 600 miles in 3 days and it would have made more sense to rent for those trips.

If you are interested in a Nissan Leaf you won’t get as much car for the money. I spent about 2 weeks negotiating on one before I decided it wasn’t a sound financial decision. At least not yet at their current prices. A fully loaded Leaf is almost $6k more than a Ford Focus. A bare bones Leaf S is comparable in price after dealer incentives but with far less luxury.

Thanks to Justin Tezano at Santa Monica Ford for making this deal happen. Mossy Ford in San Diego and Frankie Musilli had the deal first but their F&I guy got greedy and blew the deal.

A version of this post is in my other blog at www.imreallycheap.com

People are not so EV Friendly

Ford Focus

2015 Ford Focus

I have had my BEV (battery electric vehicle) less than a week now. And just like the complaints about cars having to share the road with bicycles, ICE cars have to share the road with drivers who are trying to get the most range out of their battery.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love flooring the gas pedal and going fast but I do it for fun, not because I am trying to get anywhere in a hurry.

Yet most drivers, my wife included drive like they are always late to work or trying to catch a flight leaving in 5 minutes. You’ve seen people like this or you might be one. They are first to the red light and the first to honk their horns if you aren’t going at least 10 MPH faster than the posted speed limit.

Just today while driving just a few miles to my mothers house. I was doing the speed limit when I saw the light ahead of me turn red. There was a line of about 5-6 cars ahead of me so I clicked off the cruise control, (yes, I do use the cruise control a lot now and have it set at the speed limit) and coasted to the light ahead of me. I was probably at least a block away from the light when I did this. The person in car behind me threw  up their hands in frustration. I look in the mirror a lot more now too.

As I coasted to a stop, so I didn’t hit the car in front of me, the light turned green. Had I gone faster all I would have done is wasted a lot of energy by not getting all the regeneration from slowing down and put a bunch of wear on my brake pads instead. An advantage of hybrids or electric vehicles.

Once I reached 30 MPH I let the car coast again so I would make the next light where I was turning left, now we all know you have to slow down to turn. That is unless you want your passengers puking in your car.

At this point the Chrysler 300 that was dying to get out from behind me did and speed off ahead into the distance. Not so far a head though that two miles ahead I caught them at the second stop Light. They were now 6 cars ahead of me instead of just behind me. Probably still frustrated though they weren’t the first car at the light. LOL

This is not a one time incident, this happens all the time. Every day, many times a day. More than once has someone speed past me giving me the finger only to have to sit next to me at the next light if not the next 2 or 3 traffic lights. And that’s not in my Electric car. That’s with my Miata or my Mazda 6. Going fast just to stop ahead just wastes gas and adds a lot to your maintenance bills.

If you wonder why your gas millage is terrible, why you need to replace your brake pads every 12k miles or why your cars are beat to crap in just a few years, just look in your mirror.

Next time you drive to work, or the store or somewhere you always go trying doing this. When you reach the speed limit, set your cruise control. When the light ahead of you is red cancel the cruise and coast. If it turns green before you come to a complete stop and it is safe to do so hit the switch to resume your speed on the cruise control. Try to use your brake as little as possible. Do not speed or at least don’t do more than 5 MPH over. Time it. See how much longer it takes to get where you are going.

See how much less stress you have driving like that as well. Another benefit is you won’t stand out when the police are around. Drunks and stoners drive to slow and thieves and drug dealers usually drive to fast. How many times do you see some guy who sped by you getting a ticket down the road?

Another thing you can do is compare your gas millage. Like most cars now days your car probably has a trip computer that is pretty accurate. It probably even tell you how long the trip took. There was a reason they set that 55 MPH speed limit back in the 70’s. That’s the speed where you generally get the best gas millage per mile of driving. After the power needed to move your car through the air takes far more gas than the engine moves the car efficiently.

I do realize that 55 feels slow, real slow but 65 is really pretty fast and since most people are doing 70 anyway the 75 MPH speed limit is ludicrous. At most it will say you 5 minutes every hour and cause you far more stress of having to be vigilant of others. Another draw back is if you opt to have one of those drive safe discount monitors on your car it will send love notes to your insurance company every time you exceed 75.

The easiest way to see what kind of damage and wasting fuel speed can do is take your car to the race track.

I have a Mazda Miata that I have taken to the track and a car that can get a combined MPG of 26 becomes a car that gets less than 12 MPG. The tires last about a third of their regular life and the brakes last even less. Even if you aren’t going from 35-110 and back down to 30 again in seconds, all that acceleration and stopping is what causes wear and tear on your car.

In an Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) driving smart can be the difference between getting 50 miles per charge versus 100 miles per charge. Maybe the reason you don’t like or have never considered driving a BEV is because you drive like a teenager. That or you don’t have to pay the bills.

Check out this website. It will open your eyes. https://www.fueleconomy.gov

EV Parking Only

Maybe the problem is with the sign and not the EV Driver?

T5615In the week I have had my BEV I have seen some pretty poor charging etiquette.Electric-Vehicle-Parking-Sign-K-8559

There is a Level 2 charger near my home. Less than a block away as a matter of fact. It is also close to the home of a Tesla Driver. While we are both BEV drivers he plugs in, goes home and doesn’t unplug when he has topped off. He stays there till he decides to leave again.

So while the sign says “EV Parking Only” it doesn’t say your are the only EV that can park there.

The problems with parking your car and leaving it as long as you feel like it are many. This is not your personal parking space. There are people who actually need to charge their cars.

You wouldn’t go to a gas station, fill up your car and then leave it there while you go to a movie or have lunch? or would you. Do you think the owner of the gas station might have a fit if you were blocking their gas pump. They put it there to make money. Or in the case of my friend with is Tesla, they put it there as a convenience to the people who live there or visit friends.

When you are done charging, move your car. I doubt you would keep your car there if your were charged for time in the space vs. time actually charging?

There is also the question of being a Plug in Hybrid vs. a pure BEV. Yes your Plug in allows you to use a charger but as a BEV owner I might really need that charge to get home. So as a Plug In you really need to get out of the way when you are done. I’m sure many of you have fits when you see and ICE vehicle parked in the EV space, don’t you?

Just like many States now are limiting or eliminating exemptions for Hybrids it won’t be long before they eliminate special privileges for PEV’s. You are not committing to the cause, you are just testing the waters. Pretty soon if you need to feel special you will have to jump into the deep end and go pure BEV.

So, since somebody has to make the rules I propose the following.

If you have more than enough juice to get home (if you have a home charger) then leave a note saying that it is OK to disconnect you. If you have a PEV and a BEV needs the juice please move ASAP or let the BEV disconnect.

And so businesses will keep installing and expanding the charger networks please let them get as much paid time as possible. If we want more places and spaces we are going to have to show that we can be responsible consumers and that we are not just looking for Rock Star Parking.

If you stay parked in a space and not charging you are no better than that friend who comes over to your house every night to drink your beer, eat your food and play footsie with your spouse when your not home.

Parking at the airport

Parking at the airport

There is one and only one place where I have seen an acceptable place to park for an extended period of time. An airport parking lot. There were 2 spaces that had a 72 hour limit on the sign and 4 spaces that had a 10 hour parking limit sign. They want you to drive and park there. Odds are really good you can’t get back to your car quickly.

Tesla S

As for my neighbor, either you live nearby or your girlfriend lives nearby. Get of the couch, stop drinking for a few minutes and go move your car. Either that or go home to your wife and kids.The excuse that daddy is just going out for a charge isn’t going to work for long.