Ford has teamed up with SunPower to offer rooftop solar panels to its customers of the forthcoming Focus Electric due to begin roll out in the US from the end of this year.
The solar system will on average be able to provide households with enough clean electricity to allow the Focus EV to drive 1,000 miles per month, completely carbon and pollution free.
The 2.5 kilowatt SunPowers systems will be offered to Focus Electric customers and will cost in the region of $10,000, after federal tax credits. Not cheap perhaps, when you’ve just paid out for a new battery-powered Focus, but in producing an estimated 3,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually and backed by a 25-year warranty, the solar systems could soon start to pay some of that outlay back in the form of free electricity.
“Under the ‘Drive Green for Life’ program, Focus Electric owners can reduce their total cost of ownership by generating enough energy from their high efficiency SunPower rooftop solar system to offset the electricity required to charge the vehicle at night,” said Mike Tinskey, Ford director of Global Vehicle Electrification and Infrastructure. “It’s an eco-friendly solution that perfectly complements our plug-in products and other green initiatives.”
Interested Focus Electric customers will be contacted by a participating SunPower dealer who will be able to visit their home to begin the installation process.
Yesterday, we discovered that Ford’s first fully electric car will arrive in just two states to start with, New York and California before a wider roll out to 19 locations begins in the spring of 2012. The Focus EV is then expected to arrive in Europe by the end of 2012.
