The two companies believe Focus Electric owners will embrace the idea of powering their cars with a cleaner source of electricity. Electric car makers want to market their vehicles as eco-friendly, but critics like to point out that the majority of the electricity generated in the country isn’t. In fact, about two-thirds of the country’s power comes from coal- or natural gas-fired power plants.
Ford has announced plans to bring the new Focus electric into the international markets by the end of next year. Besides this, the company claims the new car will have a unique cooling system, in order to keep the lithium-ion battery pack from overheating.
Electric cars could be compared to petrol-powered cars, regarding the heat generated. Lithium-ion batteries can get quite hot and this is the reason why the new Focus electric will be equipped with an “advanced active liquid-cooling and heating system” which will maintain the temperature of the lithium-ion battery packs at a constant level.
The system will work like a normal radiator mounted on a conventional car which pumps warm coolant around a water-to-air heat exchanger.
The system will incorporate the car’s air-conditioning unit which will refrigerate the coolant before it passes to the batteries. Unlike conventional radiators, the new one will decrease the temperatures faster.
Dave Fabricatore, thermal program management team engineer at Ford, said the system will work only when the car is driving along. Lithium-ion batteries also produce heat in the time when they are being recharged. The advanced heating system will also regulate the temperature in that situation, too.
Ford Motor Company is going to triple its electric vehicle production capacity in North America during 2013, further boosting volumes of its all-new C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid and C-MAX Hybrid, which are planned to for release in 2012.
Ford wants to expand its EV production to more than 100,000 annually. Currently, Ford sells about 35,000 hybrid vehicles every year. The company’s best selling cars are the Fusion Hybrid and Escape Hybrid.
Ford also wants to start producing five different EVs in 2013 including the Transit Connect Electric, on sale now, the Focus Electric, this year, plus the two new C-MAX vehicles (C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid and C-MAX Hybrid), and a fifth, whose name has not yet been disclosed.
The electric vehicles will be built at Ford’s assembly plant in Wayne, Michigan. According to the company, the most part of the plant is powered by solar panel systems. With this increase in capacity, Ford will create more than 220 green technology jobs in Michigan.
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