Some people would say it will ruin what the ST is but I don't think it would.

I think an ST that looks the same as a normal one but is electric would be pretty interesting as the acceleration of an car like the Tesla is apparently amazing.

What do others think?

Once they find a suitable, sustainable and lifetime replacement to the li ion batteries I might be able to start looking passed the lack of driver involvement.

A Tesla is VERY heavy, it might be able to accelerate fast but it will be like a barge on a b road. Thats what makes the STs so good.

I think so! Probably call it something like e-ST or ST-e

They might call it 'Electric Technologies'...  Though I think the ET branding may already have been taken...

Tbh I don't think there'll be a full electric Focus, let alone an ST version.  I reckon they'll fully redesign the car personally and give the sports models a different spec name as well.  However, I do think there will still be sports versions of full electric hatches yes.  

But saying that we may no longer be allowed to drive by then anyway, all just be driverless to get rid of the most unreliable part of any car...the human... 

Just now, TomsFocus said:

They might call it 'Electric Technologies'...  Though I think the ET branding may already have been taken...

Tbh I don't think there'll be a full electric Focus, let alone an ST version.  I reckon they'll fully redesign the car personally and give the sports models a different spec name as well.  However, I do think there will still be sports versions of full electric hatches yes.  

But saying that we may no longer be allowed to drive by then anyway, all just be driverless to get rid of the most unreliable part of any car...the human... 

Still a human element though, all the car's programs are coded by humans.

A computer is only as good as it's programmer.

I still don't think fully autonomous cars will work. Maybe in busy well laid out urban cities, but then they are just trams/trains surely.

Back to the electric car thing though, clearly some manufacturers have made electric cars fun, but I'm not even considering one until I don't have to be sat on 100s of unstable, potentially explosive batteries full of nasty elements.

1 minute ago, alexp999 said:

Still a human element though, all the car's programs are coded by humans.

A computer is only as good as it's programmer.

I still don't think fully autonomous cars will work. Maybe in busy well laid out urban cities, but then they are just trams/trains surely.

Back to the electric car thing though, clearly some manufacturers have made electric cars fun, but I'm not even considering one until I don't have to be sat on 100s of unstable, potentially explosive batteries full of nasty elements.

True but the program will always respond in the same way so once it's happened once - hopefully under test conditions - it can be rectified and not happen again in any of that model.  You never know how a human will react, they're all individual so can't be programmed as a whole and the same one can make the same mistakes over and over.

I don't see why it wouldn't work really, we already have automatic brakes, active cruise, lane departure warnings, blind spot warning, traffic sign recognition etc.  Motorways, dual carriageways and towns should be fine.  The only issue I can see currently is back roads where there's some give and take, rather than a set 'rule' of who gives way or how much you slow to pass rather than coming to a complete stop.

Have you forgotten you're sat between a tank of highly combustible fluid and a load of heat and potential fuel vapour and sparks already?   I was amazed how quickly that Alpine caught fire on Top Gear on Sunday!  I guess that's one good thing about diesel...it's hard enough to burn when it's atomised and squashed, no chance in fluid form!  

2 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

True but the program will always respond in the same way so once it's happened once - hopefully under test conditions - it can be rectified and not happen again in any of that model.  You never know how a human will react, they're all individual so can't be programmed as a whole and the same one can make the same mistakes over and over.

I don't see why it wouldn't work really, we already have automatic brakes, active cruise, lane departure warnings, blind spot warning, traffic sign recognition etc.  Motorways, dual carriageways and towns should be fine.  The only issue I can see currently is back roads where there's some give and take, rather than a set 'rule' of who gives way or how much you slow to pass rather than coming to a complete stop.

Have you forgotten you're sat between a tank of highly combustible fluid and a load of heat and potential fuel vapour and sparks already?   I was amazed how quickly that Alpine caught fire on Top Gear on Sunday!  I guess that's one good thing about diesel...it's hard enough to burn when it's atomised and squashed, no chance in fluid form!  

A fuel tank is just a tank under the back seats though. The electric cars need so many laptop batteries, the entire floor of the car and central tunnel is full of them.

Also have you used any of that automated tech? It's really not reliable. Only have to look at the accidents Tesla's and automated cars are causing. They can't make judgements, only react in a way they are pre-programmed. You can't give them every scenario.

Would be cool if they made a diesel ST fiesta like what they did on the focus. The focus ST diesel is really cheap to run and has good performance. Claimed mpg of 70+ and road tax only £20. 0 to 60 in around 8.2 seconds. I like also they didn't really make the exterior of both diesel and petrol look different and the badges are the same. Would look silly of having a badge saying STD . 

With electric / hybrids it could happen. Look at VW for example on the golf. There's the GTI (petrol), GTD (diesel) and GTE (hybrid). Yeah you could say the weight might effect the handling. The suspension set up on the regular ST is good and from someone owning a mk6.5 fiesta zetec s diesel with its firm suspension I have to say its fun going around corners in it due to the little body roll you get. 

 

Just now, zain611 said:

Would be cool if they made a diesel ST fiesta like what they did on the focus. The focus ST diesel is really cheap to run and has good performance. Claimed mpg of 70+ and road tax only £20. 0 to 60 in around 8.2 seconds. I like also they didn't really make the exterior of both diesel and petrol look different and the badges are the same. Would look silly of having a badge saying STD . 

With electric / hybrids it could happen. Look at VW for example on the golf. There's the GTI (petrol), GTD (diesel) and GTE (hybrid). Yeah you could say the weight might effect the handling. The suspension set up on the regular ST is good and from someone owning a mk6.5 fiesta zetec s diesel with its firm suspension I have to say its fun going around corners in it due to the little body roll you get. 

 

Claimed being the operative word.

The 2.0 TDCi usually hangs around 40 mpg real world.

You can get the 1.5 TDCi 120PS as an ST-Line fiesta now, that's about as close as you'll get to a diesel Fiesta ST.

1 hour ago, alexp999 said:

A fuel tank is just a tank under the back seats though. The electric cars need so many laptop batteries, the entire floor of the car and central tunnel is full of them.

Also have you used any of that automated tech? It's really not reliable. Only have to look at the accidents Tesla's and automated cars are causing. They can't make judgements, only react in a way they are pre-programmed. You can't give them every scenario.

Automated cars need to make accidents now to be better programmed though.  It's still new tech and will have problems to start with, but those problems can be fixed and more scenarios added to the software before it goes on sale to the public.  There shouldn't be many judgements to make on motorways, but as I say I think they'd struggle with back roads currently...  But then so do a lot of humans tbh.  Often get stuck behind people driving down the middle of a two way road at 25mph and coming to a complete stop for any car coming the other way, at least the automated cars will know exactly how big they are and how close they are to hedges and other cars.

36 minutes ago, zain611 said:

Would be cool if they made a diesel ST fiesta like what they did on the focus. The focus ST diesel is really cheap to run and has good performance. Claimed mpg of 70+ and road tax only £20. 0 to 60 in around 8.2 seconds. I like also they didn't really make the exterior of both diesel and petrol look different and the badges are the same. Would look silly of having a badge saying STD . 

With electric / hybrids it could happen. Look at VW for example on the golf. There's the GTI (petrol), GTD (diesel) and GTE (hybrid). Yeah you could say the weight might effect the handling. The suspension set up on the regular ST is good and from someone owning a mk6.5 fiesta zetec s diesel with its firm suspension I have to say its fun going around corners in it due to the little body roll you get. 

 

One of my neighbours has a mk3.5 diesel ST...  Gutted that we both pay the same tax lol.  But I'll bet he doesn't get anywhere near the MPG I do regardless of the claimed figures!  

I don't see the issue with an STD badge, after all you can have an Imprezza STi.  

Yes I believe they will.

As the governments keep pushing towards targets of no emissions (we are going to be banning the sale of petrols and diesels by 2040), they will have no choice at some point. However, I think it will come a lot sooner than that as they already have direct competition with VW and the e-Golf.

ford are very slow off the line developing electric cars either european or worldwide. focus electric that none were sold. mondeo hybrid that is heavy and handles poorly. lets not foreget the trial of the transit hybrid on london roads at present with 1,0 ecoboost. 

Just to resurrect this thread - I was wondering what an ST would be like after 2040 today too...

I guess an electric ST could be okay (as a true petrolhead it pains me to say that) but there needs to be a serious reduction in the new price and depreciation of electric cars. A Nissan Leaf currently costs £10k more than a Fiesta ST (despite being 50 bhp down) and depreciates twice as fast! Iantt is also right about Ford being slow to develop electric cars.

I wonder if pre-2040 STs will go up in value after the ban as the last of the iconic turbo hot hatches?

All they have to do is add a small electric motor as well as the petrol engine, call it a hybrid and continue to sell them past 2040...  I doubt they'd sell though, it's amazing how quickly environmental changes can happen when people are shown the damage...just look at the plastic 'scandal' this year.  By 2040 I genuinely don't think the majority of new car buyers will be choosing fossil fuelled cars.  Battery tech will improve, motor efficiency will improve, quick charging will be available at every filling station, we'll have found a superconductor that can be used in mass production, etc etc.

I don't think Ford can make a full electric ST without using knowledge & experience from another brand personally...they struggle to make Sync work properly let alone running the car on electric.  

The Leaf isn't in the same class as the Fiesta, it should be compared to Focus & Golf size cars.  It's not that badly priced imo, but it's not all that well built even compared to a Focus, let alone anything German.

As for value, it depends how many ST's survive...there are far too many about to allow big appreciation currently.  Early 1.0 EcoBoosts will be more of a rarity with the way they keep exploding...  

While I see it as within the remit of governments to set targets on things such as emissions, I don't agree with them specifying how they should be achieved as that leads to problems like the diesel issue we now have. To go wholesale into electrification with all the required infrastructure and environmental issues relating to batteries may rule out better technologies currently in development or yet to be discovered.

Non-fossil fuels (e.g.grown from algae) for combustion engines are already in development by energy companies. If one of them succeeds in producing a fuel on which you can run your combustion engined car with zero pollution at the tailpipe, the electric thing will look very silly indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think Ford can make a full electric ST without using knowledge & experience from another brand personally...they struggle to make Sync work properly let alone running the car on electric.

[emoji23]

 

As for value, it depends how many ST's survive...there are far too many about to allow big appreciation currently.  Early 1.0 EcoBoosts will be more of a rarity with the way they keep exploding... [emoji23] 

I wasn't so much thinking about current ST's, more the Mk9 or whatever will be the last. Having said that, the Mk8 is already 3-cylinder...

 

 

 

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11 minutes ago, TimST2 said:

I wasn't so much thinking about current ST's, more the Mk9 or whatever will be the last. Having said that, the Mk8 is already 3-cylinder...

The point still stands though, the ST is designed as a mainstream easily accessible car so they're very common.  It's not like a Focus RS which will always be rare and appreciate in value.