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Got my first SSN on my 2013 Ford Focus Electric just yesterday, a couple of weeks (with fairly short, nearly daily driving) after a software check and update at the dealership. SSN suddenly appeared a quarter-mile out of my driveway, with a fresh 100% charge and 91 miles' indicated range. I...

I've just analyzed calendar-year-2013 usage by my 2013 FFE, which drove nearly 7k miles during the year. It used 78% of its electricity for tractive recharging (Level 2) and the other 22% for thermal management of the battery when plugged in, since it's in an open carport. I'm at 7100' in the W...

The rules are in newly revised Income 67 brochure from Colo Dept of Revenue. The incremental price is not--no post-2011 Ford or Mercury vehicles are listed--hence my post below.

I had a very bad experience with the first software update for my 2013 FFE this summer: the install script wiped out most of my settings and didn't restore them, requiring about six hours' work to re-research and reinstall them. I have taken this up with senior people at Ford, noting that any...

If you bought a 2013 Ford Focus Electric in 2012, the old rules apply, and you or your tax advisor must calculate the allowable Colorado tax credit from the manufacturer's incremental price, which is unpublished. I have just obtained it from Ford, and it is $14,304 for that year and model. You...

Last week my Ford dealer installed the 3.5.1 software upgrade in my '13 FFE. The installation wiped out nearly all my users settings for every aspect of vehicle operation, Sirius channels, wallpaper, phone links, MyFord Mobile account, wallpaper, you name it...everything but the FM channels and...

I'm probably the only member of the National Petroleum Council driving an EV with plates that say "OFF OIL" -- and that's not aspirational, it's done.

It's based on EV's marginal mfg cost not price (battery is reportedly about $10k, plus electric drive & controls, less conventional Powertrain). And you can't do your own calc. State officials must do it based on OEM data...but they haven't yet.

Auto dealers are very powerful politically—they are often pillars of the community and their sales-tax revenues are locally very significant—so it's hard to imagine a preemptive federal solution. This will be fought out state-by-state. Most states have franchise laws saying that if an OEM ever...

This is a very well-known issue, especially with certain inverter types and waveforms, and has been for over a decade. A capable powertrain supplier (I think it was Magna in this case) will know all about it and engineer it out. Inverter-drive motors are used by the millions worldwide under very...

Trouble is, you can't infer one electric model's Colorado tax credit from another. The credit is a fraction (as I recall, 75%, but not to exceed $6k) of the manufacturer's marginal cost of making it electric rather than conventional, so that marginal cost is model-specific and is worked out with...

Our tax preparer says the 2013 FFE we bought 31 Dec 2012 is not listed among the many approved models for the $6,000 Colorado tax credit, even though according to the rules it should qualify as a Category 1 EV. The Colorado rules document says to write the Colorado Dept of Revenue in such a...

My wife and I have been very satisfied with our 2013 FFE bought at the end of 2012. We live at 7100' in the Roaring Fork Valley near Aspen, and drive both up- and downhill within that valley. The ups and downs pretty much cancel out, e.g. climbing 16 mi and 900' up to Aspen and back takes a...

I just killed my 2013 FFE (inadvertently) by getting out at my office in the morning without turning it off. I thought I had turned it off, but that didn't work because I wasn't in Park. The car doubtless beeped at me but I was in a hurry and ignored the signal. By the end of the afternoon, the...

I believe Brian has it right—the Ford engineers have outsmarted all us drivers. The charge/discharge limits needed to achieve very long battery life, and many other controls related to charge/discharge rate as a function of temperature and battery condition, are already built into the car's...

A 150W heater will just fit inside the 180W fuse limit of both 12V power points combined. However, that electricity (like heated-seat electricity) will come out of the 12V battery, which I think will be recharged from the traction battery if the 12V battery--which runs all the electronics...

Ford Corporate tells me that for my 2013 FFE, "the charger power factor requirement (PHEV & BEV) is minimum 0.985 tested at full power. The end of line data typically reports 0.99x." Good to know it's that near unity. They didn't say whether it's leading or lagging, but I hope measure that soon.

I see a small unlabeled hatch on the right side of the center console, probably poppable open with a tool. I see nothing in the owner's manual indicating whether that's the fusebox, and no other obvious place to look for the fusebox, which is described only as being under the glovebox.

Dealer tells me Nav does not download maps from the SD card but reads them real-time as needed, so SD card cannot be shared with music and still have Nav work. You'd need to put music on a separate USB stick instead.

This costs $200 (including its skeleton physical key, which is optional) and you must take the car and all existing fobs to your Ford dealer for a half-hour of reprogramming.