Hybrid Vehicle Complaints

Ford said they are looking into having a heater for the electric battery in the Ford Focus. Customers have claimed that the car's electric battery loses range in colder weather claims Chris Woodyard from USA Today. When the battery's life is really shortened that brings on a whole bunch of problems. Like other electronics during extreme temperatures, the performance is affected. In very cold weather, batteries in digital cameras and video cameras do not work as well as they could in moderate temperatures. So that seems to be the case with the electric Ford Focus batteries. What ever the case, that is a good thing to see an early customer issue being corrected. Whether this will affect the price of the new hybrid vehicles with this new add on is still to be determined.

General Motors is on the same page as Ford using electric to heat the batteries while it recharges. This keeps the battery at the best desired temperature in all weather conditions. Having your electric battery completely drain unexpectedly does not sound like a fun time, especially when it's below freezing out and you could be possibly miles away from home. Sounds like the tow trucks and AAA would be the only people to look forward to that scenerio. There could be a ton of complaints or even recalls if families with children are stranded miles away from home because their electric battery suddenly lost its charge in the cold weather.

Nissan is not going to follow the heater project because they said the temperature of the battery does not affect the length of the battery life. They have decided not to commit to the manufacturing of the battery heaters. It seems like there are definitely some issues that still need to be taken into consideration with the new hybrids. I think consumers need to be more confident in these new hybrid vehicles before they over take the traditional gas powered vehicles in ownership.

One thing that will have to be changed would be charging stations installed in and around local towns and cities. This is for the driver to have a place to be able to recharge somewhere nearby. The amount of time it takes to recharge and the cost of electricity needs to be taken in account because I don't know about you but, I like to just fill up the gas tank with fuel and then go. These charging stations would probably cost money to use because who ever builds them is not going to do it for free. Electric hybrid owners will probably need to use someone else's electric outlet when they're out and around the town, so that could cause some confrontation if the tenant doesn't want their electricity bill going up. People might try and be sneaky about using someone else's electricity to recharge their electric car battery. It happens now with other smaller electronics such as cell phones, laptops and ipods. I am guilty of charging my cell phone battery at work or at the casino. I've even recharged my cell phone at the library one time. I've seen people plug in laptops at Tim Hortons and Panera Bread and they probably sit there for hours surfing the internet or working on homework. Right now it is just borrowing electricity but, sooner or later with electric cars it could be considered stealing electricity.

Source:

Chris Woodyard,"Ford bets electric Focus won't lose range in icy weather"