Ford Motor Company won't be the first automaker to release a plug-in hybrid, but it claims it has worked out more of the kinks in the concept than Toyota or General Motors.
Next year, Ford will release two new hybrids--the C-Max Hybrid and C-Max Energi Plug-in Hybrid--to complement the all-electric Ford Focus that has just started to roll off the lines at the Michigan Assembly Plant.
The company claims that both hybrids will get better mileage than, respectively, the Toyota Prius and the Toyota Prius Plug-in and provide advantages over the Chevy Volt. The electric Focus, meanwhile, gets the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon, although, of course, it doesn't consume fuel.
The all-electric Focus, new hybrids, and other developments (Ford also has an new, unnamed electric likely coming in 2013) all underscore the dominant theme at the automaker for the past several years: cutting fuel. Even before President Obama unfurled the new U.S. goal of raising the average mileage for new light trucks and cars to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, Ford was already turning in the direction of saving energy. (There's more with the Forbes chat with Bill Ford here.)
"Fuel efficiency is by far the most important influencing factor" when it comes to selecting a car, said Dan Kapp, Director of Powertrain Research and Advanced Engineering at Ford. Small cars constitute 25 percent of car sales for Ford in the U.S., up from 19 percent a year ago. In California, small cars account for 30 percent of Ford's sales. Next year close to one-third of its car lines will sport a car that gets over 40 MPG.
It even works in trucks. The most popular F-150 pick-up trucks Ford sells right now are the ones with the EcoBoost engines. EcoBoost engines run on gas, but feature direct fuel injection and turbocharging, giving them a slightly diesel personality. EcoBoost engines can boost fuel efficiency by 20 percent and lower carbon emissions by 15 percent, he said.
Ford recently released a three-cylinder EcoBoost in Europe that uses less fuel, but performs as well, as a standard four-cylinder engine. Alternatively, EcoBoost engines can be sized in cars to deliver better-than-normal performance. The high torque, for instance, gives some oomph to the towing power of the F150.
Gas engines like this will actually play a much greater role at Ford in the future than batteries. Kapp reiterated Ford's prediction that 10 to 25 percent of the cars it sells by 2020 will be hybrids, plug-in hybrids or all-electrics, with the overwhelming majority being hybrids. Still, that means close to 75 percent to 90 percent will run on gas. Ford has diesels and compressed natural gas cars, but in relatively small numbers.
Kapp provided a few details on next year's hybrids. The Energi Plug-in will only go around 20 or 30 miles on all-electric power, slightly less than the 25 to nearly 50 miles achieved on the Chevy Volt from General Motors. The Energi, however, will go 500 miles on a tank of gas, or roughly 100 miles farther than the Volt. Unlike the Volt, the battery pack in the Focus will work in conjunction with the gas engine. In other words, once the batteries deplete, the Energi acts like a hybrid. In the Volt, the gas engine acts mostly to maintain charge in the battery pack. (Note: I said the Volt had a 100 mile range earlier. The Volt gets 400 miles, 100 miles less than the Ford. I got confused mid-sentence.)
The architectural change will lead to better mileage and gives Ford the flexibility to insert smaller battery packs, the most costly part of an EV or plug-in, into its cars, said Kapp. The philosophical debate over how to build a better hybrid has been going on for the past several years between GM and Ford. (Kapp also noted that while Ford and GM both get their battery cells from the same supplier, the battery packs are different. Thus, you can't extrapolate the Volt flames onto Ford.)
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