Ford, the second-largest US automaker and the fifth-largest in the world, is famously known by its founder, Henry Ford, who created and popularized internal combustion engine. After over a century later, the market is slowly turning away from his creation towards electric future.
Such a large company had to acknowledge the power of this movement, which is the reason why Ford will focus more of its sources on the production of electric cars. The company has already created a Team Edison, which will focus purely on design and development of electric cars.
As the Freep reports, the company is also going to invest 4,5 billion dollars (3,8 billion euros) in electric vehicles and introduce 13 new electric models within the next 5 years.
Now, Ford made a study of its employees in North America (USA and Canada), to determine if they would like to “purchase or lease electric vehicles if workplace charging is widely available”. The study was collecting data from January 2014 to September 2017.
The answer was yes, thus the company has decided to double the number of U.S. workplace charging stations within a year and triple the number to 600 stations within next 2 years.
As Ford Authority reports, Steve Henderson, Ford sustainability and vehicle environmental manager commented on the findings:
“Work is the second most likely place people charge their electric vehicles. If we give people the ability to charge when they’re at work, we can significantly up the potential for mass market adoption of electrified vehicle technology.”
As Electrek reports, there is some interesting information from the study, such as:
- DTE Energy’s solar array at Ford World Headquarters currently produces far more electricity than is consumed by the charging stations
- since August 2017, company’s charging station network has provided approximately 2 million miles (3,2 million kilometres) of pure electric driving for its employees
- Since September 2014, Ford employees have charged their vehicles at work more than 165,000 times (approximately €59,000 at 0.078 cents per kilowatt-hour), resulting in a reduction in carbon emissions produced by approximately 600,000 pounds
- the most popular times to charge electric cars are from 8:00-11:00 and from 12:00-15:00.
Fingers crossed, that more and more employers will follow Ford and its initiative towards electrification.
source of the image: Flickr.com/F.D. Richards
source of the featured image: Nicole Yeary
Author: Ing. Petr Štěpánek, Chief Editor, Future Media Production, s.r.o.
