Ford Won't Include Battery Leasing Option for Upcoming EVs

Ford is going head to head with Renault next year for European electric vehicle sales, but Ford isn't following Renault's lead in offering electric vehicles with a battery-leasing option.



Dan Pierce from Ford says the Ford Focus Electric will be sold like a conventional vehicle - the battery will be included in the price of the car. Ford isn't offering a battery lease option in Either the US where the Ford Focus Electric will be available later this year, or in Europe - where the Focus EV will be sold in 2012.

The Ford Focus Electric has a single charge range of about 100 miles and is one of 5 electric vehicles Ford is planning to release over the next 3 years, including the C-max Energi.

Renault's electric cars all have battery leasing options, and Renault is keeping with it's plans of building electric cars with removeable battery packs. Car owners will be able to take advantage of battery exchange stations like the ones being installed by Better Place in Israel and Denmark.

http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencarad...-battery-leasing-option-for-upcoming-evs.html

I will be amazed if the battery replacement idea works in either Europe or the US. Battery leasing may be viable, but I think it will be a small portion of the market.....

Apparently BetterPlace is up and running in Israel - but that's a substantially smaller area to cover with swap stations.

It does seem a bit baffling - how many battery packs would a station need on hand to swap out if they take even 4 hours to charge? They'd have to have as many packs as cars that would show up in that 4 hour period. A normal gas station would see a hundred or more vehicles I'm sure.