Ford And Microsoft Are Hohm-ies

The car above is the Ford Focus Electric. Ford and Microsoft say it will be the first of many vehicles to use Microsoft's new technology, Hohm.

The news release begins thus:

Imagine a future where your garage is smart enough to tell your car when the least expensive time is to charge your plug-in electric vehicle. Where, based on settings that you can adjust from a laptop or smartphone, you could optimize the energy efficiency of your home appliances, lights, air conditioning or heating and, maybe most importantly, your car.

If that's intriguing to you, you can read the entire news release here.

If it's slightly troubling, you can read what Bob Lutz said this morning here.

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Electric Ford Focus Coming In 2011

Who killed the electric car? Well, it wasn't GM.

In fact, no one killed it. The EV-1 was born with congenital defects (severely limited range, expensive batteries) and couldn't have survived.

11 years later, technology has changed and Ford believes it can succeed where GM couldn't back in the 90s. It made the announcement Monday at the North American International Auto Show that the all-new Ford Focus will have an all-electric version beginning in 2011.

Will this get Ford the kind of eco-love usually showered upon Toyota and Honda? Time will tell.

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