Ford Slashes Focus Electric Sticker Amid Tougher EV Fight

Ford has slashed the price of the Focus Electric for the second time in less than eighteen months, as it tries to keep the electric car competitive against increasingly affordable rivals from Nissan and others. The EV had launched as a conversion of the regular gas Focus back in 2011, slowly spreading in availability across most of the US, though sales have remained underwhelming. In fact, less than 4,000 Focus Electric cars have been bought since it hit showrooms.

To address that, Ford first sliced $4,000 off the launch price of $39,995 back in July 2013, though that wasn't the end of the discounting.

Ford began offering a further $6,000 cut on model year 2014 cars, but spokesperson Aaron Miller confirmed to HybridCars that the price change would also be carried on for the 2015 car. "We hope by reducing the price," Miller said, "we will give more consumers another reason to consider it."

As a result, it brings the Focus Electric just under the $30k mark, bringing it more in line with models like Nissan's Leaf and Chevrolet's Volt, not to mention the new Kia Soul EV that so impressed us last month. Federal tax promotions, meanwhile, can take as much as $7,500 off the top of that, depending on the location of the sale.

While some had dismissed the Focus Electric as Ford ticking a required box but with nothing more in the way of enthusiasm to push the EV, the company has nonetheless been quietly working on enhancing electric car tech. Back in June, it announced a new battery technology co-developed with Samsung that could, when commercialized, be up to 40-percent lighter than existing power packs.

However the real movement isn't expected to begin until 2018, when Ford is tipped to reveal its true Prius challenging line-up. Various different powertrains are expected in the new range, as well as a variety of body styles.

SOURCE HybridCars