Filed under: Hybrid, Ford, Green Daily
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Robert 4:08PM (12/30/2008)
I know the title of that old article says "41 MPG on the Highway" but it also says "41 mpg city/36 highway" in the article. I don't know if you guys read comments or not, but internally clearing up this inconstancy would be nice. Someone is misreporting the "41 MPG Highway" or "41 mpg city/36 highway". Which one is wrong?
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Robert 4:10PM (12/30/2008)
...er... "inconsistency", not "inconstancy."
Sebastian 8:28PM (12/30/2008)
Robert -
we do, and now we feel dumb :)
Actually, thanks for the note. I've corrected the posts. The official number is 41 in the city, 36 on the highway
why not the LS2LS7? 4:11PM (12/30/2008)
Oh boy. Here we go again. Another contender for the vaporware title.
Everyone has such a great product but they aren't actually going to make enough for us to buy them.
It really makes me appreciate what GM did 10 years ago. And also what Toyota has done by making the Prius available and viable.
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Throwback 4:16PM (12/30/2008)
It's not like Ford can make the batteries themselves. Toyota has a nice little monoploy on the battery supply chain.
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Chris M 5:31PM (12/30/2008)
Well Toyota was getting their hybrid batteries from Panasonic, not Sanyo. But Panasonic recently purchased Sanyo... Think there could be a connection?
why not the LS2LS7? 5:52PM (12/30/2008)
Smart companies get contracts in place to guarantee supply. If Ford didn't do so, they need to take the blame. It's ridiculous to lay this at Toyota's feet.
The biggest part of making a car is actually managing the supply system to get the parts to get it made. Ford has failed at this.
Doug Korthof 4:08PM (5/03/2009)
Actually, the worldwide patent rights are controlled by Chevron Oil, successor to Standard Oil of California, which purchased it from GM on Oct. 10, 2000. Thus GM and SO worked together to crush NiMH batteries; to this day, Toyota is constrained from using NiMH in any car that can plug in. They can only use NiMH in very small batteries that are too small to plug in.
Toyota had to stop production of the large-format NiMH batteries and the plug-in EVs that use those batteries; it's no wonder that Chevron doesn't like plug-in cars.
Toyota sold hundreds of Toyota RAV4-EV, which are still running fine almost 7 years after the last one was sold (Nov., 2002, contemporaneous with Toyota surrendering to Chevron in Dec., 2002).
GoodCheer 4:37PM (12/30/2008)
Funny, the only thing I can think in reading this is that Ford could rephrase their comment as:
"We're offering a good-mileage mid-sized car in America, and WE CAN'T BUILD THEM FAST ENOUGH!"
Sorta makes you wonder what took them so long.
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Mike!!ekiM 6:43PM (12/30/2008)
Can't they second source those batteries?
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gorr 7:49PM (12/30/2008)
Don't forget that since goverment push battery usage by existing auto manufacturers, then the property of ford is treaten because it cost a lot to build extra systems for hybrids and simple maths done by ford say to them that they will lose tons of money building inneficient hybrid cars and they will end-up giving their ass to high financial institutions that mandated, ethanol, batteries, war in iraq, prohibited green algae fuel, prohibited hydrogen, world trade center explosion at the release of slayer group opus 'god hates us all, windmills, studies on ethanol, studies on hydrogen, studies in petrol reserve, studies of toxins released by diesel, etc.
All car manufacturers have been bought by goverment over the years and they cannot decide anymore how they operate.
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Joe B. 9:33PM (12/30/2008)
Couldn't Ford work with another American company like maybe A123 or Ener1 to get lithium ion batteries into their cars? It would help Ford's public relations and it would give a boost the future prospects of these companies.
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why not the LS2LS7? 10:59PM (12/30/2008)
Price would be a problem with LIons.
Andras Soltesz 4:58AM (12/31/2008)
With Sanyo purchased by Panasonic and its large format battery production merged into PEVE (Toyota-Panasonic company controlled by Toyota) Ford will loose its one and only NiMh supplier and I don't think it can get an other one soon (with similar quality and production capabilities).
American car makers are in trouble on the hybrid/EV front because every battery production was outsourced to China and Japan and now those production may be locked away from them.
A lithium-ion example: BYD is one of the biggest li-ion cell producer and may be the only one who has a large-format automotive product (LIFEPO4 based). That battery may never get to any regular automaker because BYD decided to enter the hybrid/EV space with its own products. So the best source is out of the question the car makers must look for other, inferior sources. In the meantime they loose time and BYD and other well supplied companies simply imperialize the new, fast-growing market of EV/hybrids (it will become very fast growing soon).
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Sasparilla 3:05PM (12/31/2008)
The simple fact of the matter is, that Ford isn't really that interested in selling alot of Hybrid's. After getting a great start on the Hybrid arena with the Escape, they reorganized, brought in a new CEO and dumped the focus on Hybrid powertrains.
They make 25,000 Escape Hybrid's, far less than demand. They even said they could get all the batteries they wanted for it, if they wanted to produce more of these great vehicles (they said this in 2007 I think), but they don't want to - because it rolls off the same line as the regular Escape and they make more money on the regular Escape. Demand has always exceeded supply for Escape Hybrid's.
Their planning 25,000 Fusion Hybrid's and they can see demand will far exceed supply (again) and don't want to piss off the public, so they say they wouldn't be able to get the batteries for larger production - which is true, they might be able to get a few more (like 5,000, but nothing close to what demand will be). These vehicles will also come off the same line as the regular Fusion, I have a feeling the same shortsighted management decisions are involved in these numbers as well....make more money with the regular Fusion, so we'll sell just enough to look legitimate.
You'd need someone with some serious vision to see that maybe using one of the factories closing to make nothing but Escape Hybrid's and Fusion Hybrid's (off the same production line like Honda does with their Accord and Pilot) and meet demand would be a smart thing.... Oh well...disheartening to see this continuing with Ford.
At least Toyota had planned on increasing Prius Proudction by 150,000 next year and Honda planned on adding 200,000 new Insight's next year...they actually want to make and sell what the customer wants.
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Bubs Solo 4:52PM (12/31/2008)
200000 is global production 100000 were intended for NA and that will surely drop if gas prices don't sky rocket. Same for the Prius.
Spw 5:46PM (12/31/2008)
If same for the prius means that toyota will build 700k hybrids in 09 and 1mil in 10, then ur right :)
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Mr. M 5:42PM (1/02/2009)
I don't think Ford's really negligent in this, but I can see how it would benefit them. As others have already stated: The regular Fusion will return larger profits to Ford than the hybrid. The hybrid though will give (has given) Ford great P.R. A few thousand less Fusion hybrids on the road wont damage Ford's P.R. So why not take the higher profit from the nonhybrid Fusions until you can get your company turned around and the supplier can increase its productivity?
Again, I don't think this is Ford's intentional planning as I believe they really want to cut away at the Toyota Camry's sales numbers. I don't know if they'll do that, but they will certainly sell a fair amount of these cars in both the standard and hybrid models.
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gorr 5:46PM (1/02/2009)
You didn't noticed that there is a financial war with batteries the same way that there is a war for petrol, for platinum, gold, tax-money-goverment bailouts, newspaper control and internet sites control and basic security in the streets. Everything is dangeurous, prohibited since high-financial declared war on mankind in 2001.
So batteries are the next limp products they are forcing everyone to buy because it don't give energy nor value to a car. All economics activities if it don't pass in the hands of wall streets banks are prohibited, it's a gross as that. Communism has been set and limp people in general are liking that, around 70% of men and 10% of women on earth.
So ford as a private compagny is protesting agaist the forced usage of batteries. All the proposed batteries compagnies are tricked by big-oil for preserving petrol use. Journalists and politicians are against ford, because they don't promote batteries very much so they talk of ford, they always talk and study different peoples because they are learners in life, not leaders. When they make a deal with a friend, then they bury that friend later on because coward and slaves are not interresting whatsoever.
We live in a very small world. Only energy is a conversation these days , even if it's a simple thing that can be learn in hours.
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