Ford Focus Electric priced from £33,500

By Fleet News
|
30 October 2013

All-electric Focus now on sale, priced at £33,580 before the £5,000 Plug-in Car Grant is applied.

The 142hp battery-electric car weighs 1,350kg and will accelerate from 0-62mph in 11 seconds, and on to a maximum speed of 84mph.

The well-equipped model comes with 17-inch alloy wheels, automatic headlamps and rain-sensing windscreen wipers, satellite navigation, Sony audio system with DAB, Quickclear heated windscreen, and a space-saver spare wheel.

Regenerative braking captures up to 90% of energy normally lost through friction brakes and recycles it to recharge the battery, and the Focus Electric features a new user interface called SmartGauge which calculates and displays range based on remaining energy.

The Brake Coach feature displays the amount of energy captured every time the car stops, so drivers can adjust their driving style accordingly to help increase range. Budget View calculates an energy budget based on available charge. Drivers can also set the trip computer to calculate the average amount of energy used per journey, helping fine-tune the way they drive.

The Focus Electric also comes with a five-year warranty, two years longer than other Focus models.

More articles on:

Author: Fleet News

Comments (5)

Login to comment

Comments

JW - 30/10/2013 12:48

I would like to know how much it costs to charge up at a plug-in point by the side of the road and also how much charging the cars at home costs on an average electricity bill. I have noticed that no costs are ever mentioned when it comes to the cost in energy used to charge electric vehicles. How does this equate to the weekly fuel cost of putting diesel in a car?
- 0
- 0
DavidMG - 30/10/2013 22:40

An example of EV energy costs (Plug In Prius) is as follows: 5,146 miles used 1176 kWh of electricity @ 12.46p per kWh = an electricity cost of £ 146.52 divided by 5,146 = 2.85 pence per mile.
- 0
- 0
Patriot - 31/10/2013 23:14

£28.5k for a Focus? Someone's having a laugh. 'Fine tune your driving' aka do not dash about otherwise you'll run out of power. I can buy a 1.6 litre Golf diesel and get 88mpg with emissions of 85g/km and still have £10k left. The Golf also has a higher residual value, better build quality and better resistance to the Tin Worm. Our family Golf-6 years old-is very comfortable to drive and 100% reliable. The Focus loses out on boot space as well compared with the Golf. Alternatively you could hire a taxi every day in London for your journey's and still save money. Ford Focus Electric. For people with more money than sense.
- 0
- 0
- alltorque - 01/11/2013 08:01
  
  @Patriot - Fair point. And all those car website forums and comments are loaded with people who get the official combined fuel consumption from the cars they drive, and aren't at least 20% off. Oh, wait . . .
  0
  
  0
JW - 01/11/2013 10:55

I agree. No one has ever done a true financial comparison between an EV and a good low CO2 Diesel car to see what the real gain is. I also agree that the official MPG figures quoted by manufacturers are grossly loaded. I have driven several demo cars recently and found that if an official MPG figure in the 65MPG plus is quoted, I can only get at most 50MPG when driving extremely carefully. I feel its hard to trust any official figures quoted on EV's or traditional engine cars.
- 0
- 0
DavidMG - 02/11/2013 10:15

Fuel cost per 500 miles compared using actual EV data and "Fleet News" fuel prices 1 Nov 2013. EV = £ 12.46 60 mpg petrol car = £ 49.95 60 mpg diesel car = £ 52.30
- 0
- 0
- Patriot - 02/11/2013 22:29
  
  @DavidMG - You forgot to factor in the initial higher cost of an EV. It's all very well saying the running costs per 500 miles for an EV is £12.46 but considering an EV is about £10k more expensive initially and S/H values are not yet established for them there is no statistical evidence for claims that EV's are cheaper. In a nutshell EV's are commuter cars whereas petrol, diesel and LPG powered vehicles can take a family over 100 miles without A) running out of power and B) maintaining a decent constant speed The biggest problem IMV is manufacturers are London centric when discussing and marketing EV's. A real comparison in the EV-v-Fossil fuels debate should be a month long trial between them in either Yorkshire, North Wales or Scotland. Then we will see the the true value-v-costs benefits of EV's.
  0
  
  0