May EV Sales

[jmueller065]

May EV Sales (page 2 which has the FFE)

Ford Focus Electric sales remain steady as usual. Ford sold 157 of the electric Foci in May, bringing the YTD mark to 723.

Last month’s results (April) show that while the Focus Electric is not a big player, it is a consistent one, as 147 Focus EVs were sold, off about 20% from last month.

Previous to that in March, Ford enjoyed another decent performance out of its all electric car, as 180 Focus EVs were sold..

Don’t look for Ford to do much better (or worse) than the past few months as the company is not expecting 2013 sales of the model to improve by very much overall, despite a tripling of the dealership base that is able to sell the plug-in car.

723 + 518 (2012, from here) = 1241 FFE's in the wild through May 2013.

 

[v_traveller]

Par for the course, considering that there seems to be no effort on Ford's part to raise awareness that the FFE even exists.

Not only that, I've read five articles in the last week on EV prices dropping (including LA Times and WSJ), seemingly fueled by Honda's price drop on the Fit EV, and none of them mentioned the FFE; only really talked about the Leaf, Fit EV, and upcoming Spark EV and 500e. Worst one I read is this one:

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1084613_lower-prices-cause-electric-car-shortages-in-ca-shock-surprise

After reading this, I checked Ford's website.... there are over 50 FFEs on dealer lots in So Cal! No shortage of EVs here... I'm starting to distrust greencarreports.... first they define FFE as a "compliance vehicle" even though its availability is well beyond just CA and coastal states, now they say there's a shortage of EVs in CA when there's more available FFEs in So Cal than there were a several months ago when I was looking for one. What's up with that?

 

[jmhodder]

I'm not surprised either, but I place the blame on the dealerships, at least around here. I went to a local, rather popular dealership, and they had 4 sitting right outside the front door. You can't miss them...However, the salesman couldn't answer any questions about the $11,750 rebate offered, didn't know ANYTHING about the mileage range of the batteries, and to top it all off, the only one I wanted to test drive? Dead batteries. Both the 12v and the regular motor batteries...Sad.

So then I went to another local dealership where I have purchased two vehicles in the past. The sales people really know their stuff. They are always talking about going to classes on the new technology and features, and when I've test driven vehicles, they knew EVERYTHING about them, even stuff that I thought might stump them when I asked. When I bought my last vehicle, the guy sat me in it and literally gave me a class on how to use every button, set stations on radio, explained all the cool new features, etc. I assumed (yeah yeah) that they would again be super-knowledgeable about the FFE, so I went on in and started asking questions. Nobody, I mean NOBODY knew anything other than how to plug it in...WTH?! They couldn't answer any range questions. No answer on charging station options. No idea what MyFordTouch even was. No damn clue.

I was intent to buy the car, so I made the poor sales guy go on a 2 hour long 65 mile test drive so I could put the car through it's paces. He was happy to do so, mainly to help get a sale, but also to learn something about the car. Maybe he got tired of saying "I don't know"...

If you ask me, that's the real reason the FFE or any electric is selling slower than expected.