Saw one on the road..

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jmueller065

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 12, 2013
Messages
2,398
Location
Southeastern MI
Hey I saw a FFE out in the wild today, ironically it was at a gas station. (This one makes a total of 5 that I've seen since FFE's were announced about 2 years ago. 3 of those sightings came within the past 3 months.)

So was anyone here with a black FFE at the BP gas station on the corner of Michigan Ave and Canton Center today at 1:30pm (in Southeastern Michigan)?
 
I haven't seen any in San Diego where I am. Where are all the San Diego people? Im over by Lake Murray. SDSU area.
 
I have not seen any FFE's around Escondido, CA. I commute to the Carmel Mountain area along I-15.
 
I live in Silicon Valley and see WAY more Leafs driving around. I also see lots of Volts.

At my workplace, out of 20+ electric vehicles, so far I have the only FFE. Of the rest, over half are Leafs, several are Volts, and there are a couple Teslas.

On the road, I've seen only a few other FFEs over the last couple months of driving mine.
 
Out here in Vegas, Ive seen a bunch of Leafs, Volts, and Tesla's, and a few Karma's, but only one other FFE.
 
Considering they only sold, what, 660 or so last year, and have only sold 240 so far this year (~80 in Jan, and ~160 in Feb--hmm incentives working?) it makes sense that not very many are visible.

In my case: I live in Ford country: My city is a very nice commute from Dearborn, and I'm only about 5 miles from the Focus/C-Max plant (the dealer I ordered mine from is across the street from the plant). A few of my neighbors are Ford employees (an ex-Ford employee myself). Thus I can always tell when the new cars go on sale as they pop up in my neighborhood in droves (especially when the manager leases kick in).

Having said all that only seeing 5 FFE's in a two year span is kind of low for viewing new Ford's in the wild for myself.
 
I live in the south Bay Area, CA (Silicon Valley). Tons and tons of Leafs and quite a few Volts. I have seen more Mitsubishi Miev's than Focus electrics! Actually I haven't seen another, save for the one on the floor of the auto show in January.

I don't mind the anonymity. At the same time I'd like to see the platform gain enough support to continue development. Ford is focusing (pun intended) on the Fusion hybrid with marketing. I don't see that changing anytime soon. I should be content with the FFE at least for the term of my lease. It was too good of a deal to pass.
 
I have a silver one in the Los Angeles area (northwest San Fernando Valley) and I have seen another silver one in my neighborhood. As much as I love driving my FFE, I am amazed how few I see. Lots of Volts and a fair number of Teslas and Leafs but few FFEs.
 
It's pretty simple: the majority of people who drive "green" cars want you to KNOW they're driving a green car.

There was a study done on this with Priuses. The study showed that Priuses sell far better than other hybrids (Civics, Escapes, etc.) because people don't JUST want the environmental and economic effects. They also want the people who see them to know they drive a hybrid for those reasons.

My wife bought her Focus EV precisely because it wasn't screaming, "Look at me! I drive an electric car!" But that isn't true of the majority of people. Unfortunate, because it really is the one that's most like a regular car in every aspect.

Here's a link to a radio story I heard on the study

And an excerpt:

"DUBNER: So the young twin economists, Alison and Steve Sexton, set out to gather some data on hybrid car sales in different places. They chose Colorado and Washington, two states with a lot of political diversity, and they got hold of vehicle-registration data and voting records. Now, the vehicle data told them what kind of cars were being bought where and the voting records stood as a proxy for how “green” each part of the state was – the idea being that “greener” communities vote more Democrat than Republican. When the Sextons looked at the numbers, they found that hybrids indeed sold disproportionately well in the greener ZIP codes – in Boulder and Seattle, for instance. But was that true for all hybrids? What about the Honda Civic hybrid, the Sextons’ control car?

A.SEXTON: We did a test to see if the market share for Honda Civics also increased in greener ZIP codes. And we found no statistical effect. And in fact, in a few of the regressions we found a negative effect.

DUBNER: But the Prius? Those green ZIP codes were crawling with Priuses."
 
By the way, we live in Seattle and I have yet to see another Focus EV. I see dozens of Leafs every day.

I actually sort of like the look on Leaf-drivers faces when they see me pull into a charging spot. At first they seem very, very confused or even indignant...and then I plug in. :)
 
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