Ford Says Electric, Hybrid Models May Be 25% of Lineup by 2020
March 02, 2010, 5:16 AM ESTBy Keith Naughton
March 2 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co. plans to increase electric and hybrid vehicles to as much as a fourth of its lineup by 2020 as governments push for higher fuel efficiency.
The automaker is rolling out two electric vehicles and two new hybrids by 2012 and expects such models to be 10 percent to 25 percent of its worldwide fleet in a decade, said Nancy Gioia, Ford’s director of global electrification. In North America, seven in 10 of those models will be gasoline-electric vehicles such as the Fusion hybrid version Ford now sells, she said.
Automakers are developing models powered all or in part by electricity to meet standards such as the U.S. rules for average company fuel economy of 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016, up from 25 mpg now. Ford is to announce today at the Geneva auto show that it will introduce five such vehicles in Europe by 2013.
“Ford is taking a measured approach that they’ve been quietly going about at the right pace,” said John Wolkonowicz, an analyst at IHS Global Insight of Lexington, Massachusetts. “They’ve been selling the hybrid Escape for years. It doesn’t have the glamour of a Toyota Prius or a Chevy Volt, but it gets the job done.”
Ford now sells four hybrid models and plans to introduce electric versions of the Transit Connect van this year and Focus small car in 2011 in the U.S. The electric models will come out 6 to 12 months later in Europe, Gioia said.
Industrywide hybrid sales peaked at 3.3 percent in the U.S. market in August 2008 after gasoline topped $4 a gallon, she said. The gasoline-electric vehicles now account for 2.4 percent of industry sales and about 2 percent of Ford’s, Gioia told reporters at Feb. 26 briefing in Dearborn, Michigan, where the automaker is based.
Holding Back Sales
Vehicles powered only by batteries will make up 5 percent of sales of electrified vehicles in North America by 2020, while hybrids that can recharge by plugging into electrical outlets will be 20 percent, Gioia said. Driving range and electric-power infrastructure will hold back both those types, she said.
The rest will be hybrids like the current Escape that are powered by a combination of an electric motor and a gasoline engine, according to Ford.
The hybrids Ford will introduce in 2012 will be based on the company’s global small-car platform and will be built at a factory in Wayne, Michigan, that will also make gasoline- and battery-powered versions of the Focus, Gioia said.
“Our strategy is build all these down the same line, so if the market shifts dramatically we’re prepared to respond,” she said.
Improvements to traditional internal-combustion engines are the biggest impediment to sales of electric vehicles and hybrids, Gioia said. Ford’s new line of direct-injection engines can improve fuel economy as much as 20 percent, she said.
“By 2050, internal-combustion engines will still be on the road -- oil, petrol and diesel,” Giola said.
--Editors: John Lear
-0- Mar/02/2010 10:01 GMT
To contact the reporter on this story: Keith Naughton in Southfield, Michigan, at Knaughton3@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: iat jbutters@bloomberg.net
