My initial questions

I've been joining these various forums on myelectriccarforums.com and am in the market for a car and so one of my goals is to educate myself about some buying points for myself.

My initial questions about the ford focus electric:

- For warm climates (I am in Arizona) are there any indications yet of the liquid cooling doing (or not doing) a good job of keeping the battery within certain thermal parameters and helping it stave off an early death? I have read through some of the Phoenix Nissan Leaf owners' comments, and that car seems worth avoiding for now, for me, based on battery life concerns, but I don't know if it's worth my while to consider the Ford because of its liquid cooling.
- Is there some sort of national phone number we can call? The dealers tend to not know that much.
- Battery warranty terms - it seems like it's not covered as to normal decay? Has Ford assigned any numbers (% of range decrease in what time period?) that they will honor?
- Battery pack replacement cost.... is Ford or anyone else being up-front about this?

Ok, those are my initial questions.

I don't have much information, but according to the manual, there is a warning that the ambient temperature is high and that you should plug in your car.

"It's Hot Outside... Plug Vehicle in When Not in Use"
Displays when the ambient temperature is hot. Plug in the vehicle to cool the high voltage battery for optimum performance.

Click to expand...

According to this it seems they are prepared for hot environments, not just during driving but also in between drives.

I expect you should be fine, but I don't know from experience.

BlueNotGreen said:

I don't have much information, but according to the manual, there is a warning that the ambient temperature is high and that you should plug in your car.

"It's Hot Outside... Plug Vehicle in When Not in Use"
Displays when the ambient temperature is hot. Plug in the vehicle to cool the high voltage battery for optimum performance.

Click to expand...

According to this it seems they are prepared for hot environments, not just during driving but also in between drives.

I expect you should be fine, but I don't know from experience.

Click to expand...

Thanks, very interesting, didn't know this feature was there. If it's engineered well, then if I leave it plugged in, it will be smart about whether it should be charging or not, for optimum battery life. I feel like there is a lot more to learn. I've been following EVs and the industry and owner comments, on and off, for about 15 years, but this is the first time I've been in a position where I feel comfortable to get one for myself. That said, this whole Arizona business is throwing a monkey wrench into the works, and the reports from some of the Leaf owners in Phoenix are sobering. I'd say about almost two years ago when I discussed a bit with some Nissan reps, I started aggressively asking hard questions about battery warranties and noticed that the answers, while an effort was made, were in my view not quite there.

As far as the FFE handling the Arizona heat, it seems very likely that it will be able to handle it. There have been no reports of problems with Volts in AZ and since the FFE uses a similar battery chemistry and like the Volt has liquid heating/cooling it should be good to go.

It will definitely run the TMS while charging to prevent overheating. What is not known is will it use battery power when unplugged to cool the battery when it is in a very high SOC to protect the battery. This would mean that you would lose range for that charge, but of course you would be preserving the long term capacity of the battery.

Ford having the benefit of hindsight on this issue will most certainly have addressed it.

As for the warranty, the specifics are unknown. So it could be a Nissan warranty, which is worthless, or it could be a GM deal, which does have some value.

I am enheartened by Whit's report that Ford sent out Factory Engineers to NC when he was unable to get the car to communicate with MFM.

This strongly suggests to me that Ford will support this car vigorously, which I think they are wise to do, because you don't want your first foray into a whole new mode of transportation to be viewed as a haphazard.

Charged Up said:

As far as the FFE handling the Arizona heat, it seems very likely that it will be able to handle it. There have been no reports of problems with Volts in AZ and since the FFE uses a similar battery chemistry and like the Volt has liquid heating/cooling it should be good to go.

It will definitely run the TMS while charging to prevent overheating. What is not known is will it use battery power when unplugged to cool the battery when it is in a very high SOC to protect the battery. This would mean that you would lose range for that charge, but of course you would be preserving the long term capacity of the battery.

Ford having the benefit of hindsight on this issue will most certainly have addressed it.

Click to expand...

Thanks, another very useful answer. For my own expenditure possibility, I would change this last sentence to:

"Ford having the benefit of hindsight on this issue will hopefully have done a decent job of trying to address it."

I can't quite afford to make too many assumptions on this point, much as I'd like to just ignore it. I think it served me well starting in 2010 in avoiding the Leaf in AZ to have kept asking these questions, so that's part of it.

I'll monitor this forum for other reports and also the Tesla forum, since they've been out there a lot longer with liquid cooling, including in Arizona. I can imagine what the heat must try to do to a battery if one does something as innocuous (as with an ICE) as going shopping mid-day summertime and leaving it in the parking lot unattended. I'd be glad to know that my EV maker has decided in those situations to expend a very small judicious amount of energy trying to keep the temperature under the hood ok.

One thing I find a bit disconcerting is why Ford is making the C-Max Energi PHEV and also the Fusion Energi PHEV both apparently without liquid cooling. Are they cutting a corner that in Arizona might not be a good corner to cut? I don't know yet.

I never quite understood the Ford chemistry situation. Weren't they working with JCI... and then did they switch to LG Chem? Or were they always working with LG Chem?

Charged Up said:

As for the warranty, the specifics are unknown. So it could be a Nissan warranty, which is worthless, or it could be a GM deal, which does have some value.

I am enheartened by Whit's report that Ford sent out Factory Engineers to NC when he was unable to get the car to communicate with MFM.

This strongly suggests to me that Ford will support this car vigorously, which I think they are wise to do, because you don't want your first foray into a whole new mode of transportation to be viewed as a haphazard.

Click to expand...

Thanks, also good to learn.

I would guess that Ford can get away with air cooled batteries on the energi since it can always start the gas motor if the battery is too hot or cold. The Prius does the same thing.