Ford goes green with all-electric Focus

We’ve just seen Ford’s keynote presentation at the world’s most important motor show – the NAIAS in Detroit, the motor city. The American car industry has long been associated with massive gas guzzlers, but this year’s big news was the announcement of an all-electric Ford Focus.

Traditional combustion engine versions of the Focus made it the UK’s third best-selling car last year – with over 77,000 new cars registered. This makes the release of an electric version a very high-profile event, providing a car that car buyers are very familiar with, but without the reliance on fossil fuels and the ever increasing prices associated with them. Electric cars aren’t anything new of course, as a fellow UK attendant noted we all used to get our milk delivered by them. However, a five-door family car with a top speed of 84mph is a totally diiferent proposition.

The new all-electric Focus has a range of around 100 miles on a single charge, and will take 3-4 hours to recharge from a 240V socket – not a problem for us in the UK, though most US consumers will need to have charging stations installed. The charging point is on the front left wing of the car (though we imagine this will be switched for the UK right-hand drive version). It’s surrounded by a blue-illuminated ring which shows the current charge level.

In terms of range and performance, the Focus is very similar to Nissan’s Leaf electric car, though the Detroit based company feels it has a competitive edge in two key areas.