Ford postpones the launch of its new electric SUVs by two years
- After having postponed for one year the launch in Europe of its battery electric SUV called Explorer, the American carmaker Ford announced that it was postponing for two years the launch in North America of its new battery electric SUVs of which we do not know not yet the name.
- These SUVs should take over the Volkswagen ID3/ID4 platform – as for the Explorer BEV – following an agreement between the two carmakers (in exchange, Ford provides the base of the Ranger pick-up to make the pick-up VW Amarok). These two new battery electric models were supposed to be launched on the North American market in 2025. They will finally be launched in 2027.
- We could deduce from this that Ford does not believe much in the development of electric vehicles in North America (the market share of BEVs should not exceed 8% of the US market in 2024) but the carmaker has indicated that it intends to take advantage of the latest technologies related to batteries and wait for further progress on these products to offer an optimal proposition to customers. Another explanation would be that Ford would not be entirely satisfied with the Volkswagen platform, because the American carmaker has indicated that a design team located in California was designing a completely new, smaller and lower cost electric platform, therefore more cost-effective and more flexible, capable of equipping multiple models with high volumes.
- As a result of the postponement of the launch in North America of the two battery electric SUVs, the Canadian plant in Oakville (Ontario), which was planning to produce them from 2025, will have to continue assembling the Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus SUVs (with a thermal engine) for another three years, although it was planned to stop them. The launch of these models dates back to 2015.