Ford Motor Co. sold about 12 Focus Electrics in December and January to fleet customers — and none in February and March, said Erich Merkle, a Ford spokesman. The Dearborn automaker plans a slow ramp-up as it begins production this spring for retail sales; the New York area and California are the first markets.I wonder if Ford will suspend production until supply catches up with demand as Chevy has done with the Volt.
A Note to the Granddaughters
By the way, the weather has been wonderful here in the Boston area. I believe the 91 degrees recorded on the car's exterior thermometer was a record. We drove down to Providence, Rhode Island, to drop off some family members at the Providence airport. Ticket prices to Florida are about $150/ticket cheaper from Providence than from Florida.
One of the things that crossed my mind while traveling down a very, very busy I-95: Americans love their cars. Folks may talk about demand destruction and the statistics are there to show it, and they may report that we may have seen the last of gasoline price hikes this year, but now that the weather has turned even nicer (following the "winter that wasn't" as they say here in Boston), "everybody" is going to be out and about, one way or another.
They say a man has given up when he buys a minivan, but I've driven Chrysler minivans since 1998 when we returned "home" from being overseas for fourteen years (I thought it was thirteen years, but my wife tells me it was fourteen. I have no idea where we spent that fourteenth year, but it must have been a humdinger of an assignment.)
We bought the third minivan sight unseen. Well, actually we did see it. While shopping for a new minivan in San Antonio, we spotted the color of a minivan that we liked. It was parked about a mile away. I told the agent that's the one we wanted. He really didn't want to walk that far, and he had dozens a lot closer; he said (except for the color) they were all the same. He was their salesman of the year for several years. He was Muslim. I can't remember if he was from Iran, originally; I believe so. He was my kind of salesman. He knew neither of us cared for cars except to get from point A to point B. I assume his faith was an important part of his life and he knew that his days at Chrysler would pale in comparison to paradise. So, he was pretty blunt but "adorable." He said, using different words, that at the end of the day we would be driving home in a new minivan and it really didn't matter what one to get. They were all the same. So, we got the color we liked. I had not planned to take it for a test drive. I honestly don't remember if we did. I assume we must have at least drove it once in the parking lot, but it was a mile away and while we were signing the paperwork the detailers were still walking over to the vehicle.
I don't think we've cleaned the inside since we got it some years ago, but yesterday, to make room for all six of us and their luggage, I emptied it. I didn't know we had a dog. I was again surprised how a) functional it was; and, b) how much room even the short base Chrysler minivan had. It was not the under-the-floor stowaway model.
I think at 55 mph on the open road, and downhill, we can get close to 30 mpg. We can also get a lot of folks honking at and flashing their lights, especially if we are in the "fast lane."
Certainly 26 mpg is the expected. And if you pay for your gasoline with a credit card and not look at the receipt, gasoline doesn't seem so expensive. Also, I've learned to top off the tank every time we get down to 3/4 tank full; paying for a fourth of a tank of gas isn't all that expensive.
I see in the headlines that 2,100 folks were treated for heat stress and/or exhaustion yesterday at the Boston Marathon. I didn't see how many runners had to be treated.
No, there was no dog in the car; that was a joke.
