Ford reveales plans for small electric-car and plug-in hybrids

Besides showing us the 2010 Ford Taurus large mid-sized sedan and the gas guzzling 2010 Ford Shelby GT500, Ford has announced plans to bring pure battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), next-generation hybrids and a plug-in hybrid to market within the next 4 years.

To start, Ford will introduce in North America:
- A new battery electric commercial van in 2010
- A new battery electric small car in 2011 to be developed jointly with Magna International
- Next-generation hybrid vehicles, including a plug-in version in 2012

Ford says that its new electric-vehicles will have a range of up...
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downtoearth - 1/12/2009 11:20:24 AM

+1 Boost

Hurry up, the Chinese have already overtaken you and are there in the reasonably-priced plug-in hybrid for everyone market: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_F3DM And contrary to common misconception, the car does very well in a crash test: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=byd+f3+crash+test

holmstar - 1/13/2009 12:42:45 PM

+1 Boost

That crash test looked brutal. The front end looked less like a crumple zone and more like aluminum foil. It just crushed without slowing the car down at all. The passenger compartment was so rigid that it didn't even deform. These two thing put together mean that the car transmitted almost ALL of the energy of the crash directly to the passengers. Also, did you notice how the dummy's head whipped back off the air-bag (and apparently hit the b-pillar)?

*** Not a good crash test. ***