Ford’s New Electric Car

Last summer, the Ford Motor Company gave itself a new project. Called Project M, the goal was to build a prototype of a battery-powered car that was totally run on electric power within six months.

Even though this isn’t the way the automobile industry usually runs (it often takes years to develop new vehicle models), competition has been fierce, and the pressure was on for them to put their own electric car on the market.

William C. Ford Jr. is the company’s executive chairman. He has said that it’s “a gamble not to do it,” and that “society is headed down this road.” So, the scramble is to keep up with the competition and ultimately, to surpass it.

Indeed, this comes even at a time when the billions of dollars spent to go with the development of electric cars are scarce indeed, and when the industry as a whole is under the microscope because of the $17.4 billion bailout rescue proffered to competitors Chrysler and General Motors. Nonetheless, Ford announced plans to release two electric vehicles by the year 2011, along with “next-generation” hybrid vehicles.

The first vehicle: the Transit Connect, a new kind of taxicab

The first vehicle is a collaboration with Tanfield, a British electrical automobile maker. Ford will produce battery-run electric versions of the Transit Connect and Ford Transit. These vehicles are already sold commercially in Europe; Ford will launch them this year in the United States. That Transit Connect is meant as a taxicab, and will probably replace the popular Ford Crown Victoria. The Crown Victoria appears to have a limited public appeal, and is mostly used as a police car and taxicab.

The second vehicle: An electric passenger car

The second vehicle, made in partnership with Magna International, will be released in 2011 and is a passenger car. It will run on lithium-ion batteries and its makers say that it will be able to go up to 100 miles on just one charge. What does this bode for the future?

Ford has also announced that its 2010 Fusion hybrid, which goes on sale in April, will get 41 miles per gallon in the city, which beats Toyota’s Camry hybrid by 6 miles per gallon and the Chevy Malibu hybrid by 15 miles per gallon.

What does this bode for the future?”

Even though the ultimate goal is for vehicles to get away from fossil fuel consumption altogether and to most notably be free of dependence on foreign oil, to alleviate concerns about global warming, and to be free of the worry about gas prices, Ford and other carmakers worry that consumers will chafe at the limits imposed upon them by electric cars. For example, because they can only drive 100 miles on a single charge, this may force changes in driving habits.

Will Obama make a difference?

President-elect Barack Obama has been very upfront about his commitment to the environment in the way of “cleaner fuel” cars. To that end, he may propose incentives for both businesses and consumers to buy electric cars.

Ford’s First Order

At first, Ford will only make 10,000 of the electric vehicles a year so as to test the market without unduly risking their bottom line; this is a very limited number by Detroit standards.

Are electric cars a lasting phenomenon?

While some argue that it’s likely electric cars must be a lasting development in the transportation sector simply because of the need to move away from dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil imports in general, thus far, consumers have not shown that they are focusing on the long-term need to do this as much as they are the short-term benefits of the current system. Case in point: When gas prices approached four dollars a gallon last year, the Prius hybrid was so popular that orders were backlogged for months. However, demand is significantly down since gas has gone back down below two dollars a gallon.

Ford has the Grit to Overcome Obstacles

In addition, some analysts say that electric-only models could be more difficult to sell than hybrids, which use gasoline engines to continually charge the battery packs; this means that they never need to be plugged in to be recharged.

The Ford models currently in development will need to be charged for what Ford estimates to be six hours in order to cover a 100-mile trip. Even though Americans drive their cars less than 35 miles a day on average, this is still going to be a hard sell simply based on consumer mindset. Nonetheless, the industry is going to use that fact to sell electric-only cars as, for example, a second vehicle that can suffice in families for short trips or for simply running errands around town.

Recharging “on-the-fly”?

Although Ford has yet to jump on the bandwagon, some car companies are working to set up an infrastructure similar to today’s gasoline stations, whereby customers can simply either exchange batteries or plug in as they need to when they’re on long trips. Therefore, perhaps Ford won’t be far behind.

And while Ford didn’t begin to seriously look at developing a new electric-only car until early last year, executives have said that this has really been a goal of the company since the beginning of the decade. And with several years of hybrid development under their belts, they also have a much better understanding of these vehicles’ electrical systems. Today, the advent of the lithium-ion battery means that Ford can produce cars that handle much more as a conventional vehicle does than previous attempts did, such as the EV-1.

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