Ford to Start Electric Vehicles Test Program in Germany

Ford Motor Co. is starting from January 2010 a 24-month electric vehicle test program in Germany, Bloomberg recently reported.

The vehicles involved will be 25 electric Focus compacts and Transit Vans. These will be driven under real traffic conditions in the town of Colone, the location of Ford’s European division, said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research at Germany’s University of Duisburg-Essen, which is supervising the 15 million-euro study.

The drivers will include researchers and customers selected by Ford, Dudenhoeffer told Bloomberg. All the data gathered will be processed by computers which can simulate testing of more then 10,000 vehicles, he added.

The study is the company’s first in mainland Europe, according to Bernd Meier, Ford Spokesman in Cologne. The automaker has already stated testing battery-powered vehicles in London, Meier said.

Charging stations for the test fleet will be supplied by local utility provider RheinEnergie Ag, which will receive subsidies from the German government through the Economic-stimulus package, according to Dudenhoeffer.

Ford, the first U.S. carmaker to offer a hybrid (the Escape hybrid released in late 2004), declared on December 8 that it is considering an investment between $300 million and $500 million in factories for electric vehicles and batteries, located in its home state of Michigan. The company intends to put on sale a electric version of the Transit Connect commercial van next year, followed by a battery-powered Focus in 2011.