Give the Focus EV another chance.
The Ford Focus Electric wasn’t a huge success. The model was sold in the United States just over 9,000 times between 2011 and 2018. This was not impressive. Ford made this model their first attempt at EVs, but it appears that Ford is open to giving the Focus Electric another shot.
Autocar recently had the opportunity to meet Murat Gueler who is Ford’s European design chief. Although he did hint at a possible return for the Focus Electric, he didn’t give any further details. Gueler stated that there is no plan at the moment and that his team is looking into many options for electric vehicles in the future.
Gueler stated to Autocar that everyone is launching electric cars, and that he would launch some more. We’re constantly designing the next generation of cars. It’s a lot of work.
The original Focus Electric was not designed to be an electric vehicle. It used the platform of the third-generation Focus with a combustion engine. This was then sold in North America and Europe with different engines. The result was that the battery took up too much space in the car’s boot, and the electric motor was forced into a vehicle that was not designed for it.
The 23-kWh LG Chem lithium-ion pack battery that was included with the Focus Electric at launch was upgraded to a 33.5 kWh version in 2017. The new battery allowed the Focus EV to travel up to 140 miles (225 km) on a single charge. The electric motor produced 145 horsepower (107kilowatts), which allowed for acceleration of 11.4 seconds at 0-62 miles an hour (0-100 km) speed. These numbers suggest that a new Focus Electric could easily surpass them all with the current EV technology.