Greening the Blue Oval
Ford to roll out five new EV and hybrid products in Europe by 2013It was already a set-in-stone promise that Ford would introduce four new battery-electric vehicles and hybrids by 2012. Derrick Kuzak, Ford's Group VP for Global Product Development said as much at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last year. Since then, Ford has further broadened its eco-strategy.
When it comes to alternative energy powertrains, Ford relies heavily on an LPG strategy for Australia, but Ford's European arm has announced that electric power (including hybrids) will be central to the company's future in Europe. Following the company's American lead, Ford in Europe has scheduled the release of five hybrids and full EVs covering the C, CD and light commercial vehicle segments by 2013.
The rollout will start later in 2010 when a Transit Connect light commercial EV goes on sale in North America. Ford will then roll it out into Europe in 2011. As foretold by Kuzak in January '09, the Focus Electric, to hail from Ford's upcoming global C-car platform, will arrive in the US and Canada in 2011, followed by Europe in 2012.
Two petrol-electric hybrids and a PHEV will arrive in 2013. The company is keeping details of these to itself for the time being, but the 'plug-in' will possibly rival Chevrolet's Volt in size and packaging.
Nancy Gioia (pictured), Ford's director of global electrification, told media that the company is working to expectations that by 2020 anything from 10 to 25 percent of its fleet will be electrified. "There's no question in our mind at this point that oil, as the only alternative for our vehicles, is not a good business strategy," she said in a statement.
Towards that end, the company has begun testing market reaction in Europe using prototypes of the upcoming Transit and Focus cars for real-world trial programs in the UK and Germany.
In the UK, the company has benefited from the government's Technology Strategy Board (TSB) grants and input from the University of Strathclyde in preparing a fleet based on the current (soon to be superseded) Focus platform to road test a number of the technologies to go into the next-gen Focus EV. They will go to fleet and private users around the Middlesex area mid this year.
In Germany next year, the company will furnish the colognE-mobil project with a fleet of electric Focuses to help with EV testing in the context of city air quality, traffic safety and the power supply infrastructure. The project is being framed as a microcosm of the broader impacts of EVs across Germany's urban environment as a whole.
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