Although Ford has no plans to mass produce a plug-in hybrid for the next five to ten years, the Dearborn-based automaker has delivered the country’s first flexible fuel plug-in hybrid to the Department of Energy. In all, Ford plans to lease 20 flex-fuel Escape plug-in hybrids to the DOE.
Developed with Southern California Edison and the Electric Power Research Institute, the Escape is powered by lithium-ion batteries and is capable of running on gasoline or E85. The Johnson-Controls/Saft-sourced batteries have enough zap to give the Escape a 30 mile all-electric range – at speeds up to 40 mph – with the gas motor kicking in when the batteries are 70 depleted.
When powered by E85, Ford claims the Escape plug-in can achieve an astounding 88 mpg in the city and 50 mpg on the highway. Compared to a conventional gas vehicle, the Escape plug-in reduces CO2 emissions by 60 percent – a number that grows to 90 percent when cellulosic ethanol is used.
Although the Ford Escape flex-fuel plug-in hybrid does sound promising, don’t expect to see one at your local Ford dealer until at least 2013.
06/20, 8:52 AM
posted by:
maxcar
5-10 years. just in time to be outdated.
06/20, 9:23 AM
posted by:
Pauly
Why so long? The Volt is going to be out in 2 years.
06/20, 9:30 AM
posted by:
xyunya
Well, this is really revolutionary: if you have severe hangover and liquor store is closed just suck some from the tank!
06/20, 11:21 AM
posted by:
jumpoffit
E85, nice- too bad the nearest station for one of those is 4 states away from me :-/
06/20, 12:05 PM
posted by:
johnnycanuck
xyunya: you’re on to something. How about a tap next to the plug in so that both the vehicle and the driver can get juiced at the same time?
06/20, 12:29 PM
posted by:
02WRXPSM
E85 is dead. The US can’t produce enough ethanol to even use as a 10% additive for emissions reduction without driving up food prices. Corn feeds cattle, cattle feeds people, the price gets passed along to consumers. Corn is in EVERYTHING you eat — a friend of mine has severe corn allergies, and he has to watch for it constantly and eat only a select group of foods that he knows are corn-free. If we divert much more corn to ethanol production than we are now, consumers are going to be pissed; $6.00 for a box of cornflakes is not going to fly.
Lots of pie-in-the-sky talk about making ethanol from algae, grass, weeds, garbage and beets is being thrown around, but you have to make a process that scales up to industrial-size production; making it in a lab or backyard does not count.
06/20, 10:48 PM
posted by:
Brendino
I dislike the defeatist attitudes about E85. No, it’s not perfect now, but continued research and effort can yield better refinement techniques. As the market demands more, more can be made. Look up vertical farming if you don’t believe that.
Why are we so bent on slamming the alternatives? “Oh, hydrogen is too expensive to produce.” “Oh, plug-ins will only tax the power grid.” You’ve gotta start somewhere.
All I wanna know is why this will take until 2013 to be released to the public. My guess is that it has to be cost. But if they could bump the release up even two years they would be in such a good place.
06/21, 11:41 PM
posted by:
jdasch1
But that $6 box of cornflakes will feed you for a week….for $6! Quit listening to the food shortage because of E85 lie. The farming business is finally profitable and the taxpayer lands will start to be farmed instead of being paid not to farm. This coupled with new crops for Ethanol will be a great part of our getting out of the import oil age. Get the facts.
06/23, 9:18 AM
posted by:
HemiRoadRunner
Hay feeds cattle you dumb@$$.