After the rather unfortunate end of the Volt, I was still interested in battery-electric vehicles but wanted something with a bit more range. The Nissan LEAF was a bit too oddly styled for me, and the choices were a bit limited. My eventual pick was a car that did everything it was supposed to do, but with some challenges along the way.
By 2013, electric drive vehicles were beginning to move beyond the image of glorified golf carts to some extent, largely thanks to the LEAF and the Volt. I had been very pleased with the performance of the Volt and had already invested in the 240 volt electric charging infrastructure at my house, so another electric vehicle purchase was logical. I had driven the Focus at a conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit and liked it, as it combined the benefits of battery electric drive with the good handling of the basic Focus platform.
Finding one was a bit of a challenge, even though Maryland was a state that was receiving quite a bit of electric vehicle attention (a combination of regulations, proximity to DC, and interest from consumers). I did find one at a local dealer – it was essentially the only one available in the area at the time. It had been there awhile, which is why there were significant incentives and discounts on it, making it an attractive choice. The lease wasn’t as subsidized as the Volt lease had been, so it cost a bit more a month, but I was getting the capability of doing my whole commute without gasoline, so I figured it was a good compromise. Electric range (on paper) was roughly 100 miles, roughly equivalent to the LEAF and quite a bit more than the Volt. I figured this should be sufficient to cover all the local travel that I needed to do, and we had a gasoline car for longer trips anyway. The only issue I had with the buying experience was that this dealership was a bit old-school and used stickers for dealer identification that were essentially impossible to peel off, so I left it even though I didn’t want it.
The Focus Electric was equipped at the level of the gasoline Focus Titanium, with power leather seats, smart key entry, navigation system with a large infotainment screen, fairly large alloy wheels, LED running lights, and so on. The navigation system offered a useful feature of keeping track of your home base and showing the areas where you could drive with the charge remaining in the batteries. It also kept track of where you were and the available battery charge and put up a reminder when your available range was nearing the miles necessary to get you back home. Displays on either side of the speedometer gave range and driving style feedback as well as satellite radio channel or iPod information, which I found very handy. At this time, the Aston-Martin inspired grille was unique to the Focus Electric, as I recall, but used the hood and fenders from the gasoline Focus.
Handling and performance were quite good – the instantaneous torque of electric motors made stoplight races pretty entertaining, as long as you could keep the low rolling resistance tires from lighting up from a standing start. The car handled pretty well, and weight distribution was more balanced as the front-drive engine and transmission package was replaced by a smaller electric motor up front and batteries over the rear wheels.
There were some challenges, however. The Volt’s internal controls for charging were pretty simple – tell it when you wanted the car to be recharged, and it was always ready. The Ford had a more complex charging scheme that sought to take time-of-use electricity rates for where the car was charging (including some ability to know via GPS where you were) to pick when to start and stop charging. As the charging station in my house also had some controls built in for time-of-use rates, the net effect on several occasions was that the settings of the car and the charger would conflict and the car wouldn’t be charged. As my wife and I were carpooling at the time, that wasn’t a big disaster as we could switch cars, but it was still an annoyance. I ended up bypassing all the time-of-use sophistication of the car and set it to “charge when plugged in” and set the charging station’s controls to turn on at midnight and off at 8 am unless I said otherwise.
Packaging of the car was a challenge, too. Unlike the Volt, whose basic Cruze platform had been modified quite a bit to accommodate the T-shaped battery pack down the middle of the car in a relatively unobtrusive way, the Focus platform wasn’t modified very much at all. The Focus was what was known in the industry as a “compliance car” designed to sell exactly as many units as regulations would require, so engineering was limited to making sure the powertrain worked well.
image via Cleantechnica
The main problem was that the battery pack was split into two parts, one under the rear seat where the gas tank was located in the gasoline Focus, and the other part in a large battery box over the rear wheels. This meant that the cargo area had a large hump in it so longer items had to rest on top of the box. Things like golf clubs had to be stacked on the folded-down rear seat as they wouldn’t fit in the rear hatch.
The biggest problem I had with the car was one that would have been there whether it was a gasoline or electric Focus, that of the MyFord Touch system, which at the time was Microsoft-based. I consider myself to be pretty tech-savvy and not afraid of new technologies at home, at work, or in my car. A lot of ink has been spilled over the past few years about this system and its quirks, so I won’t repeat those here. My experience was not unlike those of the others – I had several occasions where I was listening to a satellite radio station and wanted to change it, but the system wouldn’t let me. Not only that, it wouldn’t let me switch to an iPod source or to FM, or to turn the stereo off. The only way that I could get the system to work again was to stop the car, put it in Park, shut it off, open the door (to clear the retained accessory power feature), shut the door, turn the car back on again, and put it back in Drive. Needless to say, this particular dance raised a few eyebrows at traffic lights.
As far as the electric-only performance went, I rarely had any range anxiety and was able to take the car virtually everywhere I needed to go. I needed to recharge the car every day just to make sure all was well with a round trip to work, but once I got the settings for the car and charger down it was a simple matter of plugging the car in when I got home and letting it charge as it needed to. Things got a little dicey during one or two cold snowy winter evenings where I had to make a detour on the way home from the office for some reason, and the heavy use of the heat/defrost cut into range a bit more than I liked. Cooling the car in the summer with the A/C wasn’t nearly as much of a concern. By the end of my ownership period, we had moved to a house much closer to our offices, and I was able to use the supplied 110 volt charger to top off the batteries after our short commutes for quite some time. This included a brief time in a temporary furnished apartment while we waited for our house to be built, where my only access to charging was at the commuter train station and at a restaurant parking garage across the street from the apartment complex. No issues at all here – I was able to drive the car for a whole week without charging it.
On the whole, I liked the car as it was fun to drive and allowed me to avoid gas stations with a simple plug-in every night. It definitely had some packaging quirks that a purpose-designed EV like a LEAF or Bolt doesn’t have but was still functional. This was another in a very small list of cars that I ran to the end of its lease. I didn’t love it, exactly, which means that the four photos in this COAL entry (taken with my smartphone) are the only four photos I have (with photobombs from the maligned Malibu and the red Thunderbird LX, now hidden most of the time under a car cover). Its replacement didn’t end up being electric drive, but that had more to do with the deals I could make rather than any desire to go back to gasoline-powered cars or dislike of the car itself. More in the coming weeks on that.
Great! Is this our first all-electric COAL (true clean COAL!)? Did you find the advertised range to be generally realistic or hard to achieve on a typical day in this car?
These “compliance” cars will end up being an jnteresting footnote, given their relatively small sales numbers combined with compromises (trunk space format in this case) but still adequate range for many typical households that have more than one vehicle along with a predictable daily usage pattern.
Nice one Jim.
That battery in the trunk is a pretty significant compromise, but then as a limited range runabout less of an issue than for a normal car I suppose.
Yeah, I really don’t understand this lemming-like push towards electric vehicles. They are more expensive and have less utility than conventional cars. I certainly have no interest in them in their current state of development. Maybe sometime in the future when we have something like Mr. Fusion instead of lithium-ion batteries they’ll make some kind of sense.
Thank you for this article. I really like the COAL series, and it’s alway great to read an unbiased of living with a particular car. I also have to compliment your writing abilities…this is a good read.
I think that the recent pure electric car is a result of a confluence of a sincere belief that we were running out of oil and advances in technology that made such vehicles practical. That is, engineers wanted to build them because they could, and circumstances encouraged and funded them.
The results generally seem to be good, with the vehicles being reasonable practical under a specific set of circumstances. That zone is not driving too many miles for range reasons, but not too few to realize any fuel cost savings, and not living too far north (requiring serious heat and losing range battery range to cold) or too deep in the south (requiring serious A/C and losing range to heat).
I’ve toyed with getting a pure electric as, since retiring, I only put about 8,000 miles a year on my main car( and a few thousand more are split between Mrs Lokki’s car and the old Alfa). I wouldn’t have any range anxiety and since I can schedule trips to match the charging no problems there either. Playing with the cool technology would just be another plus for me. On the rare occasions I need more space or range I could Uber or rent.
However, I can’t pretend to justify it on cost savings. Because I drive so few miles a year now, I’d only save roughly, $1,000 in fuel costs (minus the small cost of electricity for the EV) per year over my current vehicle and there would be even less savings on a vehicle of equivalent capability to an EV. That is a smaller car the same size as an EV would get better mileage than my current car.
The best compromise seems to me to be either a Volt or Prius type vehicle.
So for me, an pure EV would essentially be a cool toy, like my old Alfa. I might get one for the fun of having one, but I can’t rationally justify one.
Keep in mind that almost all of these compliance EVs are leased at very attractive rates. Fiat was offering 500Es for $99/month. Bolts can be had for $200/month. Leafs often somewhere in between. It’s cheaper for the manufacturers to subsidize the leases on these than to buy ZEV credits from Tesla. And of course there are the $7500 federal tax credits and often significant state credits, which play into these leases. So combined with a very low subsidized lease and significantly lower fueling costs, I don’t see why you think they’re “expensive”. They can be very cheap transportation, if the range issues are not a problem.
If they were as good or better than conventional vehicles they would not need to be subsidized. People would just naturally buy them in preference to cars with high-maintenance gasoline engines. (Low maintenance is the primary advantage of electric cars. Right now that is not enough to overcome their pricing and limitations.)
I do not approve of and reject government subsidies when comparison shopping. (Likewise when I get offers to install solar panels my question is always “how much without the subsidies?” My answer is always “no thanks.”) The real purchase price of electric cars is still quite high and their utility is limited. This will of course change in the future but for my money right now I would not consider an electric car. Lithium-ion batteries are not a good long-term solution to the requirement of a high-density mobile power source.
There is no pressing need to force a transition to electric vehicles. It will happen naturally over time as the technology improves, and we are not going to run out of oil any time soon.
Paul, I realize you’re the boss here and this is not a place to get into political wars so I won’t say any more about it other than that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
“I do not approve of and reject government subsidies when comparison shopping.” Then you must not buy gasoline either. Government subsidies of oil are well known.
Hmmmm – looks like GM offers a 39 month, 39K mile lease for $269 a month with $3139 down for a Volt here in Texas
There are 26 cars available in the 7.1 M population metroplex (DFW); can’t seem to find anything for the Bolt – perhaps a search error.
http://www.chevydealer.com/Dallas/offers/chevrolet-volt
The e500 is available for $180 a month for 36 months with $2149 down – but the car seems to be only available in California and Oregon. There are none in Texas.
https://www.fiatusa.com/new-inventory.html?modelYearCode=IUX201704&radius=50&variation=500e%20(Available%20Only%20in%20CA%20and%20OR)&ax_src=drlp&ax_src_a_1=fiatusa&ax_src_a_2=current_offers&ax_src_a_3=fiat_500e&ax_src_a_4=2017&ax_src_a_5=sni&empty
Nissan is offering a special on the new Leaf until 31 March 18 – $229 a month for 36 months but… $3979 down seems a bit steep. It works out to about $365 a month if you include the down-payment.
https://insideevs.com/2018-nissan-leaf-lease-deal-229-per-month-4000/
So, while they’re not outrageous, they’re not all that wonderful.
A Prius leases for $309 a month for 36 months with $2,999 down
https://www.toyota.com/local-specials/#!/series/priusprime/year/2018/
The lease programs for these (and all cars) are always changing. And There have been $99/mo leases for the 500E and $200/mo leases for the Bolt. But maybe not currently. The one for the 500E did require a pretty hefty down payment.
YMMV
I got my great lease deal of $89/month on a Fiat 500e on the last day of the month. They stayed late to write it up so it would count. So even the time-honored realities of selling cars applies to the lease you get on an electric.
Well even $99 a month (how much down?) is more than I pay now for my 79 T-Bird each month. Since I’m a homebody and only live 5 miles from work, I only fill up once a month at a average of $36 and my insurance is only $32.50 a month. Not to mention why would I want a Fiat 500L ( they’re ugly) and I’m sure my insurance bill would go up. And if I only had to charge once a week, that still adds some cost as well. Until my ‘ol heap starts to nickel and dime me to death, which it shows no signs of doing yet, nothing else is cost effective.
Ah yes, the obvious comparison for those thinking of acquiring an electric vehicle if they should happen to fit their life circumstances: “Do I pop for an electric or do I look for a ’79 T-Bird…Choices, choices, choices, what am I going to do?”
But seriously, in that vein, just think of the bucketloads of money you’d save if you rode a bicycle instead…Or invested in a good pair of walking shoes and a $10 umbrella. Sometimes it’s obviously not all about the money.
Also, the 500L isn’t available electric, the regular 500(e) is the one being discussed.
I guess because I own a Ford and am thinking of replacing it with a newer model of Ford my internet searches of Fiestas and Focuses has resulted in my starting to get “pop-ups” for a Focus electric. As far as I know, though, none of the 6 or 7 dealers in my “immediate” area even has one. From watching my odometer, it looks like I could get by with an EV or at least a hybrid as I rarely travel more than 45-55 miles a day.
It’s a shame about MyFordTouch, that feature alone has probably killed Ford’s reputation for many current and potential owners.
Finally, I am not sure if it is just “old school” auto dealers who add dealer identification to their cars that is difficult to remove. At one point, when I was living in Memphis, one of the large dealership groups had several of their dealers that RIVETED dealer nameplates to their new cars. That practice was eventually discontinued, and I guess it was only after they lost significant numbers of sales.
If it is that difficult to find one of these Fords at a Ford dealership, I would imagine that finding parts would be even worse, especially as it ages. I’d stay away for that reason alone.
I went on CarMax after posting my first comment. CarMax has 1 electric Focus within about 500-600 miles, and it is a 2013…a twin to this car right down to the colors. Mileage is about 38K.
From what I can read on the internet, including this article, the electric Focus is about as reliable as any other Focus. Parts? It is just a guess, but Ford has built electric only versions of several of it’s vehicles. While you probably won’t see one of these in a Pick-a-part for several years…I would think parts from other electric Fords would work.
Or maybe I am way of base.
I love a good long term assessment of an unusual car like this. Ford seems to be a little bipolar about its electrics. On the one hand they have been fairly aggressive in offering them but then they do not seem to go to any effort to let us know they are there. For example, I had completely forgotten about these, unlike the Volt, Bolt and Leaf and some others. The C-Max was virtually invisible from the start, for example.
These have intrigued me for a while and I was eager to read of your experiences with it. I’m glad it worked so well for you as there are no doubt many others whose work and living situation is similar.
Oddly, or not, the 2018 Focus Electric is only available in ten states as per Ford’s website just now. Maryland and Oregon are two of those ten. Is it infrastructure, air quality concerns, or something else?
For the driving I generally do, these would be a great second car at some point although a hybrid would likely be a better fit. Just looks like it might be a while.
Because those are the ten states that signed on to the ZEV mandate. California received an exemption form the Clean Air Act to create ts own stricter emission standards, and other states are allowed to join it voluntarily. And those standards mandate a certain percentage of each manufacturer’s sales to be ZEVs. That’s the whole, total and only reason this car and other “compliance mobiles” exist. There’s no EPA mandate for ZEVs.
The manufacturers either build EVs (at considerable expense) and sell them at considerable expense (losses) or they have to buy ZEV credits from Tesla, which obviously builds a whole lot more ZEVs than it needs to comply. 🙂
https://www.c2es.org/document/zev-program/
There is no viable market yet for EVs, except for Tesla, which shows healthy gross margins on its cars, but has net losses due to its rapid expansion costs. GM reportedly loses $9k on each Bolt. Sergio Marchionne said that FCA loses something like $20k on each Fiat 500E.
It’s not unlike the 80s, 90s and 00s when the Big Three could not build small cars profitably, but had to build them at a loss to meet CAFE standards.
The presumption is that as battery cost continue to decline, EVs can become profitable for the legacy automakers. But this is why they’re all rather scared of Tesla, because Tesla does show genuine healthy gross profit margins on its Model S and X, but nobody else can do that, yet.
This is great information and it colors in a few blank spots I had.
My concern until somewhat recently had been charging infrastructure – at least in this region of the Midwest as I’ve seen all of about two, with one of those being in Branson of all places.
However I’m seeing an ever increasing number of Teslas, so it will be interesting to see how / if / when electric vehicle consumption increases. With the loss per unit by Ford, GM, and FCA I’m curious to see how it plays out for them.
These are interesting times.
A Focus Electric could make sense for anyone anywhere depending on the driving they do but for you or me not as an ONLY car. While, as you said, they were only sold new in ten states, as used cars they are available anywhere.
The best usage case would be installing a 240V charger in your garage and charging overnight. If you have to travel with it, then go online and search for charging stations. I am not positive but the Navigation system may show you locations for chargers as many regular cars do for gasoline stations. I’m sure there are more than two in your state but likely not super visible wherever you go. Perhaps the CC-equipment effect will strike and you’ll see one today. Worst case, it will always plug into a standard 120V outlet but will take F O R E V E R to charge, not a good way to plan travel from A to B.
You can use this link to search for charge points in Missouri – https://www.afdc.energy.gov/locator/stations/
None in your city that I can see but looks like others sort of nearby and plenty in the bigger cities. Note some may be Tesla Superchargers and thus incompatible. Hutcheson Ford in Rolla also seems to be well versed in the Focus Electric http://www.hutchesonford.com/electric-vehicle-faq/
I live in Florida and have seen several charging stations in my area. I thought it was odd, maybe no one else here will, but one of those charging stations was at a Dunkin Donuts. I saw another at a shopping mall, but it seemed to be for Tesla owners only.
I haven’t been to a movie theater in decades but that seems like another likely location.
I think that I could have an electric as my only car and rent a “regular” car for trips out of town, no problem. I have watched my driving and rarely travel more than 35-45 miles per day.
BTW, with Germany requiring such vast reduction in greenhouse gases in the near future, the government there is proposing each car manufacturer build a certain percentage of it’s vehicles as EVs though I don’t know if that has definitely been made a law.
Over at TTAC, there was a discussion on how EVs would only become mainstream vehicles (i.e., an only car) with a dramatic shift in how the vehicles are ‘refueled’ (recharged). The Dunkin Donuts scenario is likely part of that. IOW, because of the much longer time required to recharge, it becomes something of a ‘value-added’ proposition. It’s just not possible to refuel-and-go with an EV like it is with an ICE vehicle. Tesla even experimented with a novel, automated battery replacement system that performed the task in five minutes, but I haven’t heard anything of it since.
So, the recharge stations need to be located somewhere a driver wants to stop and spend more time for another reason (Dunkin Donuts, shopping mall, etc.). Once this infrastructure is in place, full recharge times get down to 30 minutes or less, and the price of recharging becomes comparable to fossil-fuel, the mainstream shift to EVs will become much more prevalent. In fact, maybe a system similar to validated parking would work. You would stop at a business, plug in your EV, patronize the business, and then get a receipt with a code to use at the recharge station for a reduced charge fee.
It’s also worth mentioning that there needs to be adequate charging stations located at older leased apartment (or even condo) residences (are they even popping up at new builds?), and that’s unlikely to take shape for quite some time.
Jim these are useful links. It also falls in line with how I can see implentation unfolding.
Charging stations near here are in Columbia and Rolla. Both are university towns with Rolla being primarily engineering. Rolla is also 20 minutes from Ft Leonard Wood.
That said I frequently visit both. So despite a lack of charging here one could easily charge at either. The country is growing into it. It would also help explain the Tesla spottings, which are usually around Rolla which has a population of 20,000 – half that of where I live.
Nice story, I have a 2012 Focus Electric myself and have a very similar experience .
It was bought as a nr.2 car, but in a short time it became the nr.1 car. It drives well, is comfortable and the (noiseless) acceleration is something that really sets the car apart from oilfired veichles. Remember, the torque is there from zero rpm. Not the faintest hesitation or need for downshift at start or passing. And did I mention no engine noise even when flooring the pedal?
It’s used to work and to move the kids to whatever activity. I can charge it at home and at work. In addition there is never any long distance to a public chargepoint.
As a 1st gen Ev, the battery has only 23kwh capacity. This has been sufficient for me, but demands frequent charging.
However, the battery technology is moving fast, and a 2017 model has 33kwh capacity within the same physical dimensions. The New Chevy Bolt packs 60kwh in a small car.
In short, I’m hooked. There will never be bought any new car in this house with an oilburner.
“The only way that I could get the system to work again was to stop the car, put it in Park, shut it off, open the door (to clear the retained accessory power feature), shut the door, turn the car back on again, and put it back in Drive”
Tell me again how this is better than plugging my phone into the AUX jack? I’m not quite getting it here. Did you have to do this before using the heater and a/c?
I think the interest in EVs is mostly because of environmental issues, global warming etc. It seems that we won’t run of petroleum supplies anytime soon, as so many global oil companies are scrambling to exploit and market their resources. Internal combustion gasoline engines are very clean now and fuel efficiency is at an all time high. But the IC engine always produces carbon dioxide which is the component that the regulators are trying to limit. I think that there will be a mix of different propulsion units in the vehicle mix in the future. It is an interesting time for car fans.
I’m still putting my money on the “giant wind-up key in the back” system myself. 😉
Nice writeup, thanks. I didn’t know much about the electric Focus. These compliance cars are helping the established manufacturers get real experience producing electric cars. Ford’s coming out with a “Model E” electric crossover next year and like GM expects to offer more plugin hybrids and pure electrics in the future.
I’m celebrating a year and about 7K miles with my Fiat 500e. I still just love it. Everything, including the entertainment system, works very nicely, and that electric torque and handling is still a blast. Batteries are well integrated and the hatchback opens into a flat floor. I get the feeling that the Chrysler engineers in Detroit who developed it made a major effort to come up with a great car.
Do you have some numbers on how much your utility bill went up?
Electricity isn’t particularly cheap where I live, so I’d be interested.
On the Fiat 500e the US EPA says 30 kWh per 100 miles. In my 20 mile commute I use 25% of the 24 kWh pack, which is 6 kWh per 20 miles, which is 30 kWh per 100 miles, so I’m getting the EPA mileage.
Multiply that by what you pay per kWh for electricity and that’s your cost. US average is 12 cents per kWh, so that’s $3.60 per 100 miles.
Mileage does drop when the weather gets down around freezing. YMMV.
Thanks.
For the 2017 electric Focus, EPA says its mileage is 31 kWh/100 mi.
Being the owner of a Nissan Leaf(and I LOVE it) this past winter my electric bill has spiked at its highest about $25 a month .
This is using my Leaf as a daily driver with a 28 mile round trip to work and back.
Also I use its 110 charger 98% of the time vs its 220 charger.
To the OP I respectfully think you did a total disservice to yourself by dismissing the Leaf because of its looks
I am actually VERY satisfied my new Ranger for what it is. No, it won’t beat the interior space or utility of the Aerostar (it’s the XL regular-cab, short-bed configuration), but with a camper shell I eventually want to install on it I should still be able to haul a decent amount of cargo in the bed without having to tie EVERYTHING down so it doesn’t fly out, and I’ve still got that Nissan 720 trailer lying around if I need more cargo capacity (the hitch receiver is rated for up to 3500 lbs. weight carrying & 6000 lbs. weight distributing, both of which are more than I’ll ever need). Keeping total load weight as low as possible & vigilant driving a top priority (as always), pulling it around town & only once or twice on the open highway should be perfectly doable with the 2.3L I4, 5-speed automatic, & 4.10 axle ratio (DEFINITELY the base model, minus the stick-shift). What’s lacking in ACTUAL horsepower & torque compared to the 4.0L V6 (both versions) is more than made up in power DELIVERY off the line, at least up to 60 mph—Gearing can make all the difference in the world. I actually parked next to a 1980-83 DATSUN 720 at Wal-Mart a few days ago: the taillights were UNDERNEATH the tailgate as opposed to the ’84 & later models, a large DATSUN script was embossed on the tailgate (hard to see in the pics, though), and the rope ties were on the OUTSIDE of the bed. I was amazed at the size difference between the 2 pickups: the Ranger was WAY taller, but that may have been simply b/c of the suspension design; still, that made it look like an F-150 in comparison. It somehow seems like all pickups eventually used the same ride height for both 2WD AND 4WD models (the Ranger EDGE comes closely to mind). What I DO have is one heck of a nicely-equipped work truck.
A view from the rear makes the height difference even more obvious (I AM getting better at picture-taking from my phone as I was able to include both vehicles in the pics this time). Again, the DATSUN script is barely visible, not helped by the fact it shares the same paint color as the body.
‘The only issue I had with the buying experience was that this dealership was a bit old-school and used stickers for dealer identification that were essentially impossible to peel off, so I left it even though I didn’t want it.”
That sounds like Academy Ford in Laurel MD. Almost everybody else uses tag brackets with the dealer name on it. I am surprised the Ford dealer in walking distance to me and close to you (Crapple…..er… Apple Ford) did not have one, they bill themselves as the biggest Ford dealer in Maryland.
I got a car from Academy once with that stupid sticker that was next to impossible to peal off. I removed it by going to the local self serve car wash(off of Berger Road) and used the pressure washer to carefully get rid of the sticker.
Yes that battery pack location was stupid as $h!t. The Prius integrates the battery pack into the back perfectly and still has gobs of room
What’s even more annoying is when the dealership slaps on a sticker or nameplate crookedly. I’ve seen that maddeningly often.
The Smart EV’s are starting to pop up tantalizingly cheap. As a main vehicle it’s a poor choice. As an occasional toy it has it’s virtues.