Fusion Energi Is A Great Value

[rsrwc]

I have had my Ford Fusion Energi Titanium for 18 months now, and I am extremely pleased with the performance but also the great overall value.  I am writing this to give people my take on the value aspects because I think some are a little different than what is commonly expressed.

 

In my view a main source of the Fusion Energi’s tremendous value is that the EV capability is an option to the regular Fusion hybrid.  Most people think that is a negative because it led to less trunk space, and that it is best to design an EV from scratch.  I have a different take on this – while it’s true in principle that designing from scratch allows better battery placement and so forth, the reality is with the Fusion Energi you get the benefit of Ford’s “A team” of designers with respect to the Fusion interior and exterior design and all the driver assist electronics, and it really shows.  The Fusion is a very popular model for good reason, and you get all those reasons.  It’s an inherently great looking, great performing car that happens to have an EV option.  Choosing the EV option adds the smooth EV acceleration and quiet performance, but it doesn’t have that “dorky EV look” that most EV’s have.  The tax credits/rebates from the Feds (and in my case California in addition) nearly covered the difference between the regular Fusion Hybrid and the Energi version, so I got a great EV for modest extra expenditure.  What a great deal!  The diminished trunk space of the Fusion Energi was not a big thing for me because our kids are older – actually now I like it, when I transport groceries (like a watermelon or smaller fruit) they don’t roll/slide/spill over back there.

 

The second Fusion Energi value attribute is that the EV range covers only what I need on most of my daily trips (but if I need to drive on gas all day I can).  Often people complain that EVs need to have more range, but if they do they are too expensive, so what is the point, but I have a different take.  In my view the sensible approach is to purchase a plug-in hybrid with only enough batteries that you need for 80% of your trips, because the batteries are the most expensive part of an EV, and any more than that is not a good investment.  If you often arrive back home with charge to spare in your batteries you have invested in too many expensive batteries. If you need to burn some gasoline on the freeway segments of your journeys so be it.  Logically I don’t see the problem with running out of charge (although it is a very big concern with a battery only EV!). An analogy is how many panels to get for a home solar electricity system – any solar company will tell you that, because the panels are so expensive, you should only get enough to approach, but not exceed your annual electricity use.

 

The third value was how Ford excels in driver assist electronics and the infotainment system.  This is another benefit of an EV that is based on an existing model – all the goodies can be economically included.  For driver assist electronics I chose automatic parallel parking, lane keeping assist, rear camera with guide lines, front and rear proximity sensors, side cross traffic warning, and blind spot detection with an LED in the side mirror that lights up. We declined adaptive cruise control, now I wish I had stretched the budget to include it. (By the way, Tesla is still in the process of implementing all those driver assist features in spite of their high tech branding.)  Also, although people slammed it when it first came on the market, we got the MyFordTouch/Sync infotainment system.  Frankly I don’t understand the vehemence of the criticism – I have got it to work really well for my iPod, listening to text messages when they come in, using voice controls for just about everything from climate to tuning the radio, the voice recognition is excellent (way better than Siri according to my wife), I have even put my own wallpaper on the screen.  I can control the car charging and climate pre-conditioning with an iPhone app.  I don’t think any other EV’s system can do all that.  Incidentally it seems that the Ford Sync 3 system coming out now is really fantastic.

 

I really don’t have Tesla envy – 0-60 mph in a little over 7 seconds in my Fusion is good enough for me (way better than the Leaf), and I still get that quiet smooth EV feel and 0-30 mph pick up.  So what if I have to occasionally use a little gas to punch it up to 80 mph on the freeway to pass somebody.  Also Tesla didn’t have rear cup holders – I guess Tesla owners don’t drive with kids in the back.  And Volt owners only drive with kids or short adults in the back – my mom rode in the back of a Volt for an hour recently and told me it was basically unacceptable.

 

Luckily I get to recharge at work, so at 15,000 miles/18 months I am getting 210 mpg, so I have put in only about 70 gallons so far.  Only Battery-only EV (BEV) crazy fanatics would think that is not excellent for the environment.  Given the regenerative braking and how few miles the gas engine is operating, and that mostly freeway miles, this car should last a long long time.  Because of the thermal battery management I have detected no battery charge degradation at all.  Saving money while benefiting the environment in a great car! Value without compromise.

 

The real kicker as far as saving money in my particular case is because I also have solar panels (which I installed several years ago).  To explain - my utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, has an “EV” rate schedule to encourage EV owners to charge at night.  They do this with a huge differential in rates for times of the day – about 41 cents/kWh during the afternoon but only 10 cents/kWh at night.  But here’s the thing – with solar panels the meter runs backwards so I am effectively selling power at 41 cents during the day, and buying back at 10 cents at night.  My panels produce about 4100 kW per year.  I installed LED lights throughout the house to minimize use even more.  The bottom line is this – my net electric bill for the first year of Fusion Energi ownership was about $200. That’s right - I ran my 2100 square foot house and drove my Fusion Energi for a whole year/10,000 miles for a $200 annual electric bill + 45 gallons of gas. Amazing value! I am pretty sure the utility has noticed this sort of thing, which is one reason why they are pushing to restructure rates.  But I’ll take it as long as it lasts.

 

Finally, EVs are not immune from depreciation. The data on this for EVs is starting to emerge because the three year lease deals on 2011 and 2012 EVs are now being returned. The data says that the Fusion Energi, with broadly attractive styling and all the other reasons I talked about above, has superior resale value. In fact my Ford dealer has already sent me two letters inviting me to trade it in.  In contrast, BEVs (particularly the Leaf) depreciate much much faster than a regular car.  From what I can tell, the economics of BEVs are projecting the same over five years as a cell phone or laptop.  That is, an incremental increase in battery life/performance makes the previous year’s model much less attractive. People might hand down a few three-year-old phones with degraded battery life to their kids – but mostly they will be chucked out.  That is the definition of e-waste, and in fact, it looks more and more like early model Leaf will soon meet this definition.  That is, it still works, but at a level less than newer models such that there are a limited number of buyers, likely high school or college kids. I read that Nissan is offering $5000 to $7000 cash to induce their customers to buy their Leafs at the end of their three-year leases because they are getting dumped back on Nissan in such large quantities. Volts depreciate less (but still quite a bit) because they look too geeky. Environmentally the worst thing you can do is build cars that get chucked after a few years – constructing a new car takes a lot of energy and waste, and a new/upgraded battery pack isn’t economical for a heavily depreciated EV any more than a new engine is on a heavily depreciated regular vehicle.  From the data I have seen, of all the EVs out there the Fusion Energi, based on resale value, is the clear winner. Maybe the emerging e-waste dynamic for BEVs will change in a few years when batteries get twice as good as they are now and (particularly Nissan) gets serious about battery thermal management, but right now it doesn’t look good. 

 

So that’s my take. I am sure others have different opinions, but in my view today the best value, economically and environmentally, is to get a stylish and popular model like a Ford Fusion which offers the EV capability as an option. This means it is firstly an inherently great and attractive car (proven so by the popularity of the regular hybrid version) with affordable goodies, and will have good resale value. There will be many more similar stylin’ plug-in hybrid EVs based on regular models introduced over the next year from Audi, Mercedes and BMW.  Also, ideally the best value is to get only as many batteries as you need most days. Another key is to make sure the battery thermal management is excellent.  The resale value and steady sales of the Fusion Energi indicate that many people are quietly coming to these conclusions, and the German manufacturers apparently see this also. 

 

Finally, solar panels are a truly amazing complement especially if they give you a rate advantage.  In my case this is time-of-day rate differential, but solar is also a great deal if the panels keep your net usage in the least expensive tier of total household electric usage level.  The concept is that solar panels + EV make the panels pay for themselves very fast because it is in lieu of gas expenses.

 

I wish everyone well on this EV journey of ours.

[Hybridbear]

Fantastic write-up! 

[geohec]

Glad to hear your happy with this vehicle.   Great post.

 

I'm considering buying one also but I can't do it right now, but it's very tempting especially with the great Ford incentives going on right now.  But all the happy owners seem keep my interest in this vehicle.

 

Congrats!