Thanks for the feedback! Yes, we are proceeding cautiously and I have been reading EV forums like crazy to see what real people have to say about real life ownership experiences.
The most useful piece of information that I have found is a table of range as a function of battery charge and vehicle speed. Although this was developed for the Nissan Leaf, the Ford Focus EV closely mirrors the performance in this table.
The base data point is 75 miles of range at 65mph when starting with a full battery. This is what the Ford and EPA use to calculate the MPGe numbers. Of course, lower speeds yield greater range and faster speeds are correspondingly lower. The nice thing about the table is to see what the curves look like.
Use of the A/C for the entire distance reduces the range by one level (71 mile range at 65mph with full battery with a/c on for the entire distance). Use of the heater can reduce range by 1-3 levels (range could be reduced to 60 miles(!) depending on heating level). Glad that I don't live in the frigid north.
I talked to the dealer about our concerns and they offered a buy-back deal for an add'l $500 which would allow a 3-5 day test of the car and return of the full purchase price (less the $500) if it didn't meet our needs. This would give my wife an opportunity to test the range on her particular drive and with her style of driving.
We're thinking on it....
