Ford CEO on EV's: "No time Soon"

If you are going to slam the Excursion, get it right. My 05 Excursion with 6.0 turbo diesel engine has a curb weight of 7,485 lbs. Fully loaded with my family and luggage, I tip the truck scales over 8,000 lbs or 4 TONS!

You might wonder why I have such a big SUV. Have you tried to fit 6 people and luggage in a Prius? Never going to happen. My 1996 Ford Crown Victoria got too small after the 2nd kid arrived. Now with 4 kids, not even an minivan can carry everything.

My Excursion with the diesel engine gets 16 MPG city and 21.8 MPG highway. If you wanted the comparable milege per weight in the 3042 lb Prius, you would need to get over 130 MPG!

Will the Prius be able to drive in 10 plus inches of snow? Doubtful, but that is not what the Prius is designed for.

Would you rather be in an Excursion or Prius in vehicle accident? I would hate to see what the Excursion would do to a Prius in a head on collision.

A few months ago a honda hybrid rear ended me at about 20MPH. Driver broke right leg, left arm and had burns on face from airbags. Honda hybrid was totaled. No injuries to me althought my trailer hitch had a scratch and license plate light broke. Less than $20 dollars in damage.

The Excursion could have been successful if Ford had better marketed the fuel efficiency of the diesel engine.

Before you start comparing apples to oranges, know that the Excursion and Prius are too different to compare.

I own both. Excursion is the family hauler, the Prius is my fuel efficent daily driver to work.

I am not trying to hijack this thread. Knowing that Ford did not take any government money and has actually shown a profit, I trust the CEO of Ford when he says pure electric vehicles are not ready at this time.

 

no problemo, i don't know the answer to that question, i can only go by what i've seen so far. not trying to put down nissan, i know everyone's excited. i just don't think ford deserves a berating for their current perceived stance on ev's. that could change however, time will tell.

 

...but isn't that his point? That Nissan has been half-hearted about all these things?

 

exacamundo.

 

Yeah, I probably shouldn't reply and derail the thread but I'm just so curious - which Honda hybrid was it? There's a big difference between the old-school tiny Insight and say even the Honda Civic Hybrid, even if for no other reason than current crash testing making cars way better at handling crashes than they used to be.

I feel some sort of itching obligation to point out that diesel fuel costs more, and older diesel engines are more polluting than their gas counterparts, so miles per gallon isn't an apples to apples comparison either.

But I certainly don't have any problem driving a much larger vehicle if you have a use for it. If I had a family with just 2 kids I expect the Prius would be too small, let alone a family with 4 kids.

I think the cause of your accident was that your Excursion was to small and the other driver didn't see it. :-D :-D

 

fyi, hybridcars.com just posted an article -

Ford Takes Hype-Free Stance on Hybrids and Electric Cars | Hybrid Cars

"Ford is balancing its move to efficiency between advanced internal combustion technology, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric cars. The company will launch its all-electric Transit Connect delivery truck later this year, followed by the Ford Focus Electric in 2011, a plug-in hybrid version of a small SUV (not necessarily the Escape) in 2012, and a pair of next-generation hybrids by 2013.


Ford is planning to build fewer than 10,000 all-electric vehicles in the next two years. Meanwhile, Nissan-Renault is planning to build as many as 500,000 pure electric cars globally by 2012."

 

Which is exactly why I would rather be in a Prius. I couldn't live with myself if I slaughtered people in the other vehicle because I, for some reason, was driving a 4 ton vehicle.

 

That's funny, really? Physics in an "imaginary" belief now? Someone should have told me! And the IIHS -

IIHS news release

"Laws of physics prevail: The Honda Fit, Smart Fortwo, and Toyota Yaris are good performers in the Institute's frontal offset barrier test, but all three are poor performers in the frontal collisions with midsize cars. These results reflect the laws of the physical universe, specifically principles related to force and distance. Although the physics of frontal car crashes usually are described in terms of what happens to the vehicles, injuries depend on the forces that act on the occupants, and these forces are affected by two key physical factors. One is the weight of a crashing vehicle, which determines how much its velocity will change during impact. The greater the change, the greater the forces on the people inside and the higher the injury risk. The second factor is vehicle size, specifically the distance from the front of a vehicle to its occupant compartment. The longer this is, the lower the forces on the occupants.

Size and weight affect injury likelihood in all kinds of crashes. In a collision involving two vehicles that differ in size and weight, the people in the smaller, lighter vehicle will be at a disadvantage. The bigger, heavier vehicle will push the smaller, lighter one backward during the impact. This means there will be less force on the occupants of the heavier vehicle and more on the people in the lighter vehicle. Greater force means greater risk, so the likelihood of injury goes up in the smaller, lighter vehicle.
Crash statistics confirm this. The death rate in 1-3-year-old minicars in multiple-vehicle crashes during 2007 was almost twice as high as the rate in very large cars.

"Though much safer than they were a few years ago, minicars as a group do a comparatively poor job of protecting people in crashes, simply because they're smaller and lighter," Lund says. "In collisions with bigger vehicles, the forces acting on the smaller ones are higher, and there's less distance from the front of a small car to the occupant compartment to 'ride down' the impact. These and other factors increase injury likelihood."

The death rate per million 1-3-year-old minis in single-vehicle crashes during 2007 was 35 compared with 11 per million for very large cars. Even in midsize cars, the death rate in single-vehicle crashes was 17 percent lower than in minicars. The lower death rate is because many objects that vehicles hit aren't solid, and vehicles that are big and heavy have a better chance of moving or deforming the objects they strike. This dissipates some of the energy of the impact.

Some proponents of mini and small cars claim they're as safe as bigger, heavier cars. But the claims don't hold up. For example, there's a claim that the addition of safety features to the smallest cars in recent years reduces injury risk, and this is true as far as it goes. Airbags, advanced belts, electronic stability control, and other features are helping. They've been added to cars of all sizes, though, so the smallest cars still don't match the bigger cars in terms of occupant protection.

Would hazards be reduced if all passenger vehicles were as small as the smallest ones? This would help in vehicle-to-vehicle crashes, but occupants of smaller cars are at increased risk in all kinds of crashes, not just ones with heavier vehicles. Almost half of all crash deaths in minicars occur in single-vehicle crashes, and these deaths wouldn't be reduced if all cars became smaller and lighter. In fact, the result would be to afford less occupant protection fleetwide in single-vehicle crashes.
Yet another claim is that minicars are easier to maneuver, so their drivers can avoid crashes in the first place. Insurance claims experience says otherwise. The frequency of claims filed for crash damage is higher for mini 4-door cars than for midsize ones."

I wouldn't normally try to argue for the bigger vehicles, but since you were so over-the-top (while being wrong) in your assertion, I felt the need to take it on.

And everything I've read has said that the risk of rollover in an SUV has been reduced in recent years by electronic stability control. I don't know that it's been eliminated, but I don't see any evidence it "seriously outweighs" car-on-car accidents.

I don't know about the snow thing - people keep trotting this out. But when I drive down the highway right after a snowstorm, it seems like there's more SUV's that went off the road than there were passenger cars. I chalk it up to SUV drivers thinking they're safer when they're not, and thus driving more aggressive, and going off the road more.

A real off-road vehicle is better at accelerating through snow, with higher clearance and all wheel drive, yes. But how much better is it at stopping in snow/ice? All cars and SUV's use all 4 wheels to stop - AWD or 4WD doesn't change that. The contact area of the tire on the road isn't *that* different between a car and an SUV. Neither one is going to be able to get any grip on pure sheet/black ice unless you live somewhere that lets you use chains/studs. The larger weight of larger vehicle might let you drive through snow better, but it's also going to require more friction to stop the vehicle - not sure that's a good thing when you hit ice.

I've always found the idea that larger vehicles are somehow "safer" driving in snow/ice odd - seems like they're better at accelerating but not stopping.

 

I agree that EV vehicles are ready for limited production, But, IMHO, saying that Mulally was as bad as lutz is way out of line. What should matter is what the companies are doing, not what they are saying. If you look at the Ford development of EV vehicles, they are arguably in thrid place, and Tesla is not likely to be able to scale production. Hybrids are only 2.6% of the US market, and much less of the world. There will likely be a transition period through plug in hybrids as EV costs come down.

 

+1, well said.

 

Heck, they're in bed with the oil companies--have always been. The good old American way is to maximize consumption--of gasoline and cars. As long as gas stays at $2.50-3.00, they'll still be able to sell their vast inventory of oversized gas guzzlers.
If it hits $4.00 again, they'll change their tune in a hurry. Trouble is, they are never prepared for it and suffer the consequences.

 

i find it hard to believe Ford says no to EV's especially since they are introducing the Focus EV at the end of next year. and i agree, EV's are not ready for prime time. they would only fill a niche of around 10 million current vehicles. that is less than 5%... not a very big niche at that

 

LOL. First time I've seen anyone claim Nissan's EV effort is half-hearted.

 

DaveinOlyWa and Hill hopefully your efforts will get us to a place with a large percentage of ev cars, vans, and light trucks on the road.

Exactly on the Ford production.
Ford should be selling a few electric vans this year.

Ford’s First EV Isn’t Sexy, But It’s Smart | Autopia | Wired.com

But the high volumes should be scalable on the focus ev. Ford is building capacity to make 2 million focuses a year, for gas, hybrid, and ev. Magna is supplying the electronics for the ev and should be able to ramp production quickly if the demand is there. Ford and/or Magna will likely lose money on every one they sell the first couple of years, so they may keep production of the ev version low. Ford is making bigger bets on hybrids including plug-ins than electric vehicles.

 

"if" leaf is out ? You actually have doubts about it coming out ?

I think that statement tells us more about you than about Nissan.

 

Ford was an equal partner in the Supercar program. What happpened to their 72mpg diesel-electric hybrid Prodigy? They could have been selling hybrids for a decade. IMO the "F" in Ford doesn't stand for "Forward Thinking".