The way fleets use cars puts them at a disadvantage for electric vehicle trials, according to Ford.
Mark Simpson, Ford’s marketing boss, said the manufacturer was in the process of recruiting drivers for a trial of its all-electric Focus in the London borough of Hillingdon.
“We’d like a mix of people from business and retail, but we have to be careful about business users due to their higher demands on vehicles.”
Simpson added the amount of use a business driver places on a vehicle are higher than that of a private driver and this would mean the majority of those trialling the electric Focuses would be private drivers.
Ford is planning to trial 18 cars from the first quarter of 2010.
The electric Focuses have a range of 80 miles and can be fully charged from a regular socket in eight hours.
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