michael said:
I sure hope they have some REAL innovations. My lease has 18 months to go, and the way it's looking right now, I won't be able to justify replacing the FFE with another Ford product.
Please....
150 mile range (genuinely achievable under a wide variety of conditions)
Heat pump heating
DC or at least 10 kW charging
That would be enough to keep me
Throw in a little range extender engine like BMW and take over the world
I realize you are dreaming and that's cool.
Some way to heat the car without killing the battery would be amazing. Let it warm the batteries at the same time. I don't care if it is some crazy technology.
Faster charging for the FFE would be the best thing in the world. The only trouble is stringing that together so the car can go farther - a la superchargers. Just don't see that happening. Destination charging is a brighter idea for this car or anything with 150 mile range.
That 150 mile range - there will always be caveats with it. Variety of conditions is impossible to meet. One person will say speed limit + 5 MPH should be reasonable. Cold weather, I should still get my 150 miles or whatever the rated range no matter the temperature. You're never going to see that happen.
Tesla - Last week I took my son back to college, I should have arrived with over 100 miles buffer. Instead, the car only had 40 miles range left. According to your requirements, I should have been mad, the car didn't deliver. 260 miles of range turned into 180. There's something way wrong with that. Well the caveats were big. Drove highway in the cold (25 degrees and very windy) with four big people and lots of stuff. Drove over 70 MPH - sometimes 80. Kept the car at 65 degrees. Was that "real world" 150 miles of range?
Count me out on the range extender motor - why am I going to haul around all that weight, stupid gasoline, and maintenance that I might need one day? It will be interesting to see how many people buy that little BMW motor.