Hey folks, I was down in Las Vegas at the Hilton Convention Center at Alan Mulally’s keynote address for the reveal of the Ford Focus Electric, an open secret for the last few months. Glancing over the specs, it looks promising – particularly when you get to the recharge times of the 23kW battery …

Recharge times are clearly one of two major bugbears of electric vehicles, a point made abundantly clear in the comments on the Tesla review. Ford is claiming that their 240 volt charging system will bring the Focus Electric up to the full mark in 3 to 4 hours. If that’s true, that’s about half the charging time that a Leaf takes to do the same thing, despite the Leaf’s similar 24kW battery capacity. The other issue with any electric vehicle is range. Ford’s press release on the Focus Electric is rather political about range, stating that it will be “sufficient for the needs of most Americans.” (Read: in the neighborhood of 100 miles.) Nothing groundbreaking here, although let’s not rule out the option of a quick top-up feature for mid-trip range issues. Personally, I think being to pull over and grab a half-hour’s worth of 110 and get an additional 20 or 30 miles worth of charge is going to be practically a necessity for any EV owner, at least until battery storage technology reaches a higher range potential.

Another interesting feature, and one it should be noted that many automakers are rolling out at CES, is the ability to control the Focus Electric’s charging parameters remotely via a smartphone. It’s part of a integrated system of tools that are designed to help an owner learn how to maximize range, charge when electricity prices are lower (called “value charging” in Ford speak). You can also “precondition” the vehicle – warm it up before you drive in the winter or cool it in the summer. These all seem like useful features to help the owners of an electric vehicle survive in our petrochemical world, but it should be noted that Nissan is rolling out a suite of really similar tools on the Leaf. As a nod to the social/status implications of owning an EV, Ford’s MyFord Touch software you can unlock “achievements” about how green you’re driving is and then share them with your friends via social networking. Finally, if you need to reach a specific point within the Focus Electric’s range, the onboard SYNC nav system will coach you on reaching it.

So is the Focus Electric going to be a hit? The Prius has been very successful for a number of reasons, but my theory is that the most important virtue is its distinctiveness. Your neighbors all know what a Prius looks like, and you bought it partially to communicate to everyone that you drive a green car (not to knock Prius owners for that – we all convey messages with our cars). Unlike the Leaf or the Volt, two of the most direct competitors to the Focus Electric, it shares almost its entire design (with the exception of the Aston-esque grille, and unique and very attractive wheels) with the regular petroleum Focus. Is that a boon or a bust for consumers? I’m looking forward to the reaction the Focus Electric gets when it hits the hot, sweaty hands of journalists, but the ultimate test will be sales numbers. This should be interesting.
The trip to CES and the N8 phone that was used to take images and provide updates from the show were graciously provided by Nokia.