(Los Angeles, November 21, 2008) Ford used the Los Angeles Auto Show stage to unveil heavily revised versions of its mid-size sedans, the Fusion, Mercury Milan and Lincoln MKZ. For the first time the Fusion and Milan are available with a hybrid powertrain. Nancy Gioia, director of sustainable mobility technologies at Ford spoke with Green Fuels Forecast about the new hybrid sedans and plug-in efforts at the Dearborn automaker.

Second generation hybrid

The Fusion is powered by a second generation Ford hybrid system that builds on the success of the Escape, Mercury Mariner and Mazda Tribute. The new system retains a nickel metal hybrid battery pack similar to other hybrids currently in production. As with the Escape platform the cells that comprise the new pack are still provided by Sanyo. The cells now have an improved design and upgraded chemistry which provides a 20 percent boost in energy output. The result is a pack that provides the same 1.3 kWh capacity in a package that is 23 percent lighter and 30 percent smaller in volume than the older design.

2010 Ford Fusion hybrid

The smaller lighter pack helps reduce the weight and packaging penalty associated with a hybrid system. Since its 2005 introduction the Fusion has been lauded for its sporty handling characteristics and Gioia explained, "with the Fusion hybrid what we've tried to do is come up with a hybrid driving experience that is fun, engaging and delightful and delivers best in class fuel economy." While other hybrids' handling suffer from their weight penalties and low rolling resistance tires, it is hoped the Fusion will avoid such issues.

Ford engineers have developed a variable voltage controller for the power electronics in the Fusion hybrid. This means the system can at a lower nominal voltage for improved efficiency under most conditions. It also allows the voltage from the battery to be stepped up when needed to power an electric motor that has increased from 70 to 93 kW. This has permitted Ford to double the frequency of electric only driving events and provide a maximum electric cruising speed of 47 mph which Gioia describes again as "best in class."

"We've added silent start, what that means is when you come out, put your key in and turn it, the engine doesn't pull up right away," Gioia tells GFF. "In the Escape we would always start the engine first and that was primarily to get the catalytic converter up to temperature and then we would operate from there. In the Fusion we have silent start and drive away, but then depending on the conditions the engine will likely pull up but then we will shut down as soon as we can."

The result is expected to be the best fuel economy in the mid-sized class in the US market. At the time of writing Ford has not yet completed EPA mileage certification for the Fusion hybrid. However, Gioia claimed that the new hybrid will beat its primary competitor, the Toyota Camry hybrid by at least 6 mpg in city driving and 3 mpg in highway driving. That would put the Fusion at an estimated 39 mpg city and 37 mpg highway compared to 33/34 ratings for the Toyota.

Volumes

One of the complaints that customers have had with the Escape/Mariner hybrids has been limited availability. Ford has been building approximately 25,000 of its hybrid SUVs annually and plans to build a similar number of hybrid sedans in addition to that. "We're doubling the amount of hybrids that we'll be selling globally, and we're going to launch and if we have the customer demand that says we need to do more, we'll be working with our suppliers to meet customer demand."

Until recently the Escape/Mariner factory has been running at full capacity. The non-hybrid variants of the Escape are believed to provide higher profit margins and thus Ford may have limited hybrid production to maximize profits. Gioia says "The Escape has been in very high demand, so we have to balance the demand for the base product with the hybrid product." Responding to whether there was a supply choke-point on hybrid components "there's no one component that we can't get, but it is working with our supply base, giving them enough notice, working together to make sure we're responsible" to make sure there isn't more capacity than the company can sell.

With the overall market down significantly in recent months, it appears that Ford is now more willing to provide additional hybrid units to customers if its battery and transmission suppliers can provide the necessary components. Referring to the new Fusion Gioia tells GFF "part of this is it's a fantastic product, we want to make sure of its market acceptance and then we'll work from there."

Styling

When examining the sales success of the Toyota Prius compared to virtually every other hybrid on the market, buyers often cite the fact that it is visually distinct and recognizable as a hybrid. The Fusion hybrid like the Escape before it does not differ greatly in its appearance compared to conventional models. When asked if Ford considered making the Fusion hybrid stand apart more Gioia explained "We went and asked the customers. What we're finding is that early adopters when hybrids first started really appreciated that different look. What we're hearing as hybrids become more mainstream, we have people tell us 'No I want a badge, I want people to know subtly that I'm driving a hybrid.' "

"They're doing it because they are making a choice that's best for them. They don't need to blare it out to the world."

Plug-in

In mid-2007 Ford announced a joint project with Southern California Edison to test a fleet of Escape hybrids converted provide plug-in capability. Gioia tells GFF "Southern California Edison has been a fantastic partner. We've added EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute has joined the project. The US Department of Energy has joined and provided a $10 million grant. We have six other utilities that have joined in the project, we'll be announcing those before the year ends."

"If you ask me how it's going, the fact that I've got a bunch of people signing on and wanting to participate and helping in that project, the test fleet, the vehicles are a part of it, the business case modeling standards between utilities and car companies is another major part of it." Another area that is being addressed is "figuring out how to communicate, what are plug-in hybrids? how they work? It's all aimed at how do we get to a mass commercial market of plug-in vehicles."

"We've got lots of good data on how our plug-in hybrid is performing on the drive cycle. It's performing very well. The fuel economy numbers are even better than we anticipated," explains Gioia. "At the low end in 120 mpg in charge depletion mode, and averaging 70 mpg overall." Charge depletion mode is the period when the lithium ion battery pack is still has energy available from being charged on the grid. Once the plug-in energy has been consumed, the PHEV Escape operates much like a conventional Escape hybrid.

Beyond just the performance of the vehicle, Ford and the utilities involved in project are learning about how the vehicles interact with the grid for purposes such as billing for electricity use and optimizing when to charge. "We're learning how to exchange data between the vehicle and the utility system, so that the customer, when they plug-in, it's seamless to them. We're learning about infrastructure requirements and whether we need to start working with building codes."

"As you think about building new homes or buildings, as plug-ins come in, here's standards and specifications to think about. This project is really aimed at the long term commercialization of plug-ins not just a little demonstration fleet, that could have been done with one or two vehicles." "The 21 vehicles we have in this fleet our going to move around the country, not just southern California with our utility partners and then in customer hands to give us that whole experience."

"One of the things we found as we got into this is that not all utilities are the same. Some are public, some are private, they have very different rate structures, billing systems, interfaces." Gioia explains that Ford is trying to uncover all of the potential issues that may cause problems for customers in real world use and "collaborate with governments and utilities to find a way to bring good solutions forward." This would include smart charging systems that can identify the vehicle on the grid when it's plugged in and charge vehicle owner accordingly for energy use.

Hard core electric vehicle enthusiasts that have already done conversions on existing vehicles are generally willing to deal with unusual behavior and will spend the time to determine the most cost effective times and places to charge. Those people are a very small percentage of the population and most car owners expect their vehicles to simply work. "The early adopters aren't the issue. Our project is not aimed at 100 vehicles, but when this gets to be one, two, three percent of our fleet and growing, just like hybrids today have now hit three percent of our market, we need to have all of those things ready."

Battery business models

Since batteries remain by far the most expensive single component of plug-in vehicles, every automaker is examining how to make the technology economically viable. For current hybrid vehicles, the relatively small nickel metal hydride batteries are rolled into the vehicle cost and designed to last the life of the car. As larger lithium batteries come to the forefront, with cost and durability concerns, Gioia discusses other solutions, "A lot of people talk about the battery lease, and it's not a part of the car, or if there is a different way of paying for the battery over time."

Another factor is reuse of the battery after it's no longer useful in the vehicle. "Is there a secondary market for the battery? Do they have a life after automotive use? These are all parts of this project that we're figuring out together." It has been proposed that utilities could reuse automotive batteries as energy buffers for renewable energy systems such as wind and solar power systems that don't provide a continuous flow of energy.

Large capacity batteries take an extended time to re-charge which would necessitate a significant change in driver behavior relative to gasoline cars. Some advanced battery manufacturers have developed batteries that claimed to be able to charge in 10-15 minutes, nearly as fast as filling a gas tank. However, such systems require expensive new charging infrastructure to support the high currents and voltages needed for fast charging.

An alternative has been to design vehicles to be able to quickly replace the battery with a fully charged unit. Better Place is a start up that is trying to implement such systems in cooperation with the Nissan-Renault alliance and governments in Israel, Denmark, and northern California. According to Gioia "We've looked at it, it's a concept we're studying, the devil is in the details." "A few things, making sure something is durable, reliable and accessible to the customers. The infrastructure required to support something like that is not $100,000, it's billions of dollars, so it requires a major investment.

Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid

"The other part of it is the battery technology is still in its infancy. We would assess battery technology, the cell chemistry is in a very rapid evolutionary cycle. So the idea of swapping something where next year the cell chemistry is changed, the control systems to optimize its use will be tweaked and changed, becomes very difficult when you have products that have to have ten years, 150,000 miles of service. We think there is a lot of complexity, it's an interesting idea, it's not like we've drawn a line through it, we aren't convinced yet that it is viable, especially given the long life of automotive products.

"At the end of the day, the worst thing is to have customers fear buying a product and finding it not having sustained value. It's usually for most of our customers the second largest purchase they make."

Perhaps at some future stage when the battery technology stabilizes, the idea of quick battery exchanges may prove to be a viable alternative. At this point Ford is focused on other areas of electrically driven vehicles that also need to be addressed.