It seems that the article run by Next Energy News (which I wrote about here) was either a joke by or on them, or a byproduct of someone’s delusional state. I asked one of the PR people at Ford about this, he passed it to one of his colleagues, Jennifer Moore, who got right back to me. Her reply, in its entirety (except for her signature and contact information):

Unsourced article indeed. Our current focus is on our collaboration with Southern California Edison to develop new business models that would support plug in hybrids as well as develop the technology with an eye toward commercialization (making them accessible and affordable). I do not know where the next Energy news story came from.

(I had referred to the article as “unsourced”, hence her use of that term.)

I don’t know who originated this charade, but it seems pretty clear that it was a whole lot of nothing about nothing.