I’m not sure of Ford’s long term strategy towards electrification (or if they have one), but having given us the VW ID based Explorer and Capri, their proposed Fiesta replacement will be on the same Renault platform as the 4 and 5.
Looks like they’re playing a huge game of catch up.
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I think we're now at a point where, for most users, electric is the way to go for 'city cars'.
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Only if you live in a part of the city where you have off-street parking with access to a power supply. Otherwise you are going to be charging at a minimum of 50p/kw, or put another way, about the same cost per mile as ICE.
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"Only if you live in a part of the city where you have off-street parking with access to a power supply. Otherwise you are going to be charging at a minimum of 50p/kw, or put another way, about the same cost per mile as ICE."
Is that really a problem? In the city an electric car is the superior product to an ICE vehicle . If there's plenty of public charging and the cost is the same I'm not sure there is really an issue. The secret is to provide plentiful public charging. Mosst drivers in cities only need to charge once or twice a week at most.
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"Is that really a problem?"
I think it is if you are trying to get owners to make the change from something that's easy to refill, to something where you may have to park some distance away, carry your shopping, kids etc. possibly in the rain home. One day there may be a solution, but it's not available yet.
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Portsmouth is a city I know moderately well. In 2021 the council estimated just over 100k cars and vans registered in the city. The vast majority of residents do not have off-street parking and have no guarantee of being able to park outside their front door. There are currently 230 on street charge points supplying 5kw at 49p/kw.
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Portsmouth....my nemesis.
Off the ferry early evening late October , dark and heavy rain, trying to find my B & B in Southsea. Tiny screen in my Vitara, roundabouts, rush hour traffic, wrong lanes and no co driver to help. Road network I was totally unfamiliar with.... far less stressful negotiating my way through the tunnels of Madrid & Bilbao.
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Whats interesting here is the Ford/Renault tie up.
Its own Europe sales have bombed, (4% UK market share at the last count?). The capri is a sales disaster. Its EV design and build engineering is in the dark ages. The disguised VAG built cars are not doing well.
So the new Ford EV cars will be built alongside the Renault E-5, E-4 (and possible e-twingo ) probably badged as Fiesta and Ka?
This is all to try and face off the Chinese EV sales boom. For a once marketing led company (fantastic marketing) its lost that skill.
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Next time, ask Siri to direct you on your iPhone.
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>> Next time, ask Siri to direct you on your iPhone.
Wot? (says alexa)
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>> >> Next time, ask Siri to direct you on your iPhone.
>>
>> Wot? (says alexa)
>>
Legacylad seemed to be having problems with navigation.
"Tiny screen in my Vitara, roundabouts, rush hour traffic, wrong lanes and no co driver to help".
Sounds like he needed a bit of help?
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I can't imagine there are many who would buy an EV if they can't charge for cheap either at home or at work.
What use is a 5kW on street charger that's not outside your home or place of work? Our Yaris-alike hybrid would cost less to drive without having to be somewhere for hours at a time.
On topic it's unbelievable that Ford has dropped the ball in the way it has. I don't see how it can catch up now it has lost the share.
Just offering clones might have worked while they still had the customers. But why would they return when they can buy the original Renault or VW?
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Renault & Nissan had a tie up, and i wasn’t aware of the Ford Renault mix & match.
Such a shame about Ford Europe…I always thought the Mondeo was very underrated, probably because of its sales rep image, although i know a sales rep who had a Mondeo and it was very reliable over a very high mileage.
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I think I've posted this recently on here, but my first car in retirement was a '58 reg diesel Mondeo, bought through Drive the Deal.
Recently passed it's MOT at 192K miles.
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What use is a 5kW on street charger that's not outside your home or place of work?
Unless you can’t walk a couple of hundred yards a charger that is within that sort of distance would be fine. Most people would only need to charge once or twice a week at most.
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>> Unless you can’t walk a couple of hundred yards a charger that is within that sort of distance would be fine. Most people would only need to charge once or twice a week at most. >>
Depending on the neighbourhood, I wouldn't feel very comfortable regularly leaving a car charging 200 yards away ?
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>> >> Unless you can’t walk a couple of hundred yards a charger that is within
>> that sort of distance would be fine. Most people would only need to charge once
>> or twice a week at most. >>
>>
>> Depending on the neighbourhood, I wouldn't feel very comfortable regularly leaving a car charging 200
>> yards away ?
>>
Whether it’s interesting or not is debatable, but I can think of at least 40 PodPoint or kerbside (Connected Kerb) chargers within a few hundred meters of my place in Chichester. They are 7/11KW ones which charge between 35p and 55p per KWh. The Connected Kerb ones offer cheaper charging at night., and some of the PodPoint ones are in a McArthy Stone retirement development which looks open to the general public but probably isn’t!
If I extend that to a 15 or 20 minute walk, Chichester Council has installed around 50 chargers in a car park attached to a redeveloped light industrial site round the back of John Lewis. They, AFAIK, only charge at 3.6KW but were when I looked only charged 32p per kWh or 8 or 9p a mile, which I reckon is an equivalent of at least 70mpg. Make that 53mpg after the 3p per mile charge comes in in 2028. In the unhelpful way only a council can, not only are these chargers not visible on any apps, they are also of a network I have never heard of. But there are also 12/14 fast chargers within a similar radius, although some are just 50 KW and others 175KW
Still, I reckon for the population of central/eastern/northern Chichester in an area where, at best, half have off street parking the provision and cost seem pretty reasonable. Provision to the west of the city is less good at the moment, but a higher proportion of houses there have off street parking at a guess. Connected Kerb chargers are being installed all the time, and there are even 6 or 8 outside Arundel Cathedral, which at least for the moment guarantees a parking space if you’re in an EV ;)
Bringing it vaguely back on track, I have never seen a Ford EV charging anywhere here, though Renault have a decent presence. As you’d expect with a RR factory down the road, MINI and BMW are over represented, and as the employees tend to be younger / less well paid / flat and house sharers the on street charging is sometimes used by them.
As you say, most of the retired or economically inactive of the area probably need to charge less than once a week. At present the chargers seem to be lightly used, though as you’d expect more so overnight. I’ll use them occasionally if I can’t be bothered to move my petrol powered cars to get to my own charger, or if I want a faster charge, but I’m not precious about where I leave my car, accepting I’m in a low risk area anyway :)
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>> Depending on the neighbourhood, I wouldn't feel very comfortable regularly leaving a car charging 200
>> yards away ?
When I lived on a road of terraced houses on a main road with double yellows in Watford leaving the car within 200 yards was a luxury!!
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>> >> Depending on the neighbourhood, I wouldn't feel very comfortable regularly leaving a car charging
>> 200
>> >> yards away ?
>>
>> When I lived on a road of terraced houses on a main road with double
>> yellows in Watford leaving the car within 200 yards was a luxury!!
If you have to do it, and walking is not problem, you'll do it. But very few would if they didn't have to. Even with kerbside or public chargers immediately outside I wouldn't be keen unless I could book one. I can go to a petrol station whenever I want, but if I couldn't rely on my charging arrangement I'd avoid an EV while I could.
We could charge at home so we might end up with one eventually but I'm in no hurry.
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Given that the thread has drifted somewhat, and headed towards charging, here are the latest figures on the numbers of public chargers in the UK.
Factor in that there are 1 million+ home and work chargers as well as those above.
The installation rate has slowed, but based on personal experience, we’re probably currently ahead of where we need to be on rapid chargers, given current EV uptake.
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Ford - Ford/Renault - Bromptonaut
