Driving the new electric Ford Focus spurs competition among green drivers

For starters, Ford isn't planning to sell very many Focus BEVs (for "battery electric vehicles"). With a price about $2,500 higher than the Nissan Leaf, Ford is only planning on selling about 2,000 a year, once the car is up to full production. And that's assuming nationwide sales. Right now, the $39,200 car is available only in California, New Jersey, and New York. By comparison, Nissan sold 7,800 Leafs last year, missing its sales target by more than 20 percent. ...

To help drivers get the most out of this EV battery, Ford has gone over the top with some of the features integrated into the MyFord Touch instrument-panel screens. With a standard navigation system, once you program a route, the Focus will calculate your trip buffer, advising whether you have enough energy to make a side trip to the grocery store, for example. The new driver aids include a regenerative braking gauge that will show how much energy you've recaptured after every stop, minus the amount lost to the regular hydraulic brakes. It's not uncommon to see 100 percent on this gauge. It is worth noting that the pedal feels surprisingly linear for an electric car.

Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid - Charged up about our latest test car

... Now, at last, Toyota is offering its own, bona fide in-house plug-in version.

Prices start at $32,000 for the factory-built plug in, as opposed to $25,565 for a comparable regular Prius. The Advanced trim line model we bought featured a pre-collision system, navigation, and a power driver seat. The sticker price came to $40,285—a $9,720 premium over the highest trim conventional Prius. That's comparable to what you'd pay for a Chevrolet Volt, but the federal tax credit for the Prius plug-in is only $2,500, as opposed to $7,500 for the Volt and other pure EVs. It does qualify for driving in HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes, as do other hybrids, in some areas. So far, it's available only in 14 mostly Northeastern and West Coast states.

The plug-in version uses a lithium-ion battery in place of the Prius's regular nickel-metal hydride battery. The plug-in is designed to run as a pure electric for 11 miles and then revert to regular Prius operation, which combines electric and gas operation. But if you thought you'd be using electricity exclusively for 11 miles, you'd soon discover that's not the case. As soon as you press the throttle farther than about a third of its travel, the internal combustion engine kicks in and you're using fuel. So, unlike the Volt, the Prius plug-in is never an unequivocal EV, even for the portion that's supposed to be gas-free.