Energitic

Just updated my 2014 to 3.8. Everything went smooth, no issues so far. Siri eyes-free works great. :)

There are already offers of the A6 card in original packaging on eBay for less than half the price of Ford's "special offer" ... BTW, Apple just announced at WWDC that the next version of Car Play will connect to the car wirelessly, meaning in the future you will not have to connect it with a cable. Much better.

True. There is an equivalent for Android too (forgot the name though). And the phone-based maps are far superior to most car navigation systems when it comes to search capabilities. However, the one drawback is that the phone still needs to be plugged in with a cable since Bluetooth is not fast enough to mirror the screen. Since you can't leave a phone visible in a parked car these days, the constant plugging/unplugging can be a bit annoying unless you have a custom cradle for the phone. Back to topic: Any experiences with the A6 update yet? I'm currently on A5 and was planning to skip this update unless it has more significant changes than from A4 to A5 ...

:thumbsup: In fact, taking into account the federal tax credit and CA rebate, I paid barely more for my Energi than I would have for a regular Fusion. Counting the gas savings over a few years (I have a short commute and currently run over 100 MGP), I'll probably come out ahead. The HOV access is just the cherry on top for me. And where I drive the HOV lanes are still significantly faster than the other lanes.

The California CVRP rebate is not a tax rebate. They simply send you check.

InsideEVs reports that the green stickers are about to run out in the next couple of weeks (and there is now little chance of still getting them for new buyers since there is a registration backlog at the DMV). This time, it is unlikely that the number of stickers will be extended again. I wonder what this will do to sales of the FFE and other plugins. Anyway, happy to have my stickers. :) They are saving me a lot of time and nerves ...

There isn't any. I guess we could have a "use it or lose it" rule of some kind, but it seems to happen rarely enough that it wasn't necessary so far. A bigger problem is that even with the fee, people sometimes still go over time (e.g. because they are in a meeting and forget), which is obviously very annoying for the person that has reserved the next slot. I think these kind of things will be a general problem in the future as more and more plugin vehicles are sharing the public chargers ...

We have a similar setup at work. We have a total of 6 Chargepoint chargers. The general rule is that each car has 2 hours max to charge, then the car has to be moved. To "encourage" people to stay within that limit, the first 2 hours of charging are free, and after that the fee is very high (something like $15/hour). Since we now have quite a few plugin vehicles competing for the spots, we also had to introduce a reservation system. The spots are visible as "rooms" in our corporate Outlook calendar and have to be reserved in advance.

Just a heads-up: The 3.7 update is now available on the support page for the 2014 Energi.

Hm, I'm actually glad that it looks like a "normal" car. I have no interest in a "green looking" car. I just want a good looking one. ;) Besides, here in CA they are easily identifiable via the giant green HOV stickers ...

Has this actually been released? I don't see a new version on the Sync support page although I have a 2014 FFE.

That is correct. I have done this many times on the Dumbarton Bridge and Bay Bridge. Note, though, that the $2.50 reduced toll is only valid during carpool hours, i.e. Mon-Fri 7-10am and 3-7pm, and you have to use the carpool lane.

InsideEVs reports that the CA senate has approved another 15,000 stickers, bringing the total to 70,000. It is expected that the State Assembly will vote in favor as well. This is likely the final allocation, and the stickers are projected to run out sometime around the end of this year. http://insideevs.com/california-senate-clears-path-additional-15000-green-hov-stickers/

Got my check too. FFE bought in March 2014.

It's a bit early to tell. It will probably take at least 4 years for the Model 3 to come out. A lot can happen during that time. One of the most interesting developments in the near future is that a new generation of less expensive automotive battery cells is about to come out (primarily from Korean manufacturers LG Chem, Samsung and SK), which will reduce or eliminate the price advantage Tesla currently enjoys on the batteries due to using the relatively cheap 18650 cells. By the time Model 3 comes out, we'll probably see a few longer range electric vehicles from other manufacturers as well. But in general, I have my doubts whether a pure EV will be practical as an "only car" during the next decade. The "superchargers" are nice, but there are still large areas in the US and other countries that are not covered at all, and even if they are, you may have to take long detours to get to a charger. And then it is unclear how scalable the supercharger approach really is as Tesla brings out less expensive cars that will presumably sell a lot more than the Model S. Some of the supercharger sites are already congested on certain days (like the ones on the route between LA and Las Vegas). So, I think in the near term it's perhaps a better approach to have a smaller and very efficient limited-range EV (along the lines of the BMW i3, but hopefully a bit less expensive) along with an efficient plugin-hybrid (such as the FFE :-)) for long-range travel. In any case, interesting times. ;-)