Ford Edge Hybrid

[rmc523]

I hope Ford is able to ramp up production, especially with the Fusion Hybrid coming. It seems as though customer demand is definitely there, why can't we capitalize on that?! Isn't the problem related to battery supplies or something?

[NickF1011]

Technically, NO hybrids make sense as none are worth the cost of entry, but Ford makes a pathetic, almost completely irrelevant number of Hybrid Escapes as it is(max order is 3% of retail Escape inventory, we stock over 1000 New Fords total, but cant get 2 hybrids in at one time). In the Wash DC area, it is impossible to find or get one, where Toyota has an entire row of Prius in stock. Ford just refuses to make them in quantity. I feel sorry for salespeople in the internet department they have to follow up on 50+ leads per week each. Next up is the Hybrid Fusion.

 

Ford can't build enough Escapes as it is. Would they rather sell profitable XLTs or loss-leader hybrids? It's a no-brainer decision from corporate brass. They build just enough for the image and go after profits with the rest of the vehicles. With the slightly lower demand for the Fusion overall compared to its production capacity, it's likely we'll see a higher volume of hybrids there.

[kevinb120]

Toyota doesn't make money on the Prius either, but you see what it does for their PR. They did purposely lower the hybrid mix before the model year got underway. Not building what people want is the biggest complaint against Ford in the first place.

Edited June 17, 2008 by kevinb120

[Deanh]

Technically, NO hybrids make sense as none are worth the cost of entry, but Ford makes a pathetic, almost completely irrelevant number of Hybrid Escapes as it is(max order is 3% of retail Escape inventory, we stock over 1000 New Fords total, but cant get 2 hybrids in at one time). In the Wash DC area, it is impossible to find or get one, where Toyota has an entire row of Prius in stock. Ford just refuses to make them in quantity. I feel sorry for salespeople in the internet department they have to follow up on 50+ leads per week each. Next up is the Hybrid Fusion.

all about the battery supply kev....even toyota doesn't have enough to meet demand

[jpd80]

http://media.ford.com/

With hundreds of thousands of miles accumulated over the past two years in New York City, there has been an estimated fuel savings of $250,000 for the initial fleet of 18 Escape Hybrid taxis. Now there are 288 Escape Hybrids in taxi service throughout the city, and drivers are reporting that the hybrids are delivering on the durability requirements and fuel-saving advantages that make them a great choice for taxi use.

 

 

Taxis love them, the payback in fuel savings is 12 months, after that it's an extra $6,000/year.

[lfeg]

Yes, the taxi is a great application for a hybrid. The duty cycle is brutal on the fuel efficiency of a conventional drivetrain, but is ideal for a gas/electric hybrid.

 

The Escape is OK for taxi use, but Ford could cement their position as a leader in this market if they had a large hybrid. The current Taurus fitted with a gas/electric hybrid and a higher capacity battery pack would be the ultimate CV taxi replacement - a lot of room in the rear seat, big trunk, and good efficiency. A taxi fleet that would be 60/40 Escape and Taurus would work well. A "fleet only" hybrid Taurus could share many common drivetrain/hybrid parts with a Fusion/Edge hybrid.

[NickF1011]

Yes, the taxi is a great application for a hybrid. The duty cycle is brutal on the fuel efficiency of a conventional drivetrain, but is ideal for a gas/electric hybrid.

 

The Escape is OK for taxi use, but Ford could cement their position as a leader in this market if they had a large hybrid. The current Taurus fitted with a gas/electric hybrid and a higher capacity battery pack would be the ultimate CV taxi replacement - a lot of room in the rear seat, big trunk, and good efficiency. A taxi fleet that would be 60/40 Escape and Taurus would work well. A "fleet only" hybrid Taurus could share many common drivetrain/hybrid parts with a Fusion/Edge hybrid.

 

All indications are that a Taurus hybrid is in the works.

[FLLMTR]

The edge is way too heavy. If you want a hybrid that is actually worth the price, the base 0-options FWD Escape is the only one on the market. Too bad its impossible to get one.

 

Exactly. Wouldn't it be simpler and faster to cut 500 lbs out of it than add $3,000+ of hybrid engineering?

[NickF1011]

Exactly. Wouldn't it be simpler and faster to cut 500 lbs out of it than add $3,000+ of hybrid engineering?

 

Simpler? Maybe.

 

Faster? Perhaps.

 

Cheaper? Doubt it.

 

500 lbs is a lot of weight. The only way you're getting that kind of reduction is through the use of more expensive materials. By changing to those materials in the quantity needed to drop 500 lbs of weight, you'll likely end up having to pretty much re-engineer the vehicle from scratch to make sure structural rigidity, NVH, and crash worthiness remain in tact.

 

With the next gen of hybrid powerplants Ford is developing, they will basically be a "plug-and-play" system that can be dropped into any vehicle in which it will fit, so the costs of development will be spread over a far larger range of vehicles than any engineering done to reduce weight to one specific model.

[kevinb120]

I would think a Flex hybrid, available in a service-duty version as well for Taxi use would make sense. The Taurus gets pretty good mileage as it is right now. The Fusion needs to be enlarged a bit before dumping a ton into hybrid hardware, its a bit of a squeeze in them. Maybe we can get more batteries by making some domestically, hell we can use Al Gore's (very dirty)Zinc mine on his farmland.....

 

One other thing people never mention is CNG vehicles that Ford/GM have in fleet service in cities though. They have full size vans and Crown Vics. It gets no attention in the media even though it is being used now, and is much cheaper to fill up then gas. I've driven a few CNG diesel truck conversions before, its not a bad setup.

Edited June 24, 2008 by kevinb120

[Cougarpower]

Im wondering this, if you leave your car out in the sun when you are at work and the car is a plug in , could a small solar panel work to recharge the batteries lets say for 6 to 7 hours out in the sun

[Noah Harbinger]

Im wondering this, if you leave your car out in the sun when you are at work and the car is a plug in , could a small solar panel work to recharge the batteries lets say for 6 to 7 hours out in the sun

 

The battery's capacity is 1.3 kWh. To provide for maximum longevity, the batteries are typically only about half-charged, so we'll say you need to recharge 700 watt-hours.

 

In San Diego, we get about 5000 watt-hours per square meter per day. That is, however, assuming that the solar panel is perpendicular to the average angle of the sun, when on the top of your car, it will be flat. That will cost you something like 30% of your energy, leaving you 3500 wH/m²/day

 

To recharge your prius from empty to just over 50%, you'd need to extract 700 wH out of that 7000 wH hitting your car -- that would be 10% efficiency, which is achievable using even the super-cheap printed thin-film solar cells being put out by companies like NanoSolar.

 

Your milage will vary -- many parts of the country don't enjoy as strong of sunshine we do, nor as much of it. You would have to keep your car clean (rinse frequently!), park in full sun... but it sounds doable to me!

[NickF1011]

The battery's capacity is 1.3 kWh. To provide for maximum longevity, the batteries are typically only about half-charged, so we'll say you need to recharge 700 watt-hours.

 

In San Diego, we get about 5000 watt-hours per square meter per day. That is, however, assuming that the solar panel is perpendicular to the average angle of the sun, when on the top of your car, it will be flat. That will cost you something like 30% of your energy, leaving you 3500 wH/m²/day

 

To recharge your prius from empty to just over 50%, you'd need to extract 700 wH out of that 7000 wH hitting your car -- that would be 10% efficiency, which is achievable using even the super-cheap printed thin-film solar cells being put out by companies like NanoSolar.

 

Your milage will vary -- many parts of the country don't enjoy as strong of sunshine we do, nor as much of it. You would have to keep your car clean (rinse frequently!), park in full sun... but it sounds doable to me!

 

You'd have a pretty hard time fitting a square meter of solar panels on the roof of anything but a fullsize SUV too...

 

Solar panels on a car would make pretty good sense as a supplemental source, but I wouldn't want to rely on it to get me home from work.

[jonas1022]

Not according to the last statement from Ford I saw on the matter. They said the program would not become break-even until the Fusion/Milan hybrids were online.

Last public release that I saw said they made money, just way more on a standard gasoline Escape than the FEH. They need to make money where they can, and are loosing money on other operations so they are only making 25K FEH. The statement also concluded with there are now plenty of batteries and transaxles available to make double the current output. But that would have a negative impact on overall profitablity.

[theoldwizard]

There is no reason Ford shouldn't be developing a hybrid version of every vehicle in it's lineup.

Yes, there is !

 

No transmission capable of handling V6 torque. The trans development program was canceled about 2 years ago.

[theoldwizard]

Im wondering this, if you leave your car out in the sun when you are at work and the car is a plug in , could a small solar panel work to recharge the batteries lets say for 6 to 7 hours out in the sun

The battery's capacity is 1.3 kWh. To provide for maximum longevity, the batteries are typically only about half-charged, so we'll say you need to recharge 700 watt-hours.

 

In San Diego, we get about 5000 watt-hours per square meter per day. That is, however, assuming that the solar panel is perpendicular to the average angle of the sun, when on the top of your car, it will be flat. That will cost you something like 30% of your energy, leaving you 3500 wH/m²/day

 

To recharge your prius from empty to just over 50%, you'd need to extract 700 wH out of that 7000 wH hitting your car -- that would be 10% efficiency, which is achievable using even the super-cheap printed thin-film solar cells being put out by companies like NanoSolar.

70% efficient solar cells ?

 

Where can I buy them ?

[theoldwizard]

Supposedly, the versions of the hybrid powerplant going into the Fusion/Milan and Edge are modular in design so they CAN go into any vehicle. The system designed for the Escape wasn't done that way. It was vehicle-specific. The new ones will apparently be capable of being installed in just about anything.

Gen 2 has much fewer unique component. They try to use as much of the standard vehicles components as possible.

 

Of course, as someone else mentioned, why offer it in everything if you can't supply it due to a lack of batteries and transaxles?

I believe that Ford has a new battery supplier (or will soon) so that issue should be gone.

 

I think Escape, Fusion, and Edge would cover the meat of the hybrid market for the next several years. Beyond that, I see the Focus and Taurus being next in line...and hopefully the F-series.

Dream on for F-series. Hydraulic launch assist, maybe, but I can not imagine Ford doing full hybrid in a 1/2 ton pickup.

 

I think part of the reason Focus has be skipped so far is that Ford does not make an engine smaller than the 2.3L in the US. A Focus hybrid would need something like 1.6L, which are available in other parts of the Ford world. But then you would have add shipping and do the development to meet US emissions.

 

According to a friend who works in hybrid engineering, there are about 30% less engineers than there were during the peak of Gen 1 Escape development. Further, hybrid engineering no longer a part of Research, but instead are part of Powertrain. It takes bodies to do what you are talking about and the Grim Reaper of 2009 still has not passed by.

[Harley Lover]

I think part of the reason Focus has be skipped so far is that Ford does not make an engine smaller than the 2.3L in the US. A Focus hybrid would need something like 1.6L, which are available in other parts of the Ford world. But then you would have add shipping and do the development to meet US emissions.

Wizard, might the engine for the forthcoming Fiesta be the correct size? I think it's going to be built in Mexico (the engine), but I can't remember the displacement.

[StevenCaylor]

Dream on for F-series. Hydraulic launch assist, maybe, but I can not imagine Ford doing full hybrid in a 1/2 ton pickup.

 

Why not? All they'd have to do is buy the two-mode hybrid transmission from GM. That would be the easiest and least costly way.

[theoldwizard]

Wizard, might the engine for the forthcoming Fiesta be the correct size? I think it's going to be built in Mexico (the engine), but I can't remember the displacement.

Yes, but that is not the "best" 1.6L the company has to offer. Still it would bet them a US emission legal engine to start with with very little work.

[Noah Harbinger]

The battery's capacity is 1.3 kWh. To provide for maximum longevity, the batteries are typically only about half-charged, so we'll say you need to recharge 700 watt-hours.

 

In San Diego, we get about 5000 watt-hours per square meter per day. That is, however, assuming that the solar panel is perpendicular to the average angle of the sun, when on the top of your car, it will be flat. That will cost you something like 30% of your energy, leaving you 3500 wH/m²/day

 

To recharge your prius from empty to just over 50%, you'd need to extract 700 wH out of that 7000 wH hitting your car -- that would be 10% efficiency, which is achievable using even the super-cheap printed thin-film solar cells being put out by companies like NanoSolar.

 

Your milage will vary -- many parts of the country don't enjoy as strong of sunshine we do, nor as much of it. You would have to keep your car clean (rinse frequently!), park in full sun... but it sounds doable to me!

 

 

You'd have a pretty hard time fitting a square meter of solar panels on the roof of anything but a fullsize SUV too...

 

Solar panels on a car would make pretty good sense as a supplemental source, but I wouldn't want to rely on it to get me home from work.

 

The roof panel on my compact car is 1.4 square meters -- if you throw in the top of the trunk, I think I can make up the 2 square meters I used in my estimate.

 

And this is just to maximize the charge on the batteries between drives -- whether or not it takes you all the way home depends on how far you drive (for me, it would cover a lot of my 8.5 route to work, if it weren't for that big valley in the middle).

 

70% efficient solar cells ?

 

Re-read the math: You'd need 700wH out of two square meters of panels that are being hit by 7000wH of light. 700wH electricity / 7000wH light = 0.1 = 10% efficiency. Even the cheapest panels do that.

[billyk24]

Johnson Controls of Glendale, Wisconsin is possed to become a new Hybrid battery supplier for Ford. They have signed a contract to supply the lithium-ion batteries for the PHEV Escape being tested in California. They also supply the 2009 Mercedes Hybrid and upcoming Saturn PHEV UVE.