{"id":41304,"date":"2011-08-09T06:58:07","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T10:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=41304"},"modified":"2011-08-09T06:58:07","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T10:58:07","slug":"ford-insists-focus-electric-is-on-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2011\/08\/ford-insists-focus-electric-is-on-schedule\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford Insists Focus Electric is on Schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Not late, says Ford of the new Focus Electric, just getting a very slow production ramp-up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While most potential buyers won\u2019t be able to plug in a new Focus Electric until sometime next spring \u2013 at the earliest — Ford Motor Co. officials insist that earlier reports of a delay in the battery car program are in err.<\/p>\n

Plans for Ford\u2019s first electrified passenger car have always called for a slow roll-out, with only a select number of dealers in California and New York likely to take delivery of the Focus Electric before the end of 2011.<\/p>\n

Reports of a delay \u2013 which appeared in a number of media outlets, including TheDetroitBureau.com<\/a> \u2013 were triggered by comments made by David Finnegan, Ford\u2019s marketing chief for battery vehicles, on the company website myfocuselectric.com.\u00a0 In it, the executive indicated that the rest of the 19 launch markets won\u2019t see the Focus Electric until next spring. That echoed the wording in a new teaser ad campaign for the battery car.<\/p>\n

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News and Reviews You Can Use!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cFord remains on schedule to deliver the initial Focus Electrics by the end of the year,\u201d said a statement by the maker which noted that only California and New York will initially receive the vehicle.\u00a0 \u201cWe will be rolling out to the remainder of the initial Focus Electric markets starting with production ramp up in spring 2012.\u201d<\/p>\n

The battery car will be produced at the assembly plant in the Detroit suburb of Wayne, Michigan that also produces the conventionally powered Ford Focus \u2013 and which will also produce both plug-in and conventional hybrid versions of the upcoming Ford C-Max microvan.<\/p>\n

Ford\u2019s global marketing chief Jim Farley has described the C-Max \u2013 which will only be produced in hybrid form as \u201cour Prius,\u201d as it will be a distinctively styled, battery-only product.\u00a0 Ford is playing catch-up in the emerging electric vehicle market.\u00a0 It launched its first EV, a version of the Transit Connect truck, late last year but that vehicle is geared towards commercial applications.<\/p>\n

With the Focus Electric and the two C-Max hybrids \u2013 as well as several other battery vehicles to follow \u2013 Ford aims to go after not only Toyota but rivals Nissan and General Motors.\u00a0 Nissan launched the all-electric Leaf at the beginning of the year, about the same time as the Chevrolet Volt plug-in debuted.<\/p>\n

Production of both those vehicles also began slowly, the makers taking pains to ensure they didn\u2019t run into some unexpected snags working with such new technology.\u00a0 Nissan began ramping up production of the Leaf as summer began, while Volt production is just on the increase following a previously scheduled July shutdown at the GM plant in Detroit.<\/p>\n

To underscore the importance of the Focus Electric to Ford, CEO Alan Mulally put in an appearance on the late night talk show hosted by David Letterman, last week, giving Letterman a chance to drive the battery car across the New York-based show’s stage. (For more on Mulally’s late night appearance, <\/em>Click Here<\/span><\/a>.)<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ford has not yet announced a price for the Focus Electric, which will deliver something under 100 miles range per charge of its lithium-ion battery pack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ford insists its new Focus Electric isn’t going to be late to market – but is simply going to have an extremely slow ramp-up of production, with dealers in only two states likely to get the battery car before next spring. More from TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41304"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=41304"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=41304"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=41304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}