CalCars Statement on Ford- Edison Pact + Announcement Text
Jul 9, 2007 (From the CalCars-News archive)

CALCARS' OVERALL REACTION
This is a welcome and very important baby step. Ford's CEO action in
travelling across the country to announce that the company thinks
PHEVs are a direction worthy of "exploring" is significant.

BUT WHAT'S MISSING
* Ford putting its toe in the water for PHEVs can also be seen as a
"me-too" statement by a company missing another chance for a leadership role.
* This program doesn't position Ford to compete with GM and Toyota to
be the first with production PHEVs.
* Ford is not saying it is making plug-in cars a company priority, as
GM has said.
* Ford has not announced significant re-allocations of engineering
and product development staff, as GM has already done.
* If Ford is holding back on something it sees as inevitable, hoping
for future boosts from government funds, it could miss its window of
opportunity.
* And we can't repeat often enough: we all can't afford any delay in
reducing petroleum and carbon use in transportation.


Here's our summary, based on early reports from the press conference
of Ford CEO Alan Mulally and Edison CEO John Bryson, plus the
official text of the announcement (reproduced below), followed by our
single paragraph of what we'd hoped to hear -- from our Saturday
"dream announcement" <http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/786.html>.

WHAT AND WHEN
* Ford's initial deliverable is a fleet of non-PHEV Escape Hybrids,
to be driven by ordinary citizens, to provide benchmarks.
* Ford will itself design a PHEV version of the Escape Hybrid with a
battery partner to be determined. (In an interview with AP, Ford
senior VP Susan M. Cischke said the company has two Escape PHEVs in
its Dearborn labs.)
* Beyond delivery of one PHEV before 2008 and 20 in 2009, we get no
timetables for activities in what's described as a "multi-million
dollar, multi-year PHEV evaluation and demonstration program."
* The partners hope for financial support from state and federal
agencies and utility associations, which implies lengthy time-frames.
* At the press conference, Mulally said he thought we'd see PHEVs in
showrooms in five-to-ten years (he didn't say Ford PHEVs).

GENERAL POINTS
* The collaboration's announcement eloquently outlines the
environmental, economic and social benefits of PHEVs for
transportation and power generation.
* The partners will "evaluate and model" business cases for
"innovative" ideas, including vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid
scenarios and utilities buying back slowly degrading batteries for
long-term stationery re-use.
* Southern California Edison will integrate these cars with its new
"Smart Meters," which all of its customers will have within five years.
* Ford's initially exclusive partnership (which may have been
accelerated by the personal connection between ex-Boeing CEO Alan
Mulally and Boeing Director since 1995 John Bryson) could later
include other electric utilities nationwide and Edison will continue
to work broadly with other utilities and automakers.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ford Motor Company and Southern California Edison
Join Forces to Advance a New Transportation and Energy Vision

ROSEMEAD, Calif., July 9, 2007- The automaker that introduced the
world's first hybrid sport-utility vehicle and the electric utility
with the nation's largest and most advanced electric vehicle (EV)
fleet are combining resources to explore ways to make plug-in hybrid
(PHEV) vehicles more accessible to consumers, reduce
petroleum-related emissions and improve the cost-effectiveness of the
nation's electricity grid.

Describing teamwork between their industries as essential to making
progress on energy security and climate change, the heads of the Ford
Motor Company and Edison International, the parent company of
Southern California Edison (SCE), today announced the nation's first
collaboration to examine the future of PHEVs as part of a complete
vehicle, home and grid energy system.

"The Ford Motor Company team is firmly focused on delivering products
people really want. This unique partnership with Southern California
Edison will allow us to explore new solutions for our customers'
growing need for energy conservation," said Alan Mulally, president
and chief executive officer of Ford. "By combining strengths, ours in
hybrid technology, theirs in energy management, we can consider
transportation as part of the broader energy system and work to
unleash the potential of plug-in technology for consumers."

"The challenges of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing
our nation's energy security reach across industry boundaries and
unite us in a common cause," said John E. Bryson, chairman and chief
executive officer of Edison International. "Partnerships between
automakers such as Ford and electric utilities such as Edison
demonstrate the innovative leadership position that both companies
hold in seeking and finding solutions to global and consumer problems."

Ford and Edison intend to explore many of the potential benefits of
widespread PHEV use, which include enhanced energy security, reduced
greenhouse gas emissions, lower fuel costs and more cost-effective
use of the nation's electricity grid.

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle technologies are not yet competitive
due primarily to the high cost of advanced batteries. Ford and SCE
will explore whether these batteries have other uses that could
reduce their cost to consumers. For example, a popular vision of
plug-in hybrid automotive technology is the potential for owners to
charge their vehicles in the evening when the cost to produce
electricity is low, and then store and use that energy during peak
hours of the day, when electricity costs are high. Advanced batteries
also could store energy from rooftop solar panels more efficiently.
The two companies will evaluate and model the potential economic
value of such innovative uses.

Also, batteries currently have no residual value priced into the
purchase cost. Ford and SCE believe it might be possible to develop a
market for the untapped value present in used plug-in hybrid electric
vehicle batteries at the end of their vehicle life.

And, Edison's nationally recognized Electric Vehicle Technical Center
in Pomona, Calif., is testing advanced battery technologies that
could further enhance the emergence of future energy storage
applications in the utility industry.

Ford-Edison Project to Evaluate Potential Values of PHEVs

- Fueling at the plug instead of the pump would be cheaper for consumers.

As a transportation fuel, electricity is 50 percent to 75 percent
less expensive than the equivalent cost of a gallon of gasoline. The
diverse mix of energy sources used to generate the nation's
electricity supply is priced lower and is more stable than the cost
of petroleum.

- The use of plug-in hybrid vehicles holds the promise of reduced
greenhouse gases and enhanced energy security.

Plug-in hybrid technology offers the opportunity to use as
transportation fuel the nation's growing renewable generation
portfolio as well as surplus off-peak power.

Plug-in hybrids produce less carbon dioxide and pollutants than
gasoline hybrids. Such environmental and financial benefits will
increase as a larger percentage of the nation's transportation needs
is fueled from the power grid.

- Using off-peak electricity to fuel transportation could increase
grid productivity and help bring down the price of electricity for
utility customers.

Each night, a large percentage of America's power generation
infrastructure sits idle. A recent study by the U.S. Department of
Energy1 estimated that if every light duty car and truck in America
today used plug-in hybrid technology, 73 percent of them could be
plugged in and fueled by excess capacity in the electricity grid
without constructing a single new power plant. [DOE study on plug-in
hybrids, released December
2006:
<http://www.pnl.gov/energy/eed/etd/pdfs/phev_feasibility_analysis_combined.pdf>]

- Smart plug-in vehicles could become part of an integrated smart
home and grid energy system of the future.

Untapped consumer benefits could be obtained by adding to the
traditional utility system the energy storage and retrieval capacity
of a large number of advanced batteries in plug-in hybrid vehicles.
For the first time, excess power generated by home-based units such
as rooftop solar generation could be stored and used when needed by
the property owner.

Ford-Edison Project Components

- Ford and Edison intend to undertake a multi-million dollar,
multi-year PHEV evaluation and demonstration program.

- Ford will provide SCE with a demonstration fleet of 2008 Ford
Escape Hybrid SUVs that will be benchmarked for performance
characteristics. The Escape hybrid platform will then be engineered
by the Ford product development team, with a battery company partner
yet to be named, to be fully PHEV capable.

- Some of the vehicles will be evaluated in typical customer settings
in order to model overall home and grid values this technology could tap.

- Additional project funding may be sought from participants such as
the Electric Power Research Institute, the U.S. Department of Energy,
the California Energy Commission and the South Coast Air Quality
Management District.

- Ford will initially work exclusively with SCE to develop the
testing procedures and define its initial demonstration fleet. As
Ford's plug-in hybrid program grows, the automaker will look for
broader participation as it develops a business model not just for
Southern California, but potentially nationwide. SCE has worked for
more than 20 years with all major automakers and will continue
seeking alliances between the two industries that advance plug-in
hybrid technology.

Related Facts
- Ford was the first American auto manufacturer to develop and
produce a hybrid SUV, the Ford Escape Hybrid. This full hybrid is now
in its fourth year of production.

- Ford is pursuing a portfolio of advanced technology solutions to
address energy security and climate change concerns, including
refinements in gasoline fueled engines and advanced transmissions,
clean diesel, biofuels and flexible fuel vehicles, hybrids and
hydrogen fuel cells.

- The electric grid is the only alternative fuel infrastructure
accessible to every U.S. home.

- SCE's EV fleet has traveled more than 14 million miles since the
mid-1990s. Since the inception of SCE's EV program, company vehicles
have avoided the consumption of more than 700,000 gallons of gasoline
and avoided 7,500 tons of global warming carbon dioxide emissions and
more than 1,700 tons of air pollutants.

- SCE's Electric Vehicle Technical Center, founded in 1993, conducts
extensive plug-in electric vehicle battery testing with major battery
manufacturers and the DOE to evaluate system reliability in both
mobile and stationary applications.


Ford Motor Company Media Contacts:
Jennifer Moore, jmoor186@...
Dan Smith, dsmith@...

Edison International Media:
Gil Alexander, gil.alexander@...

# # #

Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in
Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles in 200
markets across six continents. With about 260,000 employees and about
100 plants worldwide, the company's core and affiliated automotive
brands include Ford, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and
Mazda. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor
Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products,
please visit <http://www.fordvehicles.com>

An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California
Edison is one of the nation's largest electric utilities, serving a
population of more than 13 million via 4.8 million customer accounts
in a 50,000-square-mile service area within central, coastal and
Southern California.


THE HEADLINE/STORY WE'D WELCOME
Ford/Edison Offer Cash-Back Hybrids to Fleets

Ford announces it will make available in the coming months hundreds
of Ford Escape [or other model] PHEVs for testing in vehicle-to-grid
(V2G) experiments and evaluation of everyday driving use, by SCE, the
US National Labs, Pacific Gas & Electric, Austin Energy, King County,
Google, and the other consortia and companies that want to prove out
PHEV performance and begin integrating transportation and power
generation. The company announces a fast-track timetable for
mass-produced PHEVs. And it commits to support legislation now under
consideration in the House and Senate to incentivize producers and
buyers of PHEVs.

From <http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/786.html>, which also
provides background on Ford's recent history with hybrids and PHEVs.