Ford e-News - February 5, 2009

DEARBORN, Mich., February 5, 2009: Ford Announces More Partners in Electrification Strategy

Ford Motor Company and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) are adding seven utility partners to conduct real world tests on an expanding fleet of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). The utility companies and a state research agency from New York, Ohio, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts and Michigan will join testing already underway in California. The partnerships will help bring a full battery electric vehicle (BEV) van to market in 2010 for commercial use, a small BEV sedan by 2011 and a PHEV by 2012. Ford also has entered into a partnership with battery producer Johnson Controls-Saft to supply the complete battery system for Ford's first production PHEVs beginning in 2012, a critical piece of electrifying vehicles.

Study Shows Ford SYNC Reduces Driving Distractions

A new Ford study supports independent research showing voice-controlled interfaces such as Ford SYNC(TM) reduce driving distractions over visually- and manually-operated handheld cell phones and music players. Ford researchers found that distraction potential for most tasks was significantly minimized when the SYNC voice interface was used as compared to the manual-entry required for handheld devices. For example, typical eyes-off-road times to select a specific song were more than 25 seconds with a hand-held music player, compared to about two seconds with SYNC.

Ford Quality Improvement Translates to Lower Warranty Costs

Steady quality improvement on Ford vehicles is translating into significant savings for the company and far fewer trips by customers to the repair shop. In the past two years, the company has reduced worldwide warranty costs by $1.2 billion; the warranty repair rates for Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles in the U.S. now is almost 50 percent lower than it was in 2004; and since 2005, each new model from Ford consistently has delivered better quality than the models they replaced. These improvements can be attributed to four straight years of quality improvements on Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles.

Ford F-150 SVT Raptor R to tackle "Best in Desert" Race Series

Ford Racing and Ford's Special Vehicle Team (SVT) announced it will run the F-150 SVT Raptor R, the same truck that finished third in class at the 41st SCORE Tecate Baja 1000, in the 2009 'Best in the Desert' race series. A team of veteran Ford truck racers and former "Rough Riders," Rob MacCachren and Steve Olliges, will run all five 'points races' to continue extreme durability testing of the 2010 F-150 SVT Raptor R and its production components. Raptor R demonstrates the durability built into every F-150 by using stock components, including the same fully boxed frame that delivers class-leading towing and hauling on the base F-150 truck.