Ford's Electric Car Crashes and Burns, Selling 38 Focus EVs in July

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Ford Motor Company
F
sold a mere 38 electric cars in July. The Focus EV may be Ford's worst selling car since the Edsel. The automaker continues to struggle in gaining a foothold in the electric car market. Over the past seven months Ford has only managed to sell 121 Focus EVs. By comparison, rival General Motors
GM
for the same seven month period sold 10,666 Chevy Volts. In July 1,849 Volts were purchased. President Obama announced a goal of 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015. His administration has allocated $2.4 billion of stimulus money to achieve that goal. However, in its current form the electric car hasn't been embraced by the American public. The numbers don't lie. The Nissan Leaf is also struggling in July, selling only 395 down 58 percent from last July. For the year 3,543 Leafs have been sold down 26 percent from 2011. Toyota Motor Corp.
TM
faired slightly better than Nissan selling 688 Prius electric vehicles in July and 5,035 year to date. However, in comparison to the overall U.S. vehicle market, the EV share is almost inexistent. U.S. car sales for 2012 are estimated at 14 million units. However, July posted the slowest month of the year with an estimated 1.1 million cars sold. Analysts are blaming the stubborn unemployment picture and confusion towards government policy towards tax cuts and spending. Ford currently only offers the Focus EV in New York, New Jersey and California. In May Wesley Sherwood, a Ford spokesman said that they plan on expanding the EV sales to 16 other markets, during an interview with AutoBlogGreen. Sherwood also told AutoBlogGreen. "This is new technology, and it takes time to take hold." "We continue to expect sales of all-electric to be small even when we ramp up retail production," he added. But just how small is small? Ford built 121 Focus EVs in July and now has assembled 884 this year, up from 763 through the end of June, according to the Detroit News. Besides a contracting economy and renewed fears of a double dip, the EV market has other headwinds. The electric vehicles come with a hefty price tag an inability travel far and a minimum of eight hours to recharge. Maybe its time to fuel up the old Edsel.
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