Taz

No, I get the potential disruptive aspect. Just like racing/competition improves the breed. I also see how Apple can stifle things as well. It is a double-edged sword to me. I've owned Apple products and too often the the performance doesn't live up to the hype. Case in point. the original iPod. What a POS when it actually came to sound quality. I wanted a music player with GOOD sound, not mediocre. I had to use the cursed iTunes to sync my songs as well. So for me it was a case of mostly sizzle but no steak. I had the original iPhone. You couldn't even copy and paste a number from a website to the phone. To top it off, sound quality was mediocre again as well. The phone functionality was clearly lacking. Again the lemmings flocked to in droves. I wasn't an adopter of their products because I wanted to. I had to imparitally assess and test the products for use in a large enterprise corporate environment. I had no skin in the game either way so to speak I just needed to find out what was best in breed and figure out how we could make it work in our environment of 50k plus users in the US. So I tried a lot of tech products. I am curious to see what they come up with. Hopefully it won't be the equivalent of another Segway. Problem is in states that need EVs the most, they make almost no economic sense. The absurdly high electricity rates of California negate a lot of the potentianl economic benefit of EV. So we'll see if the Apple car has real impact or just becomes a status symbol. Apple hasn't exactly been hitting homeruns lately. Their watch is a good example of that.

Considering how Apple locks down apps on the phone, maybe they'll limit places where you can drive just like they control the content on their phones. It is very unlikely I would ever buy a car from Apple. It would have to be something amazing and I don't think that is what they'll bring to market. Too many people will just fawn all over what they do like it is mana from heaven if it is a steaming pile of doo doo. I am not a lemming who buys what everyone else buys. Just by the sheer fact I have a Cmax Energi would likely be proof enough of that. I am not swayed by some facing name or a status symbol. At the same time I am not opposed to spending money when I get what I want/need. I don't think Ford is really serious enough about the electric car space yet. I hope they will they will increase their engagement. More players is a good thing and that is probably the only thing I'll be looking forward to if Apple jumps into the market. Just another car to clutter up Silicon Valley and maybe displace all the Teslas you see everywhere.

Looks very nice. Even better than i thought it might.

That is the process i had to go through with Audi on a buyback. I had far worse issues than this person did. I spent over 500k in 6 years with Audi and they treated me like I was crap. I took the car 12 times the dealer to fix issues, The dealer was on my side (mostly). Audi kept claiming I was doing something with the ECU (such as a modified ECU for more power from the turbos). Finally they agreed to my demands when I had just picked it up for the 13th time for the same issue and still hadn't left the dealer's lot and the CEL was on again. I pretty much went nuclear at that point. I called my attorney, the BBB, news stations, etc. Called the zone rep for Audi, national office, German office, etc. It took them almost 2 months to process the buy back and still acted like I was the issue. Long story short, they sent the car back to Germany to figure out the issue. Someone had swapped the connections for the O2 sensors when building it so it the right bank sent signals to the left side controller and vice versa. I would have been happy if they fixed the car ultimately but Audi's response and treatment of me so put me off on the brand I"ll never buy another one of their products (or related firms) again. They lost a ton of me as up until that time, 90% of all my cars had been Audis over the past 15 years. The dealer was really PO'd that Audi wasn't doing enough to resolve this and they were sort of caught in the middle. So now Audi is never on my radar to buy anything. I really liked the R10 but based on their treatment of me I ended up going with Lexus and Toyotas until the last few Fords I bought.

Keep in mind in regen mode down hills it can recharge the pack at a very high rate causing heat and extra stress on the cells. I would be careful doing this if you don't want to stress the pack too much.

B 32 H 51 E $0.33 C 0.72 $4.44 Good ol' SoCal pricing for electricity. It would be even worse if I wasn't getting so many miles in pure EV mode. If i was getting just 25 miles per charge it would be like gas at $5.68/gallon.

I went about it by putting together a spreadsheet and calculating the cost per mile. I plugged in a variety of values for fuel and per kilowatt. I then plugged in my best & worst miles per kilowatt as well as my best & worst hybrid mileage. I am forced pretty much to use commercial charging stations if I want juice my my C-max. As a result it is almost never cheaper to use electrons than hydrocarbons except in a few limited instances. Basically it only makes financial sense to use the pure EV mode when I am going to be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic at less than 20 mph. I am paying about $.33 kwh right now for commercial charging. Even at my super efficient rate of about 5.5 miles per kwh, it is still about 6.1 cents per mile. Gas just dropped below $3/gal in some places so I am at about 5.8 cents per mile now for the ICE in normal city driving. If I am on the highway (60 mph) I am get about 4 miles per kwh which is about 8.3 cents per mile. I can drive the ICE at about 75 mph for the same cost as driving on electric at 60 mph. Driving an EV in California pretty much only makes financial sense if you charge at home and aren't at one of the higher electric tiers here. I do love having the option though of going into the EV mode when it really makes sense. I also love being able to capture a lot more energy on downhills that I couldn't otherwise on a normal hybrid. On a trip from San Francisco this weekend I was able to add about 80% charge to my almost empty HVB on the way home. It was good for over 20 miles when I hit LA driving at night.

I am using the Continental Pure Contact on my Avalon Hybrid. They have performed quite well other than deep snow 4"+ (which is to be expected). They are the best LRR tires I've used. They are wearing quite nicely as well.

With respect to USAA, serve for a few years and you will save the rest of your life... I can't tell you how much they have saved me over the last 20 years. Car loans, insurance, mortgage, etc. It has probably been $2-3k every year, if not more. A pretty huge benefit that my children get now. Hands down they are the best insurance company and bank I've ever dealt with. I think they just opened up the bank side of the operation to non-vets. Might be worth looking into for some of you. Most of the benefits of a CU but with a lot more products.

I have the Contis on my Avalon Hybrid. MUCH better than the Michelins in ride, handling, snow, rain, etc. AND at least as good in the mileage department. They actually aren't terrible in the snow. The crispness of the turn-in when starting a turn is huge difference. It made the car a lot more sporty and I can't see any downsides so far. They seem to be wearing well. If they weren't marked LRR on the side I would have never believed it.

I just put the L1 charger on the back floor of my C-max. I run the extension cord into the back floor area and the "charger" out to the power port. No problem with the door closing on it, no kinks in either cord, and no issues with rain or theft.

They look nice. How much do they weigh? I am pretty picky about finding lightweight wheels wherever possible.

EV costs may vary a lot between insurance companies. I have USAA and they are cheaper than anyone else along with the best service for cars. Even then I was shocked how much my hybrids cost more than my "normal" cars. Don't forget all the other discounts you might be able to get. On my Avalon, I had the pre-collision detection system and that got me a discount. Not enough to offset the cost of the option but every little bit helps.

I would suggest looking at the overall costs if that is important to you. Perhaps you will save enough on the purchase of a Ford, over a new Volt, that while it might not quite get the range in EV mode alone, that the minimal gas you might need to buy might be more than offset by possibly a higher overall cost of the Volt. That is something I analyzed during my our purchasing decision. I ran the numbers on a pure EV vehicle vs our C-max Energi and realized that even if we can't go as far on EV alone that the amount we saved on the vehicle compared to others we considered will pay for a lot of gasoline. Based on some of the other pure EVs we looked out, our final price on our C-max was almost $150/month less on similar terms compared to others we looked at (not leasing) after everything was factored in. That would easily buy us 40 gallons of gas at crazy California prices and would be almost and extra 24k miles a year we could drive. One other thing to look at as well is insurance. I priced several cars to insure. Our C-max was cheaper than all the others I looked at for insurance. I didn't price a Volt but I did a Fusion and Focus Electric as well as a Tesla, BMW i3 and a few others. Apparently there is a very low loss rate with them. While hybrids and EV are more expensive to repair than normal cars, that was offset by the more sedate people who drive the C-max. In addition most accidents happen within a few miles of home, and since most pure EVs don't venture far from home, they seem to be involved in more accidents per mile driven according to my agent. Anyway like mileage, your cost may vary depending on so many factors but look into. You may not find you save as much as you think overall. My Flex is almost 40% cheaper to insure than my C-max which is cheaper than my Avalon hybrid by about 20%. Same coverage across the board.

I found the key is make sure the car is parallel to the curb where you will park AND that you are about a foot away from the cars you pull up next to. This is my second Ford with it (first was the Flex) and I've never had an issue with the system unless I wasn't parallel to my intended parking place. If my nose is slightly further away than the rear, then it normally is more likely to curb it and especially so if I am too close to the cars to begin with. I'll never forget the first day I tried on my Flex in the "wild". It was by La Brea Tar Pits in LA and I had the entire family in the car. Rolled up to a place that looks like it would barely fit, if at all, and let it get to work. The entire family was stunned as it slid in like Flynn. I would consider myself an expert level parallel parker and this definitely would have tested my abilities. When the Flex said it would fit i wasn't 100% certain it would, heck I wasn't even 50% sure.