New Focus Electric

Hi everyone. Newbie Focus electric here. What's it really like to own one? Any surprises or problems?

Problems:

• Potential battery failures. Older models had a high failure rate due to the design of the battery cooling. The packs were modified so later models and vehicles that had replacement done aren't likely to fail the same way.
• Telematics. Vehicles were upgraded from 2G to 3G back in 2016, but when 3G sunset in 2022, only later model vehicles were offered an upgrade to LTE. Worse still, they killed the MyFocusElectric app and migrated everyone to FordPass, but they gave up trying to make it work, so most folks have only a subset of the previous features. Personally, I only have remote lock/unlock, start/stop and spotty map tracking. Lost all charge tracking and battery status, scheduled start capability and trip logging.
• Support. These were largely compliance cars for California. Pretty sure they sold them elsewhere just to get the dealer network started on the EV track that would come in the future. Because of that, most service departments knew nothing more than what was explicitly written in the service manual (which has some pretty glaring omissions). The solution to pretty much any fault is "throw money at it" with no guarantee of success. The later models with CCS fast charging have been excluded from the Tesla adapter program and integration - if only because they can't readily be made to support that specific plug and charge authentication. Their customer/tech support is rarely anything but abysmal.
• Parts. Some of the parts are bespoke and stupidly expensive, like the high voltage AC compressor at $2700 new (no core refund available). Other parts are being discontinued. Now that we're 8 years past the switch to the combo charging port, the older port/harness is no longer made. It can almost certainly be replaced with the harness from something like a C-Max, but service folks will have no idea if that's the case. Even the connectors used on the high voltage harnesses seem to be discontinued by their manufacturer.

That all said, it has been one of the most enjoyable cars I've ever driven. I liked it so much I bought two. And I intend to drive them until they can't be used anymore. It's hard to describe the appeal of a simple platform conversion. There's even some novelty in their rarity. I've had folks do literal double takes when they notice an electric focus. I've only seen a handful of them in the wild and I live in a metro area of like 5 million people.

I'd recommend, to anyone curious, that they take one for a drive. If they like it as much as I did, it's the right price and they are fully aware of the limits and potential issues, I'd definitely urge them to get it.

That all said, it has been one of the most enjoyable cars I've ever driven

Click to expand...

Well said, and I totally agree. It's such a pleasant car to drive. Great for commuting and running errands around town. I plan to drive mine until the second HV battery dies.